Oil Headlines - 14 October 2011

US to Let BP Bid on Gulf Oil-Drilling Leases Wall Street Journal By TENNILLE TRACY WASHINGTON—The US has decided to allow BP PLC to bid on new oil-drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico that go up for sale later this year, less than two years after BP's Macondo well erupted and caused the worst offshore oil spill in ...

Oil Firms Face Liability Protection Challenges Wall Street Journal By ANGEL GONZALEZ HOUSTON —The US government broke precedent by issuing citations to contractors Halliburton Co. and Transocean Ltd. in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, along with rig operator BP PLC. While now facing greater scrutiny from regulators, ...

Oil-spill companies fined $1.2 million Sydney Morning Herald Two shipping companies have been fined a total of $1.2 million and ordered to make a public apology for Queensland's biggest oil spill. Swire Navigation Co Ltd and Bluewind Shipping Ltd were each fined $600000 today after pleading guilty earlier this ...

Rig-Retiring Worries Linger for Oil Firms Wall Street Journal Oil and natural-gas companies have warned that as many as 24 billion barrels of oil equivalent in the North Sea could remain untapped because of expenses tied to decommissioning platforms under the UK tax system. An entire production facility needs to ...

Pirates release oil tanker, 20 sailors seized off of ... Washington Post By AP, LAGOS, Nigeria — A management company says pirates have released an oil tanker seized off the coast of Nigeria, freeing the 20-member crew unharmed. A spokeswoman for Columbia Ship Management of Hamburg, Germany told The Associated Press on ...

Canada confident US will approve oil pipeline despite “noise” from opposition Washington Post By AP, TORONTO — Canada's natural resources minister said Thursday he is confident the Obama administration will approve a Canadian company's plan to build a massive oil pipeline from western Canada to the Gulf Coast despite “noise” from environmental ...

Cuba prepares for oil drilling Sun-Sentinel A giant Chinese-built oil rig is slowly heading across the ocean toward Cuban waters, fueling fears that offshore oil exploration north of Havana could jeopardize South Florida's fragile ecosystem and lead to ...

US OIL INVENTORIES: Crude Stockpiles Rise By 1.3M Barrels Wall Street Journal Crude oil stockpiles rose 1.3 million barrels to 337.6 million barrels, compared with an average survey estimate of a decline of 200000 barrels. The report contrasted with figures from the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, which reported ...

Rodinia Oil Corp. Announces Completion of Drilling of its "Mulyawara-1" Well ... MarketWatch (press release) Rodinia is an international oil and gas exploration corporation. The Common Shares and Warrants are listed for trading on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbols "ROZ" and "ROZ.WT" respectively. Rodinia is engaged in the exploration, acquisition and ...

TransCanada says oil pipeline route unlikely to change Reuters OMAHA, NEB (Reuters) - The controversial proposed path of the TransCanada Keystone XL oil pipeline across Nebraska is unlikely to change, company officials said Tuesday. Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada's president of energy and oil pipelines, ...

UPDATE 1-Eni starts tests on Libya Greenstream pipeline Reuters By Svetlana Kovalyova MILAN/LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Italian oil major Eni and Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) launched tests of the Greenstream pipeline on Thursday as they aim to fully restart the flow of Libyan gas to Italy, ...

PRE Resources, GE Unit, Partner to Buy Rocky Mountain Oil and Gas Reserves MarketWatch (press release) The fields feature primarily long-lived oil reserves on nearly 18000 net acres. "This partnership with GE will enable us to enhance the assets' production, implement low-risk secondary recovery programs and generate new drilling," said Mark A. Erickson ...

Japan Utilities' April-September Oil, Gas Use Surged On Nuclear Outage Fox Business By Mari Iwata TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Japanese utilities' oil and natural gas use sharply rose in the first six months of the fiscal year started April 1, as they operated thermal power plants at higher-than-normal levels to make up for idle nuclear power ...

AER Energy Announces Agreement to Purchase Three Texas Leases From Rehoboth ... MarketWatch (press release) The company supervises and contracts all drilling, completion and production phases in both oil and gas wells in Texas and Kansas to Multiplex Resources of Houston, TX. AER Energy Resources, Inc. ( www.aernenergy.com ) is a diversified holding company ...

Oil Stocks: Saudi Arabia Says Iran Will Pay the Price for Alleged Plot Business Insider The ambassador is fine, but the news makes the market wonder: How will this affect oil stocks? Any conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran can, and often does, disrupt oil prices. The nations are actively involved in a “contest for power in the oil-rich ...

Iraq inks final gas deal with SKorea's KOGAS The Associated Press BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's oil ministry and South Korea's KOGAS on Thursday signed a long-delayed deal to develop a promising western gas field near the Syrian border, the latest step by the war-ravaged country to tap its own resources to fuel growing ...

Sanctions Cost Iran $14 Billion a Year in Lost Oil Revenue BusinessWeek By Roxana Tiron Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Iran is facing a projected loss of $14 billion a year in oil revenue as a result of economic sanctions, according to the US Treasury Department. “Iran has been increasingly unable to attract foreign investment, ...

Oil Volatility Increases as US Crude Output Exceeds Forecast BusinessWeek By Justin Doom Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Oil options volatility rose as the underlying futures declined after the US Energy Department said supplies rose 1.34 million barrels, exceeding the estimate of 15 analysts in a Bloomberg News survey. ...

Chevron Rises To $104 As Kazakhstan Kicks Up Production Forbes Chevron, the second largest vertically integrated oil major, has been expanding its operational foothold in the oil rich state of Kazakhstan over the past few years. The nation's vast unexplored resources of oil and gas have become a attractive ...

Whiting Petroleum awaits N Dakota ok for pipeline Reuters By Janet McGurty Oct 13, (Reuters) - Independent oil producer Whiting Petroleum Corp is awaiting state permission for construction of crude pipeline to replace trucks as a means of access to major crude markets for the growing amount of shale oil from ...