• ConocoPhillips cutbacks signal continuing lean times but some wonder if Mulva has mergers on his mind. • Range Resources hire members of Pennsylvania governor’s staff for Marcellus shale lobbying. • Shell is bullish on natural gas production growth in U.S., Chevron says it will be a bigger part of its future and Pickens says [...]  More »

A handful of carbon capture projects with Houston ties are on the receiving end of more than $7 million in federal stimulus funds, part of the first round of the Department of Energy’s $1.4 billion piece of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds. The companies are required to put up matching funds. The projects [...]  More »

• Companies bet big on South Texas shale. • Shale gas, a game-changer, says the Baker Institute. • So you think it’s time to buy in to nat gas futures? Let’s go to The Chart. • Warmer winter could chill natural gas. • Conoco, Shell and Cemex project in Houston get fed funding for carbon [...]  More »

The blog will be quiet for a couple of days as I’m traveling on assignment. I should be back online by mid-week. But until then, here are two things to ponder: 1. ExxonMobil appears to be thinking of consolidating all its Houston employees in one large campus, reports real estate reporter Nancy Sarnoff. So what [...]  More »

After surviving a hostile takeover bid from Exelon earlier this year, power plant operator NRG Energy may be on prowl for some takeover targets of its own, including Houston’s own Dynegy. Is NRG CEO David Crane getting ready to shop? The reports on this are highly speculative (and the companies don’t comment on speculation) but [...]  More »

• Report: Some refiners could struggle to meet debt terms. • University of Houston prof making waves in deepwater drilling • Houston’s Forbes list billionaires. • End of ‘clunkers’ sends car sales into a skid. • Natural gas tumbles with most ever in storage. • Oil drops with bad job numbers. • Green power use [...]  More »

Russian natural gas giant Gazprom has had a Houston office for a few years now, but it wasn’t until today the company decided to make a splash of its presence, announcing it has begun trading and marketing of natural gas in North America. “The development of new markets and products is key to Gazprom Group’s [...]  More »

• Senate launches its version of cap-and-trade climate law. Don’t like that? Well the EPA says it’s ready to regulate CO2 via the Clean Air Act. • New Chevron CEO doesn’t mean much change at oil giant. • Crude falls on concerns U.S. economic recovery may stall. • Venezuela and Vietnam to start Orinoco production [...]  More »

Opponents of the expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear power plant near Bay City have four more reasons to intervene in the project, a federal panel has ruled. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel ruled that the company planning to build two more reactors at the project failed to adequately analyze the environmental [...]  More »

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has frozen the assets of two Texas investment funds it says are part of an $8 million foreign currency fraud. Assets of M25 Investments, M37 Investments, Scott P. Kear, Sr., Jeffrey L. Lyon, all of Waxahachie, and David G. Seaman of Arlington were frozen by the order and a receiver [...]  More »

A bit later than originally expected, the Senate has put forth their own version of the climate change bill. It’s a bit tougher than the House version (which just squeaked by that chamber in the spring) with higher emissions reductions by 2020 but also has measures to help avoid price spikes that would be particularly [...]  More »

• Senate climate change bill tougher than the House version, so there will be plenty of opposition from within. • The forecast for city of Houston solar: expensive. And environmentalists aren’t so thrilled with U.S. plan for solar thermal. • Former Dynegy, Horizon Wind exec takes over at Port of Houston. • Archives show U.K. [...]  More »