Oil companies need to borrow a page — and perhaps a whole playbook — from the airline industry to deal with the growing risks and challenges of deep-water drilling, a Talisman Energy executive said today.  More »

For months, the Obama administration has been preparing to unveil new regulations governing hydraulic fracturing on federal lands, but Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the mandates are still being refined. American Indian tribes also complain they weren’t adequately consulted over the planned rule.  More »

The oil industry’s leading trade group is trying to tamp down calls for new taxes as its member companies report big profits fueled by high crude prices.  More »

The Marine Spill Response Corp. has bulked up its arsenal of skimmers, boom and planes that can be tapped in case of a spill.  More »

Two years after the Gulf of Mexico spill, the oil and gas industry continues to pour millions of dollars into efforts aimed at actually boosting offshore safety and at convincing regulators and the public that it can police itself.  More »

The Chemical Safety Board said today it is on track to issue a final report on the well blowout and explosion that killed 11 rig workers in early 2013, and it could issue recommendations to prevent a similar disaster as soon as this August. The independent federal agency, which has probed more than 50 industrial accidents, including the lethal Texas City refinery explosion in 2005 is the last remaining panel still investigating the Deepwater Horizon disaster, following the conclusion of several other probes.  More »

Republicans revived a plan to force the Obama administration to permit construction of the Keystone XL pipeline by tying approval of the controversial project to a bill that would extend federal high way funding for 90 days.  More »

Investigators who probed the 2010 Gulf oil spill on Tuesday blasted Congress for failing to pass a single substantive change in laws governing offshore drilling that could help prevent a repeat of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.  More »

A bipartisan push to set aside billions in fines from the BP oil spill for Gulf of Mexico restoration remains stalled in Congress as the disaster’s two-year anniversary nears.  More »

Houston-based Cheniere Energy on Monday cleared the final major hurdle to exporting natural gas when federal regulators approved the firm’s plan to build a plant for liquefying the fossil fuel in southwest Louisiana.  More »

A 10-mile oil sheen that surfaced in the central Gulf of Mexico last week was caused by crude naturally seeping from the sea floor, federal investigators said today.  More »

Environmentalists just filed a legal challenge to Freeport LNG’s bid to export natural gas from a facility in Texas — the latest attempt to undercut a push by more than a half dozen companies to send the fossil fuel overseas.  More »