By Paul Burkhardt (Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc is planning to acquire an oil-block stake in a second deal in South Africa’s relatively unexplored waters, months after a major discovery by Total SA boosted the country’s hydrocarbon prospects. Shell has applied to take a stake in a license owned by OK Energy, located in deep waters off South Africa’s west coast, … [Read more...]
Trump Said to Ease Drilling Rules Sparked by 2010 Gulf Oil Spill
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy (Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is poised to relax offshore drilling requirements imposed in response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 people in 2010 and unleashed the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The Interior Department will unveil its final plan Thursday to ease some of the mandates, following industry complaints … [Read more...]
Trump’s Atlantic Oil Effort Runs Aground In South Carolina
by Carlyann Edwards (Bloomberg) More than half the registered voters in Republican-controlled South Carolina supported Donald Trump in a poll last month, but there’s at least one area where state leaders are ditching the president to join rival Democrats: a fight against oil exploration off the Atlantic coast. While no new drilling has been approved in U.S. Atlantic waters, … [Read more...]
Trump Said to Advance Seismic Surveys for Oil in Atlantic
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy (Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration is taking a major step toward allowing a first-in-a-generation seismic search for oil and gas under Atlantic waters, despite protests that the geological tests involve loud air gun blasts that will harm whales, dolphins and other animals. The National Marine Fisheries Service is set to issue “incidental harassment … [Read more...]
Offshore Drillers Eye Market Recovery by 2020
By John Benny Oct 15 (Reuters) - Battered oil and gas drilling companies are finally seeing piecemeal signs that the prices they charge for offshore rigs are bottoming out with Brent crude selling for more than $80 a barrel and some are forecasting a full turn in the market by 2020. At the depths of a global slide that took oil below $27 a barrel in early 2016, daily rates … [Read more...]