It’s been done before but tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve – particularly when prices for oil are low – isn’t the best way to fund the Highway Trust Fund.
An oil worker stands on the deck of a tanker at Bonga off-shore oil field outside Lagos. Africa’s extractive industries are committed to local content but universities aren’t producing the right kind of graduates.
Reuters/Akintunde Akinleye
Huge investments have been made to develop Africa’s extractive industry. The challenge now is to forge collaboration between the industry and institutions of higher education to build a skills base.
Flaring at a gas well in Pennsylvania, where hydraulic fracturing has spread rapidly.
WCN247/flickr
Due to their histories, US companies won’t be at the front of the queue when it comes to doing business in Iran, but many can’t ignore the oil or other markets.
Offshore oil is not just a risk to the environment – if the world gets serious about mitigating climate change, these resources risk becoming stranded assets.
Green Fire Productions/Flickr
Public opinion poll on Keystone pipeline shows more people are concerned with local issues – including the impact of spills on environment and aquifers – than with global warming.
The Kulluk, Shell’s Arctic offshore drilling platform, was grounded in 2013 after efforts by the US Coast Guard and tug vessel crews to move the vessel to a safe harbor during a winter storm.
Zachary Painter/ US Coast Guard/
Shell is going back to the Arctic to explore offshore drilling, but the company and the Department of Interior are not using the best practices for avoiding the risk of a spill.
The drop in oil has not sparked the nadir of green energy.
David Clarke/flickr
Derailed train cars carrying oil have more communities concerned about spills. What’s behind the oil-by-rail boom and a federal agency’s ‘urgent’ call last week for better safety?
What happens to coal in China will play a big role in deciding which climate road we’re all on.
Han Jun Zeng/Flickr
Peak fossil fuel means it’s unlikely the worst climate scenario will come to pass. Gary Ellem explains.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska has for decades been a center of debate on the tradeoffs between environmental protection and oil drilling.
Alaska Region US Fish & Wildlife Service
In a few months, we will mark the five-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The accident released millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing extensive impacts on the marine…
A natural gas well in Bradford County, PA.
Reuters
In a surprise decision that led to consternation in the oil and gas industry and elation among fracking opponents, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in December banned fracking in the state. He attributed…
Putin is taking control of the Russian economy.
Sergei Ilnitsky
The Russian rouble started 2015 in much the same way it finished 2014: badly. After losing nearly 50% of its dollar value between July and the end of the year, the rouble lost a further 7% in January…
Oil drillers in North Dakota flares natural gas, but much of it – a potent greenhouse gas – escapes into the atmosphere.
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Like many Americans concerned with climate change and energy security, I reacted with high hopes to the President Obama’s proposal to reduce leaks of methane gas from oil and gas drilling. But on closer…
Leaving Europe behind?
Mikhail Metzel/EPA/Ria Novosti
Michael Bradshaw, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
Much has been made of the agreement signed by Moscow and Beijing to get gas flowing from western Siberia to China. There is talk of Russia using the deal to offset its isolation from the west and circumventing…