Results tagged “drilling”

API is closed today due to the weather. The heavy snowfall has made travel - including commuting - to and from the nation's capital extremely difficult and even dangerous. Today, I'm working from a remote location where I have heat, electricity and connectivity, making me much more fortunate than many of my colleagues who live in areas with downed trees and power lines.

Jobs continue to be one of the main topics of conversation in Washington. API's President and CEO Jack Gerard explains the oil and natural gas industry's potential as a jobs creator in the video below:

Whenever someone in government makes a major announcement, pay close attention to the words used and don't take them at face value. Here's a case-in-point: Yesterday, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said the president's proposed budget would "eliminate fossil fuel subsidies."

The word "subsidies" completely mischaracterizes the tax treatment afforded to energy companies. In the case of intangible drilling costs, for example, they are tax deductions that are no different than deductions taken by other businesses.

An editorial in today's Investor's Business Daily discusses the administration's pattern of delay when it comes to developing U.S. domestic oil and natural gas resources.

Every credible projection of future U.S. energy demand through 2030 predicts that this nation will need more energy in the coming years, including more oil and natural gas. How is the administration addressing this need?

With the legislative agenda apparently changing in the U.S. Senate, it appears that climate legislation proponents are looking for ways to enact a greenhouse gas (GHG) measure by adding it to a jobs bill. According to the Houston Chronicle today, the Senate is expected to take up a jobs-creation package soon, following the House's passage of a $154 billion measure last month.

There's no doubt that the economy and jobs are top priorities for a majority of Americans.

As we reported yesterday, hydraulic fracturing has led to a boom in U.S. natural gas production in recent years, greatly increasing the nation's supplies of this clean-burning fuel. It has been so successful, in fact, the United States has overtaken Russia as the world's largest natural-gas producer.

"A great American success story." That's how Bob R. Simpson, chairman of the board and founder of XTO Energy Inc., described his company during today's congressional hearing--but the phrase also can be applied to the recent boom in U.S. natural gas production.

There's an old adage among economists that says, "If you tax something, you get less of it." Apparently Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania isn't familiar with that expression.

As reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Rendell plans to push for a new tax on natural gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale this year. As he struggles to find revenue for the Commonwealth's coffers, Rendell says, "The tax is appropriate, it's necessary, and it's a big help going forward."

API announced today that U.S. well completions--the number of oil and natural gas wells and dry holes--in the fourth quarter of 2009 climbed by 19 percent over the third quarter.

"It's a monster!" Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon said, referring to his company's seventh natural gas well drilled into the Barnett Shale formation in Texas.

Considering unemployment is at its highest level in almost 30 years, "you'd think the Obama administration would do everything possible to save existing jobs and create new ones," says op-ed author Jim Constantopoulos, a professor of Geology at Eastern New Mexico University in his recent Sun-News op-ed.

Just 10 miles off the coast of Louisiana, a New Orleans company has made one of the largest Gulf of Mexico energy discoveries in decades. McMoRan Exploration Co. reports that its ultra-deep well in its Davy Jones prospect was drilled in shallow water--only 20 feet deep--down to more than 28,000 feet beneath the ocean floor where the company found huge amounts of natural gas in a 135-feet thick sand formation.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today announced the imposition of new regulatory hurdles that could slow or prohibit drilling for oil and natural gas on energy-rich federal lands.

In what has become increasingly familiar double-talk from this administration, Sec. Salazar spoke of the importance of domestic oil and natural gas, while making it more difficult to produce this oil and gas, put more Americans back to work and help restore our nation's economy.

Breaking from his predecessor, Virginia's Governor-elect Bob McDonnell sent a letter to Interior Secretary Salazar, asking the administration to move forward with a scheduled offshore lease sale in 2011. McDonnell says "offshore energy exploration and production will be a priority" during his four-year term as governor. The Commonwealth's current Gov. Tim Kaine sought to delay the lease sale.

As we've discussed on this blog, America's oil and natural gas industry supports more than 9 million jobs in every U.S. state--and one of them may be yours.

To see the industry's jobs impact in your state, explore API's new interactive map.

In a speech today at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., President Obama outlined a series of job creation ideas and called for using some of the $200 billion in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to help pay down the $1.4 trillion budget deficit and "create fiscal room for job creation programs."

The administration recently held a Jobs Summit to help determine the best way to put Americans back to work as quickly as possible. Today, API chairman and Devon CEO Larry Nichols authored an op-ed in The Hill that discusses how the U.S. oil and natural gas industry can be a part of the jobs solution.

API's President Jack Gerard and Devon's CEO and Chairman Larry Nichols called the White House Jobs Summit a "missed opportunity" during a conference call with reporters this morning, and wondered why the oil and natural gas industry was not invited.

America's oil and natural industry employs and supports a total of 9.2 million U.S. jobs. It powers most of the energy that heats U.S. homes, fuels factories and offices, and gets people to home and work. It also adds more than $1 trillion to the national economy.

The numbers tell the story. The official U.S. unemployment rate stands at 10.2 percent but is believed to be closer to 20 percent. Economic analysts say that the country will pull itself out of the recession, but it's likely unemployment levels could remain high. Meanwhile, as the holidays approach, consumers are pinching pennies and worrying about an uncertain future, which could dampen their holiday festivities as well as the sales expectations of the nation's retailers.

Amidst this gloomy economic picture is one bright spot. As reported by E&E Publishing's Greenwire, the oil and natural gas industry will finish 2009 with the largest one-year gain in domestic oil production in 40 years.