Stories related to: oil reserves

The record-breaking price of oil is shifting public opinion toward lifting a moratorium on new offshore drilling, reports the AP. Four companies acquired rights to explore parcels of land off the Florida coast in March, under a 2006 Congressional compromise that opened up 8.3 million acres off the Panhandle in exchange for a buffer along the rest of the state's beaches. More »

A severe shortage of deep-sea drilling rigs will hold up exploitation of offshore oil for years, the New York Times reports. Existing rigs are booked solid for five years, and shipbuilders around the world are scrambling to fill dozens of new orders. Oil companies are frustrated by their inability to get at huge, newly discovered offshore fields. More »

Saudi Arabia consenting to increase oil output is more public-relations ploy than problem-solver, Vivienne Walt writes in Time , since the half-million extra barrels a day won't make much of a dent, if the Saudis even have that much to spare. One analyst says the move is really an attempt “to pump out the message to the West that ‘we are not trying to hurt your economy.'" More »

A surprise 5.32 million barrel decline in US crude oil stockpiles prompted oil prices to surge past a record $135 a barrel in after-hours New York trading this morning, extending oil's runup to 19% this month, reports Bloomberg. The Energy Department also said yesterday that gasoline stockpiles had declined some 755,000 barrels, while analysts had expected an increase in reserves. More »

The government is pumping 60,000 barrels of oil a day into a “rainy day” reserve, but with oil prices at a record high, many argue that it’s already raining. That includes the presidential candidates, all of whom want to at least stop adding to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve—and Hillary Clinton wants to release some of it. But President Bush maintains that the reserve is untouchable. More »

Soaring crude prices and new oil and gas projects drove Royal Dutch Shell to 2007 profits of $27.6 billion—a new record for a British corporation—despite declining production. While critics branded the results “obscene” and called for a windfall tax, Shell’s CEO called them “satisfactory” and warned that 2008 would be a tougher year for the company as production costs soar and reserves dwindle, reports the Guardian . More »