natural gas

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Exxon to Buy Gas Company XTO Energy for $31B

All-stock deal will bolster Exxon's natural gas profile

(Newser) - Exxon Mobil has agreed to buy natural gas powerhouse XTO Energy for $31 billion in stock. Exxon’s been long rumored to be in the market for a natural gas company, hoping to take advantage of currently low prices, the Wall Street Journal reports. In XTO it’s nabbed a...

Energy Lobby Split on Climate, Thrilling Greens

Natural gas companies squabble with Big Oil as Senate negotiates

(Newser) - With the Senate set to consider legislation to tax carbon and rein in global warming, a split has emerged among the energy lobby that may make it easier to pass a clean-energy law. Natural gas producers favor a bill, while their colleagues in the oil industry oppose it; electric companies...

EU Slaps Gas Firms With $1.5B Fine for Price-Fixing

(Newser) - The European Union's powerful competition commissioner slapped two energy companies with record fines of $1.53 billion today for cartel misbehavior. GDF Suez and E.ON, two of the world's biggest gas producers, colluded to avoid competition in French and German energy markets and drive up prices. It's the first...

Feds Consider Limits on Oil, Energy Speculation

Commodity Commission to hold hearings on 'purely financial' energy futures trading

(Newser) - Federal regulators may impose new limits on the amount of energy-futures contracts that speculators can buy, the New York Times reports, an attempt to curb severe price fluctuations in commodities like oil and natural gas. Oil prices swung from $145 per barrel last summer to $33 in December, movement some...

6 Killed in Italy Train Explosion

(Newser) - A train carrying liquefied natural gas derailed in Italy tonight, causing explosions that killed at least six people and injured dozens more, the Times of London reports. The train jumped the tracks as it was leaving the station in the northern town of Viareggio, triggering the explosion of two gas-filled...

Congress Mulls Tighter Offshore Drilling Rules

Natural-gas firms currently exempt from clean-water laws

(Newser) - A bill pushed by Dick Cheney 4 years ago freed natural-gas drillers from clean-water laws, but pollution concerns are driving congressional Democrats to rethink the matter, ProPublica reports. They’ve drafted legislation that would end the natural-gas exemption and require drillers to reveal the chemicals they use in their work,...

Putin's Gas Strategy Backfires as Prices Fall

(Newser) - The very strategies that made Gazprom an international force are now causing the energy giant—and consequently, Moscow—unaccustomed financial stress, the New York Times reports. Vladimir Putin built Gazprom into a goliath by aggressively dominating natural gas supplies, but to do it, he entered into long-term contracts to buy...

Natural Gas Finds Could Herald Energy Shift in US

Discoveries speed push to replace coal, oil

(Newser) - A huge natural-gas discovery in Louisiana, on the heels of similar finds elsewhere over the past decade, is fueling a push to shift the nation’s energy portfolio, the Wall Street Journal reports. Louisiana’s Haynesville Shale could hold the energy equivalent of 18 years of current US oil production;...

Wind Could Provide All US Power: Feds

Interior Dept. study sees offshore turbines generating energy

(Newser) - Offshore winds are a largely untapped resource that could potentially supply the US with even more electricity than it currently needs, according to a new Interior  Department report. The report says the area off the Atlantic coast could meet more than one-fourth of the national power demand, but the fact...

US Drilling Boom Stalls for Oil, Gas

(Newser) - It doesn't pay to drill, baby, drill anymore. Falling world prices have brought an end to the boom in domestic drilling for oil and natural gas, the New York Times reports. Last summer, 2,400 gas and oil rigs were deployed in the hunt for energy. Today, that figure is...

AT&T Will Spend $565M to Green its Vehicle Fleet

(Newser) - AT&T pledged to spend $565 million to replace its current vehicle fleet with models that run on alternative fuels, the Detroit Free Press reports. The firm will buy over 15,000 hybrid and natural-gas-powered cars, mainly from Ford. AT&T billed the move as not only environmentally responsible but...

Russia, Ukraine Reach Natural Gas Agreement

Russian gas to resume gas exports today

(Newser) - Russian gas will resume flowing into Ukraine’s domestic market today after the two countries settled their frosty dispute, the New York Times reports. As is customary for Western Europe, Kiev will now pay Moscow rates tied to the price of oil, but will receive a 20% discount, unlike Gazprom’...

Pickens, Facing Headwinds, Pushes Energy Plan in DC

Falling oil prices, stock market have taken alternative-energy push along for ride

(Newser) - Billionaire T. Boone Pickens is in Washington today to push lawmakers to breathe new life into his scheme for weaning America off foreign oil—which has suffered setbacks in recent months, the Wall Street Journal reports, not least of which are the energy and stock markets. A $100 decline in...

EU Strikes Deal to End Russian Gas Freeze

Thousands of eastern Europeans left in the cold by Russia-Ukraine dispute

(Newser) - Gas could be flowing back to a frozen Europe within days after Russian and Ukrainian officials agreed yesterday to an EU-brokered plan to have independent observers monitor pipelines, the Guardian reports. Russia cut off all its gas supplies via Ukraine Wednesday over a pricing dispute, leaving hundreds of thousands scrambling...

Russia Halts All Gas to Europe Via Ukraine

Last pipeline shut as shortages spread as far as France

(Newser) - Having slowed to a trickle yesterday, Russia today shut off all its gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine, the latest move in a pricing dispute that has affected fuel deliveries to a dozen countries during a winter cold snap. Gazprom, the Russian state gas company, blamed Ukraine for shutting down...

Smart Money Trickles Back Into Energy

Those considered sectors 'smart money' see opportunity in sector

(Newser) - The energy sector is recharging, the Wall Street Journal reports, at least if a pair of deals by billionaire oil and gas investor George Kaiser is any indication. Kaiser, who built his fortune buying energy assets during downturns, is jumping back into the market, penning a $412 million natural gas...

EU Faces Crisis as Russia Cuts Off Gas

Spat with Ukraine leaves half of continent short of fuel

(Newser) - European nations from Austria to Greece lost most or all of their gas supplies today, as a showdown between Russia and Ukraine imperiled the entire continent. Last night Gazprom, the Russian state gas company, cut its supply by 60% to punish Ukraine for allegedly stealing fuel that should flow through...

The Pride of Russia, Tanking Gazprom Seeks Bailout

A symbol of Moscow's resurgence a year ago, the natural gas giant is foundering

(Newser) - Just a year ago, Russian natural gas titan Gazprom was burning through global competition on its way to becoming the world's largest corporation. Now the state-owned darling of investors worldwide is deep in debt and flirting with a government bailout. A symbol of Russia’s resurgence as a global economic...

Will Undersea Methane Kill Us or Save Us?

It could be worse than CO2 or viable source of energy

(Newser) - If warnings about undersea methane are true, we can "kiss our winter boots goodbye," Kirsten Weir writes in Salon. In the doomsday scenario, vast stores of undersea gas deposits will melt and send heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere. But such a crisis would require a 10-to-15 degree Celsius...

Economy May Tank Palin's $30B Pipeline

Governor's much-touted initiative could be derailed as gas, oil prices fall

(Newser) - A sour economy and tumbling oil prices might sink Sarah Palin’s oft-touted Alaskan natural-gas pipeline, the Wall Street Journal reports. Low prices and increased natural-gas production in the lower 48 are causing energy companies to reconsider the $30 billion project. Without the revenue-generating pipeline, Alaskans who depend on the...

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