The average productivity of new oil and gas wells in the Permian Basin continued to increase for 12 straight years, reaching record highs in 2021, according to a Sept. 30 report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In June 2022, the Permian Basin, which spans across western Texas and eastern New Mexico, constituted for around…...
The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement on Sept. 14 proposed new and revised safety rules and standards for oil and gas operations at the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico. This proposal is in the extension of the 2019 Well Control Rule and mainly focuses on well integrity and…...
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Sep. 14 announced it has accepted 307 valid high bids from lease sale 257 in the Gulf of Mexico totalling about $190 million. The sale, held in November 2021, offered about 80 million acres, but only 1.7 million were leased. A January 2022 decision by the District Court…...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Aug. 30 ruled two oil leases – lease sales 250 and 251 – conducted by the Interior Department during the Trump administration in the Gulf of Mexico were unlawful. In 2020, a federal district court declared that the sales were valid, and environmental groups…...
A Louisiana federal judge on Aug. 18 issued a permanent injunction preventing the Biden administration from blocking oil and gas leasing on federal lands in 13 states, a day after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit lifted an earlier injunction against the administration’s pause on leasing. Judge Terry Doughty of the Louisiana…...
The amount of gasoline expended in the U.S. during the second quarter of 2022 and early July, has been lower than the same period in 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest Weekly Petroleum Status Report. The Petroleum Supply Monthly validates the trend and reports that U.S. gasoline consumption in April averaged 8.8…...
The U.S. Supreme Court on June 30 restricted the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate power plant emissions under the Clean Air Act. The 6-3 decision in favour of coal interests in West Virginia v. EPA, is expected to negatively impact the Biden administration’s wider attempts to combat climate change. The court invoked the “major…
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced a slew of measures to strengthen the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program, which sets increasing annual volumetric mandates for renewable fuel use in the transportation sector.