With Oil Fee, Obama Shows Plan for Sector-by-sector Carbon Price
U.S. President Barack Obama's budget would raise $319 billion over 10 years from the phased introduction of an oil fee equivalent to $10.25 per barrel on crude oil, according to budget documents published on Tuesday. The oil fee is one of the largest revenue-raising items in the president's budget, but details remain scant about how it would work ("Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2017", Office of Management and Budget, 2016). In a bundle of budget documents that stretches to more than 1…
Exxon Withholds Tax Data From Global Transparency Group
Exxon Mobil Corp has not shared information about its U.S. taxes with a global transparency effort that the company has endorsed and that President Barack Obama has backed, the project's organizers said on Wednesday. Exxon was one of several energy companies that failed to share U.S.-specific tax information for a report released on Wednesday by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which audits payments made by companies for drilling or mining.
Maritime & Offshore Employment: Contractors, Coverage and Confusion
Faststream USA Managing Director Eric Peters defines the risks in hiring contract workers in today’s marine and offshore markets, and lays out the course to mitigating those headaches. Recruitment, insurance and peace of mind – all rolled into one neat package. It’s no secret that the marine and offshore worlds require comprehensive insurance coverage in the event of an accident or emergency; however, the complex laws associated with contract workers…
Three Charged with Suspected $1.5m Oil Theft from Texas Fields
Three people have been indicted for stealing shale oil over three years worth an estimated $1.5 million by driving it off in trucks that were supposed to be disposing waste water, according to court documents obtained on Thursday. Texas residents Victor Manuel Guerra, 37, Juan Martin Bernal, 49, and Carlos Samuel Pena, 25, have been charged with theft from an interstate shipment, wire fraud and money laundering, according to an indictment unsealed this week. No lawyers were listed for the three in documents filed in federal court in Texas.
Kinder Morgan CEO: More Acquisitions to Come
The biggest U.S. pipeline company, Kinder Morgan Inc, will be better able to acquire rivals after it consolidates as a single company and buys out investors in its publicly traded units for $44 billion, its CEO said on Monday. The North America midstream company already operates or has stakes in 80,000 miles of pipelines and there is growing demand for new infrastructure to handle surging output of oil and gas from the U.S. shale boom. Kinder Morgan's shares closed 9 percent higher as investors embraced the deal…
Energy Future Seeks Longer Bankruptcy
Energy Future Holdings, the largest power company in Texas, asked a judge to extend the period in which it controls its Chapter 11 bankruptcy and said it is scrapping its original debt-cutting plan in favor of an auction of its Oncor unit. The company asked Delaware Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi to extend its exclusive right to seek a creditor vote on a plan of reorganization until April 25, 2015 from its current deadline in October. The company filed for bankruptcy on April 29…
Rail Capacity Crisis Benefited Trucking
As a polar vortex snarled North America's railroads and upended freight flows this winter, everyone from agricultural giant Cargill to Dow Chemical rushed to secure the next-best form of hauling goods: trucks. In what trucking executives described as an unprecedented bidding frenzy, spot market rates surged by as much as 20 percent to record highs in the first three months of 2014 as shippers sought to minimize sometimes weeks-long delays in rail service.
