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An offshore oil rig exploded and caught fire Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico, forcing 13 workers into the water and injuring at least one of them, the U.S. Coast Guard said.


Gulf of Mexico - Energy - Business - Oil and Gas - United States

On Thursday, some of the country's most respected environmental groups - in the midst of their biggest political fight in two decades - sent a group of activists to Milwaukee with a message.


Climate change - Environment - Activism - Organizations - Impacts and Indicators

A BP drilling engineer involved in the planning of the Macondo well declined to testify before a federal investigative panel Friday, invoking through his lawyer his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.


Transocean - Business - Gulf of Mexico - United States - Deepwater Horizon

HOUSTON - Federal investigators on Thursday grilled BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells on the company's history of safety problems in the Gulf of Mexico and demanded more clarity on who at the company is ultimately responsible, and accountable, for drilling operations.


BP - Kent - Business - Kent Wells - Mining and Drilling

HOUSTON - BP this week is taking public its strategy for spreading the blame for the April 20 explosion that killed 11 people on the Deepwater Horizon and led to the nation's worst oil spill.


Halliburton - BP - Business - Allegedly Unethical Firms - Houston

Two weeks after BP's Macondo well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico, the federal government's Minerals Management Service finalized a regulation intended to control the undersea pressures that threaten deepwater drilling operations.


Earth Sciences - Geology - Rocks and Minerals - Minerals - Business

With the end of the summer driving season just around the corner, traders and investors on Monday drove gasoline prices to an eight-month low on U.S. commodities markets, providing the latest sign of pessimism about the economic recovery.


Home - automobile - Fuels - Consumer Information - Price Comparisons

A federal investigative panel will begin its next round of hearings Monday into the Deepwater Horizon disaster and call witnesses who can address alleged shortcuts in the drilling of the BP oil well, problems with the failed blowout preventer and the confused scene after an explosion on the rig.


Transocean - Business - Environment - Deepwater Horizon - Oil spill

It was awkward from the start, this marriage of necessity between BP and the federal government. The government had ultimate authority; BP had the technology to plug the Macondo well. Something known as the National Contingency Plan called for a "unified command" in which government officials would...


BP - United States - Gulf of Mexico - Government - Executive Branch

On Monday, Kenneth R. Feinberg -- Washington's expert in the messy business of valuing tragedy in dollars and cents -- officially takes over one of the messiest cases of his career.



Oil spill - Environment - United States - Mississippi - Energy

Academic scientists are challenging the Obama administration's assertion that most of BP's oil in the Gulf of Mexico is either gone or rapidly disappearing -- with one group Thursday announcing the discovery of a 22-mile "plume" of oil that shows little sign of vanishing.


Oil spill - Environment - Energy - Oil - Gulf of Mexico

The infamous blowout preventer that failed to prevent the Deepwater Horizon blowout will be removed from the top of the well in the Gulf of Mexico -- if, that is, BP can assure the government that it can retrieve the massive, four-story contraption without creating any new problems with the well ...


BP - Thad Allen - Blowout preventer - History - Oil spill

HOUSTON -- The protesters have stopped coming here to wave angry signs in front of BP's large office campus. The boycotts of BP gas stations are tapering off, too -- both signs that the energy company's plug of the spewing oil well is quieting its loudest critics.


BP - United States - Brand - Business - Oil spill

GRAND ISLE, LA. -- The pile of soiled boom sitting more than four feet high and cooking under the summer sun at an abandoned shipyard here will be a part of the oil spill that endures.


Oil spill - Environment - Energy - Petroleum in the Environment - Spill Containment and Remediation

PASCAGOULA, MISS. -- Johnny Ray Harris hunted for oil in the gulf near his home for 45 days straight, radioing in coordinates to cleanup crews when he spotted large, inky patches floating in the choppy waters.


Oil spill - Environment - Energy - Gulf of Mexico - Petroleum in the Environment

I thought nuclear reactors were an absolute no-go for environmentalists. But I keep hearing them touted as a clean energy source. What are nuclear energy's green credentials?


Nuclear energy - Nuclear - Energy - Technology - Environment

BURAS, LA. -- Obama administration officials promised Sunday to remain focused on the Gulf Coast -- punishing BP for the worst oil spill in U.S. history, and cleaning up what remains of the mess.


Oil spill - Environment - Energy - Petroleum in the Environment - Business

With growing indications that BP has at last brought its rogue well under control in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration is increasingly focused on the energy giant's legal responsibilities for the massive spill, as well as on operational lessons for the oil industry.


Business - Technology - United States - Gulf of Mexico - Government

So the blown-out oil well in the gulf has finally stopped gushing, plugged with heavy mud and awaiting the ultimate "kill" by a relief well. Yet, even with the largest oil spill in the nation's history in the background, what seems to have been killed much more quickly is Washington's will to tak...


Green - Weapons - Warfare and Conflict - Biological Chemical and Radiological - Radiological

MARSHALL, MICH. -- In the Summer of the Spill, history is already repeating itself, this time in Michigan.


Gulf of Mexico - Kalamazoo River - Environment - Oil spill - Michigan

BP plans to start pumping cement Thursday into its Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico as part of its efforts to permanently plug the source of the nation's worst oil spill.


Cement - Business - BP - Concrete - Materials and Supplies

On the 107th day of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Macondo well became an apparently harmless hole in the seafloor, clogged with 13-pound-per-gallon gunk, and barely more of a threat to spew oil into the Gulf of Mexico than to start gushing lemonade.


Oil well - Business - Gulf of Mexico - Energy - Oil and Gas

BP's blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico has reached a "static condition," the company said early Wednesday, meaning that pressure inside the well has been brought under control through a mud-pumping process that began Tuesday afternoon.


Business - Energy - Oil and Gas - BP - Tools and Equipment

Days after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank in the Gulf of Mexico, a conservative nonprofit group called the Institute for Energy Research asked BP to contribute $100,000 for a media campaign it was launching in defense of the oil industry.


BP - Energy - Technology - Environment - Gulf of Mexico

The blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico gushed 12 times faster than the government and BP estimated in the early weeks of the crisis and has spilled a whopping 4.9 million barrels, or 205.8 million gallons, according to a more detailed analysis announced late Monday.


Gulf of Mexico - Oil spill - Environment - Energy - Petroleum in the Environment

BP will begin easing mud into its runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico Monday afternoon, a preliminary step in a "static kill" procedure that potentially could kill the Macondo well by mid-week.


BP - Gulf of Mexico - Oil spill - Oil well - Energy

No longer do scarce U.S. natural gas reserves suggest increasing foreign dependence.


Energy - Business - Natural gas - Oil and Gas - United States

While the BP well was still gushing, the Obama administration issued an order that limited the spreading of controversial dispersant chemicals on the Gulf of Mexico's surface. Their use, officials said, should be restricted to "rare cases."


Oil spill - Environment - Energy - Petroleum in the Environment - Spill Containment and Remediation