Pierre Bertrand

Stocks of Japanese oil refiner TonenGeneral Sekiyu KK keeps dropping following an announcement that ExxonMobil Corp., is considering selling its majority shares of that company.

2011 proved to be a sterling year for silver, according to recently released figures from the Silver Institute.

The United States can be entirely self sufficient in liquid fuels in the next 15 years if more federal lands are opened up to oil and natural gas exploration and drilling.

Royal Dutch Shell officials announced they are working to patch a second oil leak in Nigeria, which they attribute to sabotage.

Chevron Corp. Tuesday night lost a judicial appeal against $18 billion in fines the company is being asked to pay by authorities in Ecuador. The company denies the charges and says the court ruling is the product of fraud and corruption.

Chevron officials say new allegations levied against the U.S. oil company by Brazil's oil regulator ANP will be examined, following ANP's holiday imposition of a third fine following a November oil leak.

ExxonMobil continues to aggressively contend a Venezuelan decision that undervalues the assets in oil fields and refineries seized by the government of President Hugo Chavez.

On Saturday, the United State's tax credit and tariff on ethanol is set to expire, and that makes Brazilian ethanol producers and sugarcane growers very happy.

The new field was originally drilled in 2008, said the Brazilian company, and is expected to hold 2.1 billion barrels of oil. The new field, Sapinhoá is located offshore in ultra-deep regions of the South Atlantic.

China National Offshore Oil Corp. announced that it intends to set up an environmental protection fund of its own, months after ConocoPhillips said in September it intended to compensate local Chinese communities and pay for environmental damage following a spill at one of the company's offshore rigs in Northern China.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. is being accused of hiding behind shell companies to avoid honoring land leases the company signed and then cancelled over the course of 2010.

A federal judge in Anchorage Tuesday terminated BP Exploration's probation years after an oil pipeline rupture took place this past decade.

Chevron will have to pay Brazil an additional $5.4 million in fines for its oil leak in November.

In what will be the Afghanistan's first international project in a decade, officials in Kabul approved an oil exploration deal with China's state-owned National Petroleum Corporation (CNCP).

Company officials claimed victory over the spill on Christmas day, citing the company's robust response brought a swift end to the spill first reported two weeks ago.

Refineries in the Northeast are closing their doors, and as a result, more than half of the area's petroleum refining capacity will be reduced. The reduction is likely to be problematic for ultra-low sulfur diesel, gasoline, heating oil and jet fuel supplies.

In order to keep the American people updated on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill restoration, BP will be launching its new advertising campaign immediately after Christmas.

Images from an underwater vehicle proved the company's original fears that the 40,000 barrel leak sprung during the transfer of crude oil from a floating storage facility to an awaiting cargo tanker.

Nigerian officials said they expect oil leaked from a Royal Dutch Shell offshore well to reach the country's shores Thursday. Shell officials suspect half of the estimated 40,000 barrels of oil leaked in the Atlantic this week have already naturally dissipated or evaporated.

Interest in arctic oil has climbed in recent years when industry, government and third party researchers independently made realizations that the amount of recoverable world-class oil deposits was greater than previously thought. That has yet to be properly tested with a drill bit.

Environmentalists fear oil prospecting in the region will lead to oil discoveries, prompting greater interest in the Arctic oil found underneath sensitive and hard-to-reach areas like ice-locked seas, and further endangering regional ecosystems.

The story that will follow is one of corporate machinations, armed strongmen storming a Siberian oil field and an office headquarters, corruption and ludicrous amounts of money.

Shell confirmed the loss of 319 barrels of drilling fluids from a booster line, which is separated from the actual well bore but provides additional drilling fluids. The company has decided to temporarily abandon the well in order to make needed repairs. The source of the leak is not yet disclosed.

India could be the latest country to join a growing solar power trade dispute between the United States and China. However, the country does not look to favor either of the two sides.

Roughly 2,600 gallons of oil have leaked off the Brazilian coast since Sunday. The spill, reported Agence France Presse, threatens an area of the country's coast line that Carlos Minc, Environment Secretary in Rio de Janiero state, called an ecological treasure.

Sailors had roughly 30 minutes before freezing to death in the icy cold waters of the Sea of Okhotsk where the floating platform listed in heavy seas and sank.

Chevron Corp. officials Friday lauded the announcement made this week that Ecuadorean state-oil company Petroecuador will clean up tracts of the amazon allegedly polluted by Texaco.

Friday's settlement is the fourth involving companies that in some shape or form worked on the Deepwater Horizon with BP, or supplied it with equipment. Previous settlements involved MOEX and Anadarko, BP's partners in the Macondo well, and Weatherford, the company that made the float collar used at the well.

Norex Petroleum is suing Russian oligarchs and New York residents Leonard Blavatnik and Victor Vekselberg for orchestrating the theft of its oil field in Siberia.