OIL SPILL

Russian gas giant Gazprom is the “least respected” public company in the world, as selected by a group of U.S. money managers in a survey conducted by Barron’s magazine.

The price of crude oil - and the consumer products like gasoline and diesel fuel that are made from it - will head higher in the summer months, said John Hofmeister, former CEO of Shell Oil.

The player who led the New Orleans Saints team to its first NFL title last year has expressed a desire to enter politics at the end of his playing career.

BP, which announced it would pay dividends on its stock this morning, won't be able to this month due to a move by the Alfa-Access-Renova consortium

BP, despite its announcement to pay a dividend once again, has seen its shares drop in early morning trading.

BP reignited doubts about its ability to return to growth on Tuesday as below-forecast profit, disappointing production guidance and new oil spill charges overshadowed the oil major's return to dividend payouts.

The companies whose shares are moving in pre-market trade on Tuesday are: Lexmark International, Archer Daniels Midland, Novellus Systems, Advanced Micro Devices, Monster Worldwide, Eastman Chemical, BP and Ventas.

The companies which are expected to see active trade on Tuesday are: BP, Pfizer, C.H. Robinson, Emerson, United Parcel, McGraw Hill Companies, Lexmark International and Cummins.

Donald Verrilli Jr., a former partner at Jenner & Block, has been nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as the Solicitor General of the United States.

British Petroleum (NYSE: BP) is said to be considering spilling cash – not oil – to its public shareholders. Shareholders of the oil giant, which is infamous for being responsible for the oil spill off the Gulf coast region in June, the worst oil spill in history, are calling for the company to pay a dividend once again

Oil giant BP Plc is expected to reinstate its dividend when it unveils fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday, after it canceled the payout at the height of the oil spill last summer.

Algeria expects oil production to remain steady in 2011, while liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply contracts will be met despite reduced capacity, the head of state-owned energy giant Sonatrach said on Tuesday.

Tony Hayward, the former head of BP who was reviled in the United States for his handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, is in talks to join the board of commodities group Glencore, the Sunday Times reported.

Ed Miliband, leader of Britain’s Labour Party, has joined a growing chorus of critics expressing reservations over BP plc’s (NYSE: BP) joint venture with Russian energy giant Rosneft to explore potentially massive oil and gas deposits on the Arctic shelf – BP’s first major deal since last year’s Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

A Russian minister said BP's experience in cleaning up the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill was one of the reasons Russia chose the British oil firm to help develop its fragile Arctic shelf oil fields.

BP is preparing to announce a major deal with Rosneft, the state-owned Russian energy giant, according to a report from the BBC.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), the federal agency, which oversees U.S. offshore drilling, has allowed Shell Offshore Inc. and 12 other oil and gas companies to resume deepwater drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico without the need to submit revised exploration or development plans for supplemental National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews.

Some 31 million U.S. television viewers tuned in to see President Barack Obama lead a memorial tribute to victims of the deadly shooting rampage in Tucson, Arizona, according to TV ratings provider Nielsen.

BP Plc, which is tormented by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, has witnessed a positive development last week when Presidential Commission did not find BP solely responsible for the oil spill.

Better management of oil industry-related companies BP, Halliburton and Transocean could have almost certainly prevented an underwater oil rig blowout last year that led to the largest ever U.S. oil spill, a presidential panel concluded in its final report.

Shares of Halliburton Co. (HAL) and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) are dropping this morning after a report by a presidential commission into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill from last year spread the blame to various parties, not only BP plc (NYSE: BP).