oil
Kern County Derails Refinery Expansion Plan
The Kern County, California, Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to rescind approval for a project that would have allowed a Bakersfield refinery to process up to 63 million barrels of volatile Bakken crude oil a year.
Read moreLA Faces Lawsuit Over Oil Wells by Trade Group
Residents from poor black and Latino neighborhoods who sued the city over policies that placed oil wells close to schools and homes in their neighborhoods argued in court on Friday that they have been swept up into a lawsuit filed by the oil industry, who want to hold them accountable for enacting change within the city’s internal zoning laws.
Read moreLower Oil Prices Have Unexpected Effects
To stabilize crude oil prices hovering around $50 a barrel after dropping by $20 a barrel since October, OPEC and Russia on Thursday are expected to agree to cut oil production by at least 1 million barrels per day. But experts say that lower oil prices have some counterintuitive effects.
Read moreHong Kong Businessman Convicted in UN Bribery Scheme
A federal jury convicted a Hong Kong businessman on Wednesday for his role in a more than $2 million bribery scheme that involved two African autocrats – and implicated former presidents of the U.N. General Assembly.
Read moreLike ‘Something Out of a Movie,’ Feds Say of UN Bribery Scheme
Recapping testimony about gift boxes stuffed with cash, a federal prosecutor told jurors at closing arguments Tuesday that a Chinese businessman’s globe-hopping corruption scheme has the trappings of a Hollywood thriller.
Read moreHigh Court Calls for US Views in Snarls on Water Pollution
The Supreme Court ordered the U.S. solicitor general on Monday to offer input in two water cases, one involving a pipeline crack that caused an oil spill in South Carolina and the other involving Maui wastewater that drifts into the ocean.
Read moreFrom Trump World Tower to Chad, Witness Lays Out Chinese Bribery Plot
Casting a 90-story shadow near the United Nations and East River, Trump World Tower once had a unit belonging to China Energy Finance Corp – a company known as CEFC that had grand designs on Russia’s state-run oil giant.
Read moreShipping Firms Fined $4 Million for Dumping Oil
Two Greek shipping companies pleaded guilty to Clean Water Act violations and agreed to pay a $4 million fine for discharging oil from a tanker into the Port of Houston and Port Arthur, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Read moreVenezuela Holds Onto Prized US Refineries Amid Legal Battle
Venezuela will hold onto its U.S.-based Citgo refineries, settling a long-standing dispute that threw ownership of the crisis-wracked country’s prized assets into peril as its massive debt mounts.
Read moreCrab Industry Files Climate Change Suit Against 30 Oil Companies
The West Coast crab fishing industry sued dozens of fossil fuel companies in California Superior Court Wednesday, arguing that pollution-caused climate change has shortened the annual crab season and hurt fishing families, communities and businesses.
Read moreEurozone Inflation Near 6-Year High as Oil Price Spikes
Consumer prices across the 19-country eurozone rose at their fastest rate in nearly six years in October, largely on the back of higher energy costs, official figures showed Wednesday.
Read moreSecurities Fraud
A federal judge ordered $7.5 million in disgorgement and penalties Tuesday against Payson Petroleum executives Matthew Carl Griffin and William Daniel Griffin, whom the SEC accused of securities fraud.
Read moreFrance, Italy Begin Cleanup for Mediterranean Fuel Spill
French and Italian maritime authorities have begun cleaning up a fuel spill that has spread 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) in the Mediterranean Sea after two cargo ships collided north of the island of Corsica.
Read more$1.8 Billion Settlement
Petrobras, the Brazilian oil giant at the center of a giant political corruption scandal, reached a $1.8 billion settlement Wednesday to resolve bribery and bid-rigging allegations from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Read moreIrony: Big Oil Fights Trump on Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Chevron and Exxon Mobil this week signed on to the fight against climate change, joining a coalition of oil companies pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, tacitly rejecting the Trump administration’s rollback of environmental regulations.
Read moreTwo Convicted in Giant Nigerian Oil Corruption Case
An Italian judge on Thursday convicted two men of being middlemen in a massive bribery scheme involving oil giants Shell and Eni and a lucrative offshore Nigerian oilfield.
Read morePipeline Company Found Guilty in 2015 California Oil Spill
A pipeline company was convicted of nine criminal charges Friday for causing the worst California coastal spill in 25 years, a disaster that blackened popular beaches for miles, killed wildlife and hurt tourism and fishing.
Read moreGroundwater
The Center for Biological Diversity claims in Kern County Court that the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board allowed Valley Water Management Co. to discharge oil industry wastewater, some of it carcinogenic, into dozens of unlined pits, which already have polluted groundwater in a plume that extends for miles.
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