Energy News

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar blasted big oil trade groups Tuesday, accusing them of barring the way to a balanced US energy system that would create thousands of jobs.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday fired back at critics who claim he's not supportive enough of domestic energy production, saying their accusations have the same "poison and substance of election-year politics."

WASHINGTON - Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the government has scheduled 38 oil and natural gas lease sales for public lands next year, including one in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve.

BEIJING (AFP) - China, a massive consumer of fossil fuels and coal in particular, is trying to modernise its mines by containing emissions of methane and turning the toxic gas into a source of much-needed energy.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India issued solar power targets on Monday, with plans to boost ouptut from near zero to 20 gigawatts (GW) by 2022, but tied chances of the plan's success to availability of international finance and technology.

MUMBAI (AFP) - India's private sector energy giant Reliance Industries Limited has announced a cash bid to buy a controlling stake in bankrupt petrochemicals firm LyondellBasell Industries.

DALI, China (AFP) - In the mountains above the southwestern Chinese town of Dali, dozens of new wind turbines dot the landscape -- a symbol of the country's sky-high ambitions for clean, green energy.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Indian energy giant Reliance Industries has made a non-binding cash offer to buy a controlling interest in bankrupt petrochemicals company LyondellBasell Industries, LyondellBasell said on Saturday.

DIMOCK, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Residents of a small rural Pennsylvania town sued Cabot Oil & Gas Corp on Friday, claiming the company's natural-gas drilling has contaminated their water wells with toxic chemicals, caused sickness and reduced their property values.

MOSCOW (AFP) - Thawing permafrost caused by global warming is costing Russian energy firms billions of dollars annually in damage control and shrinking Russia's territory, Greenpeace warned in a new study Friday.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's cabinet on Thursday approved its first solar power plan, pledging to boost output from near zero to 20 gigawatts (GW) by 2020 as part of its plan to fight global warming.

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - EU criticism of Russia's rights record and fears Moscow will delay its WTO entry clouded EU-Russia talks Wednesday, but the two sides aligned on climate issues ahead of a key summit in December.

PARIS (AFP) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told business leaders in Paris that he wanted to see the French energy giant Total working in his country's oil fields.

PARIS (AFP) - Carbon emissions from fossil fuels rose two percent last year to an all-time high, leaving Earth on a worst-scenario track for global warming, scientists reported on Tuesday.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - A 1,679-mile pipeline crossing eight states is now fully completed and funneling natural gas from Wyoming and Colorado to the eastern edge of Ohio.

MUMBAI (AFP) - Indian energy giant Reliance Industries will launch an "aggressive" oil and gas exploration campaign over the next three years, its chairman Mukesh Ambani told shareholders on Tuesday.

KUWAIT CITY (AFP) - Kuwait's Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad Abdullah al-Sabah said on Tuesday OPEC will leave its production unchanged at its meeting next month, adding that current oil price was "comfortable."

ABU DHABI (AFP) - Seventy-five to 80 dollars a barrel is a satisfactory price for oil, the president of OPEC said on Monday, adding that the cartel may leave production unchanged at its meeting next month.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India will soon launch an ambitious plan to boost its solar power generation from 3 MW to 20,000 MW by 2022, the minister for new and renewable energy said on Friday.

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh will restart negotiations over a long standing proposal for a pipeline across its territory that would take natural gas from Myanmar to India, a senior energy official said on Thursday.

RIO DE JANEIRO - Heavy rain and strong wind caused blackouts that left nearly a third of Brazilians — 60 million people — in the dark, officials said Wednesday as they scrambled to restore confidence in the country's infrastructure before soccer's 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

BRASILIA (AFP) - Brazil's government vowed Wednesday to find what caused a massive and mysterious blackout that plunged half the country into the dark and raised questions over its preparedness to host the 2016 Olympics.

NAIROBI (AFP) - A Kenyan wind power project aiming to be the biggest in sub-Saharan Africa suffered a setback Tuesday after talks with one of the key investors foundered, an official said.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Former Liberian President Charles Taylor clashed with a war crimes trial attorney Tuesday just minutes after she began cross examining him about his repeated denials of responsibility for atrocities by rebels during Sierra Leone's brutal civil war.

MOBILE, Alabama (Reuters) - Ida dwindled to a tropical depression on Tuesday after crawling ashore in Alabama from the Gulf of Mexico, and oil operations in the Gulf were returning to normal after being widely disrupted by the storm.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Energy major Reliance Industries has made its first oil find in a Gujarat block, boosting hopes the firm's oil and gas exploration business will help offset some of the weakness in the refining sector.

MUMBAI (AFP) - India's energy giant Reliance Industries said Tuesday it had struck oil in the Cambay basin in western India but it did not reveal the estimated size of the field.

AVELLA, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania landowner is suing an energy company for polluting his soil and water in an attempt to link a natural gas drilling technique with environmental contamination.

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian energy giant Gazprom, the world's biggest gas firm, said on Monday that net profit plunged 49.8 percent in the first half of 2009 compared to the figure 12 months earlier owing to higher expenses.