With the U.S. Senate set to debate offshore drilling this week, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida wants to make sure the upper house gets the last word.
The state’s senior senator filed legislation Monday that would forbid the Senate from negotiating with the U.S. House on drilling for oil and natural gas — a provision the [...]

Independent gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn objected to Republican Gov. Rick Perry’s plan to speed permits for 11 coal-fired plants and called today for stricter rules to fight pollution.
Strayhorn, the state comptroller, said she would order reviews of any permits issued for the plants and “slow the process to rewrite new rules that ensure clean [...]

Another major coal seam gas project is being developed in Queensland.
Origin Energy is to invest $114 million to double the size of its Spring Gully coal seam gas project north of Roma.
This will largely supply into the household, industry and electricity generation market.
But nearby Link Energy is developing coal seam gas which, in partnership with [...]

The FutureGen project, which aims to advance energy technology, is ready to narrow its field.
Ohio finds out today if it will remain among seven states vying to host a $1 billion project to demonstrate cleaner burning of coal to generate electricity.
The FutureGen project, to begin operating in 2012, is planned as a model for future [...]

Spot Australian thermal coal prices eased over the past week as oil receded from record-high levels, but were supported near recent highs by interest in spot cargoes from northern hemisphere buyers suffering a hot summer.
“On a short-term basis we’re seeing a clear correlation between thermal coal and oil given they represent alternatives in terms of [...]

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection heard arguments last night over whether a Massey Energy subsidiary should be allowed to build a second coal silo beside a Raleigh County elementary school.
Goals Coal’s plan to build a 168-foot-tall silo 260 feet from Marsh Fork Elementary School drew protests last year from parents and residents concerned [...]

Work to demolish bungalows close to an exposed mine shaft in Cumbria was beginning on Monday.
Householders had to flee their homes in Egremont when a former iron ore mine caved in a year ago.
Last week Copeland Borough Council granted permission for the properties to be bulldozed to allow engineers to cap the shaft and make [...]

The Department of Energy reports it will provide more than half of the funding for a $1 million MIT project aimed at helping oil and gas companies identify geologic ’sweet spots’ in low-permeability oil and gas reservoirs, optimizing the placement of wells.
The award is part of a larger initiative by the DOE aimed at [...]

Pengrowth Energy Trust, an investor in oil and gas resources in Canada, said it agreed to acquire Esprit Energy Trust to create a company with production capacity of 75,000 barrels of oil equivalent, or BOE, a day.
Pengrowth will acquire 18,350 BOE of current production through the transaction, it said in a statement distributed through the [...]

An oil-driven economic boom has made Angola the toast of the town in boardrooms from Houston to Beijing.
But on the outskirts of the African nation’s bustling capital of Luanda, the talk is not of a more prosperous future but rather of a stolen one.
Led by a collection of reformed Marxists and Western-leaning technocrats, Angola’s government [...]