FORT WORTH, Texas - Union Drilling Inc. said Friday executive vice president of operations J. Michael Poole resigned for personal reasons.
Poole, 46, leaves next Tuesday.
President and chief executive Christopher Strong will take over Poole’s duties while a search for a new vice president continues.
Shares of the natural gas drilling contractor gained 20 cents to close [...]

PORTLAND, Ore. - PacifiCorp said it is cutting construction plans for coal plants in half, but opponents are not satisfied.
PacifiCorp has been under pressure from watchdog groups and Oregon state regulators who oppose the company’s plans to build four coal plants.
And a block [...]

At least 14 people were today trapped after a gas explosion in a coal mine owned by the armed forces in northwest China, an official said.
The incident occured in a coal mine located at Dianchanggou township in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region after a gas explosion shook the mine, leaving 14 people trapped underground, Huang Guoqiang, [...]

In the portfolio of possibilities for the development of Alaska energy resources, coal gasification has taken a prominent position in the past year.
In November 2005 Agrium announced its Blue Sky project, to use coal gasification as an alternative to natural gas to feed its fertilizer plant at Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula — in August [...]

Hyundai Steel Co. , South Korea’s second-largest steelmaker, signed an agreement to buy iron ore and coal from Cia. Vale do Rio Doce and Rio Tinto Group as it begins construction today on a $5.5 billion expansion.
The steelmaker may buy as much as 5 million metric tons of iron ore a year from both Brazil’s [...]

LOCAL conservationists have mounted a campaign to pressure the government against the reissuing of a prospecting licence for bauxite mining in the Cockpit Country, which is believed to be one of the richest sites of biological diversity locally.
The Cockpit Country Stakeholders group, which includes the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET), the Southern Trelawny Environmental Agency (STEA) [...]

Japan, dependent on imports for 99 percent of its oil and gas, may turn to Iraq and Indonesia after it lost control of Iran’s biggest untapped field.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government promised this week to invest in Iraq’s shattered energy industry in the hope that Japan will be able to tap the world’s third-largest [...]

Goro Nickel, acquired by Brazil’s Cia. Vale do Rio Doce this week, expects to deliver a revised budget for its $2.15 billion nickel project in New Caledonia on schedule by the end of the year.
A general strike, now in its fifth week, by the 2,000- strong New Caledonian Confederated Union of Workers has had only [...]

Chinese conglomerate CITIC Group has agreed to pay 1.9 billion dollars for Canada-based Nations Energy’s oil assets in Kazakhstan, the companies said.
State-controlled China International Trust and Investment Corp has so far only had limited exposure to the oil business, but the Kazakhstan foray could potentially prove a lucrative deal for the sprawling group, observers said.
“It’s [...]

Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday said earnings rose 6 percent to $10.5 billion, the second-largest quarterly operating profit ever by a U.S. company, boosted by strong oil production as crude prices hovered near record levels.
The better-than-expected third-quarter profit pushed the company’s shares to an all-time high of $72.33 on Thursday morning, before they retreated to [...]