Gulf Of Mexico, Oil Drilling | featured news

A new oil sheen was spotted in the Gulf of Mexico, although energy company BP said Thursday the discovery had nothing to do with its operations and was far from the site of its disaster-hit Macondo well.

President Barack Obama will not be allowing new drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico for at least seven years, according to a senior administration official.

Months after the nation’s worst oil disaster, the Obama administration will lift its moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the White House announced Tuesday morning.

Energy companies in the Gulf of Mexico will have to permanently plug nearly 3,500 nonproducing wells and dismantle about 650 unused platforms, the Obama administration says.

BP Plc's ruptured Gulf of Mexico well that caused the biggest U.S. offshore oil spill ever could be killed for good within four days, the U.S. official overseeing the spill response said on Wednesday.

BP is set to begin drilling off Libya amid safety concerns over the Gulf of Mexico spill and accusations over the Lockerbie bomber.

BP said today its attempt to place a new cap on its ruptured undersea well was proceeding as planned. But while robots replace the old cap, crude is flowing freely.

The effort to place a massive containment dome over a gushing underwater wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico was dealt a setback when a large volume of hydrates -- icelike crystals that form when gas combines with water -- accumulated inside the vessel, a BP official said Saturday.

Sarah Palin, who popularized the "drill, baby, drill" slogan, continues to support drilling but targets blame for the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill at foreign companies.

BP Plc will clean up an oil spill from one of its wells in the Gulf of Mexico and compensate those affected, its chief executive said, accepting that the disaster could hit plans to open new areas off the U.S. coast to drilling.