Oil Drilling, Offshore Drilling | featured news

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.

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.

The Texas attorney general sued the Obama administration on Wednesday over its new deepwater offshore drilling moratorium, claiming that it is unjustified and that federal officials did not contact the state before issuing the ban.

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.