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More oil, fewer rigs: how the U.S. became the world's top producer

Mar 5, 2024
New, more productive technology helped, along with pressure for profits.
U.S. oil production continues to break records, even though the number of active rigs has fallen by nearly 70% in the past decade.
George Rose/Getty Images

Are there signs of a slowdown for U.S. natural gas?

May 17, 2023
The number of U.S. rigs has dropped along with natural gas prices. Here's what that means for the "shale revolution."
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Strategic oil release comes with guaranteed buybacks, but will anyone do the drilling?

Oct 20, 2022
Oil companies have been hampered by labor and capital costs and $70 a barrel may not be enough to lure them.
The White House plans to buy oil to refill the strategic petroleum reserve at roughly $70 per barrel — a break-even point for most on-shore U.S. oil producers.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Crypto miners use natural gas "stranded" in wells to power energy-hungry rigs

Mar 25, 2022
Usually the gas is burned off at the well. Environmentalists say using it for mining incentivizes more drilling.
If natural gas from oil wells can't be used or sold, it's sometimes flared, as above, or vented into the air. Some cryptocurrency miners see it as a potential energy source.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The challenges of getting oil companies to decommission California's aging offshore oil rigs

Oct 7, 2021
While some lawmakers look to stop new drilling, the existing rigs are continuing to operate.
California brown pelicans fly near offshore oil rigs after sunset on July 21, 2009 near Santa Barbara, California. Shutting down California's offshore oil rigs could prove costly.
David McNew/Getty Images

Rising crude prices are kick-starting the Kansas oil industry back to life

Oct 8, 2018
Low oil prices hit the state's mostly small producers hard. As a barrel of oil goes up, the industry is hopeful profits will start flowing again.
Tom Casey, a supervisor at Express Oil Service, checks in with his workers.
Brian Grimmett/Kansas News Service

Trump moves to vastly expand offshore drilling off U.S. coasts

Jan 4, 2018
The new five-year drilling plan also could open new areas of oil and gas exploration in areas off the East Coast from Georgia to Maine, where drilling has been blocked for decades.
Night comes to oil and gas platforms near the Federal Ecological Reserve in the Santa Barbara Channel, Feb. 15, 2001, near Santa Barbara, California.
David McNew/Newsmakers

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Oil downturn takes men out of 'man camps'

May 12, 2015
Housing planned during North Dakota's oil boom is now short on occupants.