Anadarko Petroleum Corp News

The Biden administration's auction of oil drilling rights in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico generated more than $190 million in high bids, bringing in more money for taxpayers than any government offshore lease sale since early 2019.The Department of Interior auction came days after the U.S. joined a global agreement that for the first time asked governments to accelerate emissions cuts by phasing down coal and fossil fuel subsidies.It was the first auction under President Joe Biden, whose administration paused drilling sales under a promise to end development on federal properties.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc is in talks to sell its assets in a Gulf of Mexico oilfield to Focus Oil to pay for its takeover of BG Group Plc, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with matter.The deal could value Shell's stake in the Caesar Tonga field at about $1.3 billion, the report said.Shell has a 22.5 percent working interest in Caesar Tonga, with the rest owned by companies including Anadarko Petroleum Corp, Equinor ASA and Chevron Corp, Bloomberg said, citing company filings.Shell and Focus Oil did not immediately respond to a request for comment.(Reporting by Sathvik N in B

U.S. oil prices edged up on Tuesday, rising back past $70 per barrel, after two Gulf of Mexico oil platforms were evacuated in preparation for a hurricane.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $70.04 per barrel at 0034 GMT, up 24 cents, or 0.3 percent from their last settlement.Anadarko Petroleum Corp said on Monday it had evacuated and shut production at two oil platforms in the northern Gulf of Mexico ahead of the approach of Gordon, which is expected to come ashore as a hurricane.International Brent crude futures…

Waves began to batter parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast on Tuesday as the region felt the first hit of Tropical Storm Gordon, which is expected to become a hurricane before it comes ashore with high winds and heavy rain, forecasters said.The storm also caused a jump in global oil prices after the evacuation of two oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.Gordon was due to come ashore late on Tuesday near the border between Louisiana and Mississippi, and drop as much as 12 inches (30 cm) of rain in areas still recovering from last year's hurricanes…

Anadarko Petroleum Corp on Tuesday beat analysts' estimate for quarterly profit, helped by improved crude oil prices and lower costs. Crude prices are recovering from the lows hit in 2016 after a global crude oil glut. The company cut its 2018 capital investment outlook to a range of$4.1 billion to $4.5 billion, from $4.2 billion to $4.6 billion it previously forecast. Total full-year sales volume outlook was cut to a range of 238-248 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMBOE) from 245-255 MMBOE.

President Donald Trump's administration has proposed opening up nearly all of America's offshore waters to oil and gas drilling, but the industry says it is mainly interested in one part of it, now cordoned off by the Pentagon: the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The industry's focus on an area located near a sprawling network of existing platforms, pipes and ports could ease the path to new reserves, and assuage the drilling opponents near other places offered under the Interior Department's proposed drilling plan issued last week, like California's Pacific, the Atlantic and Arctic. But accessing it would likely require the consent of the U.S. military.

Residents fleeing most powerful storm on U.S. mainland since 2005. Businesses closed and lines of cars streamed out of coastal Texas as officials called for residents to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Harvey, expected to arrive about midnight as the most powerful storm to hit the U.S. mainland in more than a decade. The hurricane is forecast to slam first near Corpus Christi, Texas, drop flooding rains along the central Texas coast and potentially loop back over the Gulf of Mexico before hitting Houston, some models showed. "My urgent message to my fellow Texans is that if you live in a region where evacuation has been ordered, you need to heed that advice and get out of harm's way while you can," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a televised address.

Hurricane Harvey intensified early on Friday into potentially the most powerful hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland in more than a decade, as authorities warned locals to shelter from what could be life-threatening winds and floods. Harvey is set to make landfall late Friday or early Saturday on the central Texas coast where Corpus Christi and Houston are home to some of the biggest U.S. refineries. Oil and gas operations have already been disrupted and gasoline prices have spiked. "Now is the time to urgently hide from the wind.

Major oil producers pushed up high bids at a Gulf of Mexico offshore auction to $121 million on Wednesday, a nearly seven-fold increase from a year ago, as their return to deep water exploration gained momentum. This compared with $18 million in high bids at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's (BOEM) Outer Continental Shelf auction last summer. Winners will be announced after a 90-day review. Some producers have signaled that they expect Gulf of Mexico projects to become more profitable now that they have trimmed operations to adapt to low oil prices.

Tropical Storm Cindy is likely to hit the Gulf Coast near the Texas-Louisiana border on Wednesday night, threatening to bring flash floods from Texas to Florida, according to the National Hurricane Center. Cindy was located about 165 miles (265 km) south of Morgan City, Louisiana, early on Wednesday with maximum sustained winds of 60 miles (95 km) per hour, the NHC said. The storm was moving northwest at nearly 8 miles (13 km) per hour, and forecasters said they expected this motion to continue until it hits the coast.

U.S. oil drilling has seen its best quarter since crude prices tumbled two years ago mainly due to small operators returning to the well pad, but analysts say the continued recovery in the rig count depends on whether OPEC's output reduction plan can bring the market back to $50 a barrel. Since May, drillers have added 100 oil rigs with the rig count rising to 416 rigs last week, that included the most additions in a quarter since the first quarter of 2014, according to oil service firm Baker Hughes Inc. The number of rigs had plunged from a record high of 1,609 in October 2014 to a low of 316 in May after crude prices collapsed in the biggest price rout in a generation, in part due to U.S. shale producers adding to a global oil glut.

U.S. energy firms this week cut oil rigs for an 11th week in a row to the lowest level since December 2009, data showed on Friday, as Exxon Mobil Corp and other producers slashed their drilling rig count to focus on uncompleted wells amid low oil prices. Drillers removed eight oil rigs in the week ended March 4, bringing the total rig count down to 392, oil services company Baker Hughes Inc said in its closely followed report. That compares with 922 oil rigs operating in the same week a year ago. In 2015, drillers cut on average 18 oil rigs per week for a total of 963 for the year, the biggest annual decline since at least 1988. Before this week, drillers cut on average 17 rigs per week so far this year.

An explosion and fire rocked the Ramsey natural gas plant in West Texas on Thursday, injuring at least two people and prompting evacuations, according to a company official and media reports.   Natural gas feeds were shut off at the facility in Orla, Texas, owned by Western Gas Partners LP, a unit of Anadarko Petroleum Corp.     (Reporting By Anna Driver and Terry Wade)

Business is so tough for oilfield giants Schlumberger NV and Halliburton Co that they have come up with a new sales pitch for crude producers halting work in the worst downturn in years. The moves by the world's No. 1 and No. 2 oil services companies show how they are scrambling to book sales of new technologies to customers short of cash after a 60 percent slide in crude to $45 a barrel. In some cases, they are willing to take on the role of traditional lenders, like banks, which have grown reluctant to lend since the price drop that began last summer, or act like producers by taking what are essentially stakes in wells. When its second-quarter net profit tumbled by more than half a billion dollars to just $54 million…

The U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) informs it has recently tested and verified the sound working condition of various response equipment used in the Gulf of Mexico region. Analysts with BSEE’s Oil Spill Preparedness Division boarded the pollution control vessel Louisiana Responder at Fort Jackson, La. on July 14 to test the response readiness of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. While conducting an equipment verification, the team witnessed the testing of a skimmer and other associated equipment, stored in Buras, La., on the Mississippi River.

Guyana's new government on Monday attacked a decree by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro which it said seeks to annex Guyanese maritime space in the wake of an oil discovery. The dispute between the South American neighbors goes back to the early 19th Century and has resurged after an offshore oil discovery by ExxonMobil Corp last month. The decree creates a theoretical new "defense" zone offshore that would, in Venezuela's eyes, leave the former British colony with no direct access to the Atlantic. "Guyana rejects this illegality which seeks to undermine our development through the exploitation of our natural resources offshore," added the statement.

ConocoPhillips Inc is weighing sale of some of its North Sea assets in Norway which may fetch as much as $1 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. The largest independent producer of oil and natural gas may sell assets that are operated by others including stakes in the Aasta Hansteen, Alvheim and Grane fields, Bloomberg said, citing the sources. (http://bloom.bg/1J7KJ8g). The company is also said to have contacted potential buyers, Bloomberg reported, citing a source familiar with the matter. ConocoPhillips said it does not comment on ongoing business development or commercial activities. Reuters last week reported that the company was preparing the sale of noncore oil and gas producing acreage in the United States…

BP Plc and Anadarko Petroleum Corp narrowly failed to persuade a U.S appeals court to reconsider its 2014 ruling that they could face civil fines under federal pollution laws over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. By a 7-6 vote, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals let stand a three-judge panel's decision to uphold a 2012 ruling from U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans, in which he said the companies could face Clean Water Act penalties. Barbier is scheduled on Jan. 20 to begin a non-jury trial to determine pollution fines. BP is appealing his Sept. 4 ruling that it was grossly negligent in causing the spill, exposing the London-based company to roughly $18 billion of potential fines.

More than a dozen U.S. oil producers have joined to lobby the federal government to reverse the 40-year-old ban on U.S. crude exports, a move that supporters hope would create jobs and boost national security, a spokesman for one of the companies and a lobbyist for another one said on Friday. Producers for American Crude Oil Exports, or PACE, is the first lobbying group to form on reversing the ban. "The end game here is legislative repeal of the ban," said a lobbyist for one of the member producers, who did not want to be named because the group was only recently formed. Congress passed the trade restriction in the 1970s after the Arab oil embargo caused fears of domestic oil shortages.

More than $30 billion will be invested initially in Mozambique's natural gas sector to build capacity to produce 20 million tonnes per year of liquefied natural gas (LNG), with the first exports due to start in 2018, the national oil company said. The investments will be made to develop the northern ports of Pemba and Palma, where a giant logistics base and LNG production plants are planned that will use gas produced from offshore fields in the Rovuma Basin being developed by U.S. oil major Anadarko Petroleum Corp and Italy's Eni. Mozambique, which still bears the scars of a 1975-1992 civil war, is hoping revenues from its large gas deposits and its fledgling coal mining industry will help it emerge from years of poverty and dependence on foreign donors.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has persuaded anti-fracking groups to scrap two ballot initiatives that would have curtailed oil and gas drilling, and news of the agreement on Monday lifted share prices of oil producers. Hickenlooper, in a televised news conference, said he had instead put together a task force with representatives from industry, environmental groups and local communities to set standards for the state's growing petroleum industry. This "will provide an alternative to ballot initiatives that…

Hong Kong-listed oil trader Brightoil Petroleum Holdings Ltd said on Wednesday it expects its upstream business to be the key long-term growth driver for the group following its acquisition of oil blocks in China's Bohai Bay. Chief financial officer Danny Tan was speaking at a media briefing on the company's strategy. Brightoil, which is involved in oil trading and also owns tankers and storage facilities, announced in February that it had agreed to buy Anadarko Petroleum Corp's stakes in two oil blocks in Bohai Bay off China's northeast coast for $1.08 billion in a major push into the upstream segment. Reporting by Charlie Zhu

Anadarko Petroleum Corp reported a big quarterly loss on Monday, compared with a year-earlier profit, as a previously announced $5.15 billion settlement related to Tronox Ltd litigation hurt results. Anadarko, based in Houston, lost $2.7 billion, or $5.30 per share in the first quarter, compared with a profit of $460 million, or 91 cents per share, in same quarter a year earlier. Adjusting for one-time items, Anadarko earned $1.26 per share. Wall Street analysts on average had expected $1.15 per share. Anadarko said its average oil and gas production rose 3.2 percent to a record 819,000 barrels oil equivalent per day (boed), boosted by output from wells in fields including the Eagle Ford in south Texas and the Wattenberg in Colorado.