Oil Production and Refining

Photo: Billboard gives thanks -- and advice -- to embattled BLM director

When you're a bureaucrat under fire, accused of being a tool of Big Oil, there's nothing like a big, wet kiss from your critics to let you know you're being watched -- closely. Particularly if that greeting takes the form of a giant billboard on I-70 in Golden, not far from the Bureau of Land Manage ... More >>

Drilling at Mesa Verde and Dinosaur National Monument: BLM boss backpedals after protests

The director of Colorado's Bureau of Land Management office seems to be engaged in an elaborate game of chicken over the past few months. On several occasions, Helen Hankins has announced plans to auction off oil and gas leases in environmentally sensitive areas, including tracts near Mesa Verde Nat ... More >>

Jared Polis, zombie killer, dispatches undead oil shale subsidies

Compared to the billions-a-day standard flow rate of tax dollars pouring into and out of Washington, $25 million amounts to scarcely more than chump change. But the passage of an amendment by Congressman Jared Polis yesterday, cutting that amount in oil shale subsidies, is a remarkable break with wh ... More >>

Ken Salazar wants more drilling, but industry won't oblige?

See, it's like this. Far from being the obstructionist tree-hugger his critics accuse him of being, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar really, really wants to drill, baby, drill, for oil and gas on federal lands and offshore. He wants to drill the hell out of the place. But the energy companies a ... More >>

Big Oil making big profits on declining production

​It's official: 2011 was a record-busting year in the oil industry, with the five largest companies -- BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Royal Dutch Shell -- reporting all-time-high profits of $137 billion. That's a 75 percent jump from the year before, even though the giants produc ... More >>

Drilled, Baby, Drilled: The strange battle to keep Big Oil from cheating

Fracking the North Fork: Paonia residents rally against drilling assault

​Thanks to the increasing push for more oil and gas drilling, communities once considered out of the fray are being drawn into the controversies over hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" -- even folks in the stunning North Fork Valley, an area better known for its organic farms, ranches operate ... More >>

Occupy Denver endorses Colorado American Indian Movement's indigenous proposal

Saturday had the potential for seeing a collision course of parades and protests: While the annual Columbus Day Parade was gearing up downtown, the anti-Columbus Day protesters were gathering outside the Capitol, right by Occupy Denver. And Occupy Denver was planning its own march through downtown a ... More >>

Fracking contamination "inconceivable," says John Hickenlooper -- but EPA disagrees

​Governor John Hickenlooper has walked a taut tightrope on energy issues since taking office, pushing for more natural gas drilling in a state already leading the region in drilling starts, while at the same time nudging the industry toward greater disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic ... More >>

Oil-shale plans could be derailed by ruling on Graham's penstemon, an endangered plant

Susan Meyer​William Blake saw heaven in a wildflower. The energy industry sees nothing but trouble. Last week, a federal judge in Denver ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision not to declare an obscure plant as endangered was "arbitrary and capricious" -- a ruling that could ... More >>

Ken Salazar to drill-baby-drill crowd: Stop whining and get cracking

Ken Salazar.​A year after being chastised for being too hasty in opening up offshore oil leases for exploration, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar was fielding questions from former colleagues in the Senate about why the administration isn't issuing more drilling permits to boost domestic ... More >>

Jared Polis and Diana DeGette try to tighten regulations on fracking -- again

"Gasland"​Representatives Diane DeGette and Jared Polis are taking another run at tightening federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing, a natural gas drilling technique also known as fracking. Introduced this week by the Colorado twosome and fellow Democratic rep Maurice Hinchey from New Yor ... More >>

Gas-drilling oversight bill killed by the House: What's the fracking point?

Gas well pads.​A bill that sought to increase the reporting process for water-quality complaints related to oil and gas drilling in Colorado died quietly at the statehouse yesterday, with Republican lawmakers insisting that the industry's use of hydraulic fracturing fluids, or "fracking," pose ... More >>

BP oil-spill report identifies a failure of management -- and regulators

​A chronic whine from oil and gas interests has to do with the glacial, foot-dragging pace of government. But a presidential commission report on the British Petroleum offshore well explosion that killed eleven people blasts the now-extinct Minerals Management Service for moving too quickly to ... More >>

Ken Salazar getting tough with BP: Too little too late?

New MMS head Michael Bromwich.​The naming of a former prosecutor to head the scandal-plagued Minerals Management Service, coupled with President Barack Obama's lackluster but occasionally pugnacious speech about making British Petroleum "pay" for the oil-slick disaster in the Gulf, suggests th ... More >>

Ken Salazar gets boiled in oil by Rolling Stone over BP disaster

"You're canceling my subscription?!"​The Obama administration's ever-shifting damage figures and containment strategies for the mess in the Gulf -- not to mention the ever-spewing oil -- have disenchanted many former admirers of the President. Now a scathing dive into the disaster in the lates ... More >>

Ken Salazar still in hot seat -- but with lots of company

"Bring me the head of Tony Heyward." ​Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is still getting roundly pummeled in the press over the Obama administration's response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. But there's increasing evidence that the administration is trying to shift the falte ... More >>

Ken Salazar under fire: Can he survive the spill?

All systems go, but which way? Out the door?​It was fairly predictable that Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar would emerge as the whipping-boy of conservative pundits over the Deepwater Horizon spill. What better symbol of the alleged impotence of the Obama administration than a cowboy-ha ... More >>

Ken Salazar fumes, hair booms nixed: Gulf spill update

Department of the InteriorSituation hairy: The Deepwater Horizon rig, before it sank. ​As oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster begins to stain shorelines along the Gulf Coast, beauticians across the nation are learning that one of the more feel-good (and dubious) solutions proposed in recen ... More >>

Ken Salazar: Lessons on the Gulf spill from Denver's own "toxic horror"

Photo by Alan PrendergastWhite-tailed deer cross a road at the Rocky Mountain National Wildlife Refuge.​Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has been spending a lot of time on the Gulf Coast lately, dealing with the noxious plumes (environmental and political) spewing from the Deepwater Horiz ... More >>

Ken Salazar taps "recovery czar" Chris Henderson to fix MMS

The New RepublicDrill, baby, drill: Just what does additional offshore drilling add to the mix?​In the wake of the worst American offshore oil disaster in decades, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is scrambling on several fronts to address the perception that his administration has been m ... More >>

Ken Salazar is spinning the Deepwater Horizon debacle

Michael Brown does a heckuva job explaining the oil-spill conspiracy

Michael Brown on White House ripping him over Obama oil-spill comments on Fox News

Brownie with Bushie.​Earlier this week, we told you about a debate between former FEMA head turned KOA talk-show host Michael Brown and David Sirota, the AM 760 morning guy, over comments Brown had made to Fox News' Neil Cavuto about the Obama administration's response to the oil spill off the ... More >>

Ken Salazar's role in BP disaster: More spin than reform?

Department of the InteriorThe explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig still hasn't been explained.​The finger-pointing over the massive oil slick threatening the Gulf Coast is spreading almost as fast as the spill itself. While critics on the right chortle over Department of the Interior c ... More >>

Ken Salazar: Oil spill gets sludge on his shiny green suit

Department of the InteriorThe fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon.​It's too soon to start putting a figure on the damage -- to marine life, tourism, fishing industries and more -- from the 600-square-mile oil slick oozing onto the Gulf Coast today. And it's too early in the investigation to know ... More >>

Salazar moves forward -- and backward -- on oil shale leases

​For decades, energy companies and the federal government have tinkered with ways of trying to extract the vast hydrocarbon fuel reserves buried in rock in western Colorado and eastern Utah. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar still has lots of questions about the process -- whether the curr ... More >>

Ken Salazar takes a step forward by booting Interior's royalties program

Kid Hum's 'Fossil Fuels' turn into 'Offshore Drilling'

Back in December we lauded Colorado producer Kid Hum's solo instrumental album, Fossil Fuel, which he offered for free download. Apparently a lot of rappers felt inspired to possibly spit a rhyme or two over those instrumentals. With a blessing from Kid Hum, Khal of rockthedub.com proceeded to gathe ... More >>

Tonight at the Wynkoop: Author Andrew Nikiforuk reveals Canada's dirty oil secrets

Most Americans probably don't know that Canada has replaced Saudi Arabia as our primary source of imported oil. And fewer still have any idea that much of the Canadian oil, refined into gasoline at places like Suncor Energy's plant in Commerce City, is some of the nastiest stuff on earth, obtained ... More >>

Ken Salazar wants windmills in the ocean, but first he'll have to save the Interior Department

Wake-Up Call: Nathan Ybanez gets his week in court

By June of 1998, sixteen-year-old Nathan Ybanez couldn't take it any more. So he called his friend, seventeen-year-old Eric Jensen, to get him out of the house. And he got out, all right: In separate trials, both boys were convicted of the murder of Julie Ybanez, as detailed in Luke Turf's "Headed ... More >>

Environmental group rips Obama's choice of Ken Salazar as Interior Secretary

Local coverage of Barack Obama's selection of Colorado Senator Ken Salazar as the next Secretary of the Interior has mostly been rah-rah, sis-boom-bah. Take the Denver Post editorial "Salazar a Wise Choice for West, Nation." But as noted in a National Public Radio story, assorted environmental gro ... More >>

The week ahead: elections and energy

Sleaze, sex, cocaine -- and oh yeah, billions in lost revenues -- at Bush's Interior

Former Denver Post columnist Diane Carman shows her partisanship

Oil Shale Rush Is Déjà Vu All Over Again

The Roan Plateau: A Guide for the Perplexed

Fighting Mad

Tycoon Jack Grynberg says the energy industry has stolen millions from him -- and billions from the government. What if he's right?

Slow Go on the Plateau

Shark Bites

JAWS Unleashed is as sloppy as it is gory.

Duke of Oil

He took on big energy companies and won. So why did the feds fire him?

Grafton

Tuesday, August 30, Larimer Lounge, 303-291-6000.

Raiding the Roan

Rich in wildlife and natural resources, the Roan Plateau survived the last energy boom. Will this one destroy it?

Gas Pains

Drilling for natural gas on the Western Slope has punched holes in some residents' dreams of solitude. Others see it as the way of the West.