Exploration Of Resources

In a possible breakthrough on energy, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled a compromise Friday that would preserve the oil-drilling ban off the West Coast while easing restrictions on exploration off the East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. The proposal also would provide billions to greatly expand the availability of vehicles powered by alternative fuels.

Exploratory oil wells drilled off Brazil's coastline indicate the presence of a vast pool of crude that could propel this nation into the top tier of world energy producers. The oil field highlighted last week by state-controlled oil company Petrobras lies in "ultra-deep" waters beneath an unstable layer of hot salt, presenting technological challenges that are sure to be ultra-high cost.

More than $1 trillion in annual investments to find new fossil fuels will be needed for the next two decades to avoid an energy crisis that could choke the global economy, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday. The warning from the Paris-based agency comes as major oil companies pull back investments amid the most severe economic downturn in a generation.

The federal government announced Wednesday that it would be taking the first major step to expand offshore oil drilling after a long-standing ban on new energy exploration off much of the U.S. coast expired last month. Officials with the U.S.

The Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday backed off from plans to auction more than a dozen leases to explore for oil and gas on the doorstep of several national parks, deflecting accusations by environmental groups that it was handing a "parting gift" to the energy industry before the Obama administration takes over. The agency still will proceed with more than 100 lease sales at a Dec. 19 auction.

HIGH above the serpentine valleys and vine-tangled trails of this mountainous refuge, runaway slaves could spot approaching bounty hunters and soldiers well in time to ambush all comers. Along secret paths flanked by steep limestone cliffs, the fiercely independent fugitives guided thousands of fresh escapees from the island's sugar plantations to safety with horn calls and drum beats familiar to the native Africans.

Almost a year after a massive flood of mud began, the Indonesian government is set to pay a share of the massive bill, pledging at least $275 million to repair the damage from the disaster that just won't stop. Thick muck has spewed over hundreds of families' homes as well as their rice fields, factories and roads since May, when a natural-gas drilling project went wrong in Sidoarjo, which, like Jakarta, the capital, is on the island of Java.

Fly overhead in a bush plane -- there are no roads between native villages -- and marvel: Eight giant rivers braid across hundreds of miles of wetlands, carving cobalt ribbons through snow-coned mountains before emptying into Bristol Bay. For more than a century, the wealth of this southwest Alaska watershed has sprung from the astonishing volume of salmon nurtured by those wild rivers.

On the heels of an expanded deal in Libya, Occidental Petroleum Corp. on Monday beefed up its holdings closer to home, agreeing to pay $1.55 billion for stakes in oil and natural gas projects in Colorado, New Mexico and West Texas. The agreement with Plains Exploration & Production Co. adds heft to Occidental's domestic operations, which account for two-thirds of the Westwood-based company's daily production and more than 70% of its reserves.

The Obama Interior Department is reviewing a decision made by the Bush administration in its final days that attempted to lock in lucrative royalty rates and favorable regulations for oil companies holding leases for oil-shale development on public lands. The decision, which came in the form of amendments to existing leases, drew little public notice at the end of the Bush administration in January. But since then, congressional watchdogs, environmental groups and state officials in Colorado, where most of the leases are located, have denounced the amendments as a massive giveaway to the oil industry.