Oil Workers

Colombian officials reported that 23 oil field workers were kidnapped Monday in the eastern state of Vichada, and said they believed leftist rebels were responsible. The Defense Ministry said in a statement that the workers were employed by a contractor of Canada-based Talisman Energy, and that they were seized while conducting oil exploration activities. Vichada Gov. Juan Carlos Avila told Caracol television that the leftist guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia, or FARC, were responsible for the kidnappings.

California's Monterey shale, which holds an estimated 15 billion barrels of oil, has been touted as crucial to the state's energy future and a boon to its economy. A study released Thursday tries to quantify the potential economic benefits. The study by USC and the Communications Institute, a Los Angeles think tank, estimates that development of the 1,750-square-mile formation in central California could generate half a million new jobs by 2015 and 2.8 million by 2020. Tapping the Monterey shale, which  holds an estimated two-thirds of the country's shale oil reserves, would probably require some combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, a practice opposed by many environmentalists worried about possible damage to land and water.

Colombian officials said Tuesday that government troops rescued 21 of 23 oil field workers who were kidnapped the day before by suspected leftist rebels in remote Vichada state. Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said the overnight military operation, code-named Minotaur, was greatly helped by a hostage who escaped shortly after the abduction and then provided information about others' whereabouts. The abduction took place near the village of Puerto Principe, about 450 miles east of Bogota, the capital.

The news of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's death this week was striking not because it came as a surprise. Rather it was because his death ignited a bitter debate over what the populist leader's lasting legacy will be at home and abroad. To his supporters, Chavez was a force for good who made them a priority, who established government programs to combat poverty and illiteracy. But to his critics, he was little more than an old-style Latin American caudillo , or strongman, who mismanaged the country's vast oil wealth and allowed inflation and crime to spiral out of control.

The Colombian government is trying to broker peace between striking oil workers and their Canadian employer after violent clashes between protesters and police forced the closure of the country's two most important oil fields. Toronto-based Pacific Rubiales Energy shut down its Rubiales and Quifa oil fields in eastern Meta state Tuesday night after clashes left several workers injured and company equipment damaged. The two fields produce an average of 225,000 barrels of crude a day, or about one-quarter of the 953,000 barrels in daily output the country averaged in August.

Faced with a government threat of mass dismissals, most of Brazil's 50,000 oil workers voted Friday to end a 31-day strike of the state oil monopoly Petrobras.

Kidnappers released four foreign oil workers seized June 3 in the restive south. Mediators released the Pakistani, British, French and Dutch citizens to security officials in Port Harcourt. More than 200 foreigners have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta since militants stepped up activities 18 months ago.

'This Well's Nearly Run Dry" (Heard on the Beat, Aug. 8) described a supposed "shortage" of technically trained people for the oil industry. The cause of this shortage was the loss of over 800,000 people in the industry blood bath of the late 1980s. In fact, no such shortage exists. More than enough people to fill any need could be drawn from the unemployed or underemployed among those 800,000 were it not for industry's reluctance to hire anyone over the age of 30. WILLIAM G. CARTER Westchester

Kidnappers who killed a U.S. oil worker last month agreed to a ransom offer shortly before a deadline to kill another captive, Ecuador's military chief said. Four of the remaining seven hostages are American. "The criminal group said it would not execute anyone else, and I understand they have reached some economic arrangement," said Vice Adm. Miguel Saona, adding that he did not know details of the ransom plan.

SACRAMENTO — California's largest oil company failed to warn employees of the dangers in an oil field where a worker was sucked underground and boiled to death last year, state authorities found — and then they fined the firm $350. The small regulatory penalty, levied after a first investigation cleared Chevron, has angered labor leaders and reignited a debate over the risks of the extraction technique that led to the worker's death. The method, in which a rush of steam heats the ground and loosens oil deposits, yields much of California's crude.

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve's latest report of regional economies paints a picture of a nation continuing to grow moderately, with car sales going strong, manufacturing adding to recent gains and the long-depressed housing market showing flickers of life. But throughout the county, many industries are feeling the pinch of higher oil prices, says the Fed's so-called beige book, released Wednesday. And some employers around the nation are having trouble finding qualified workers, especially to fill high-skilled jobs.

The Colombian government is trying to broker peace between striking oil workers and their Canadian employer after violent clashes between protesters and police forced the closure of the country's two most important oil fields. Toronto-based Pacific Rubiales Energy shut down its Rubiales and Quifa oil fields in eastern Meta state Tuesday night after clashes left several workers injured and company equipment damaged. The two fields produce an average of 225,000 barrels of crude a day, or about one-quarter of the 953,000 barrels in daily output the country averaged in August.

Thanks in part to dramatically improved security in recent years, Colombia has vaulted into the major leagues of global crude producers. Ironically, that same success may be driving a surge in violent crime against oil workers flooding into areas formerly considered off-limits to outsiders. About 130 companies are now looking for oil in the Colombian countryside, compared with a number that could have been counted on "the fingers of both hands" a few years ago, Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said this month.

Colombian officials said Tuesday that government troops rescued 21 of 23 oil field workers who were kidnapped the day before by suspected leftist rebels in remote Vichada state. Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said the overnight military operation, code-named Minotaur, was greatly helped by a hostage who escaped shortly after the abduction and then provided information about others' whereabouts. The abduction took place near the village of Puerto Principe, about 450 miles east of Bogota, the capital.

Colombian officials reported that 23 oil field workers were kidnapped Monday in the eastern state of Vichada, and said they believed leftist rebels were responsible. The Defense Ministry said in a statement that the workers were employed by a contractor of Canada-based Talisman Energy, and that they were seized while conducting oil exploration activities. Vichada Gov. Juan Carlos Avila told Caracol television that the leftist guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia, or FARC, were responsible for the kidnappings.

Moammar Kadafi retained his grip on the Libyan capital Saturday, blocking entry to Tripoli with tanks and clearing the streets of protesters, but the strongman found himself beset by challenges to his control in the west of the country, and even his airspace. In one of the most dramatic developments of the day, two British military aircraft daringly flew into the country to rescue 150 oil workers and others from the desert in eastern Libya, a region now held by anti-government forces, officials in London said.

In a dramatic rescue, a pair of British military planes plucked about 150 oil workers and others from the desert in eastern Libya and flew them out of the violence-torn country, officials here said Saturday. The two C-130 Hercules aircraft landed in the desert south of Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city, said Liam Fox, Britain's defense secretary. Waiting on the ground were workers and their dependents, including British and other foreign nationals, who were bundled aboard and taken to safety on the island nation of Malta in the Mediterranean.