API President and CEO Jack Gerard is testifying today at the House Natural Resources Committee's hearing on the nation's Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and natural gas strategy and the implications of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy.

Click the image below to view C-SPAN's live coverage of the hearing. It is expected to begin at 10:00 a.m. EST. Tune in around noon to watch Jack Gerard discuss issues surrounding the tragic accident.

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Image Source: C-Span

BP has received permission to launch the "top kill" procedure on the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico. This means engineers can begin pumping heavy drilling fluids into the blowout preventer (BOP) and the wellbore in hopes of stopping the oil leaks.

When the top kill is deployed, major changes will be seen in the live video feed of the oil and natural gas flowing from the broken riser. As the drilling fluids are pumped through hoses into the BOP, some of the fluids--also called muds--are likely to come from the riser along with the oil and gas. If the fluids can be pumped fast enough into the BOP--at a rate of 40 or 50 barrels per minute--a large amount of fluid should be forced down into the wellbore, which could plug the well by counteracting the underground pressure that is forcing oi... more »

A new Penn State study says the development of clean-burning natural gas in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale formation could create 212,000 new jobs during the next 10 years and generate more than $1.8 billion in state and local tax revenues during the next 18 months.

These are among the key findings released this week in an update to Penn State's initial jobs and economic impact study issued last July.

The study's authors say that increased exploration activities during the next decade are expected to bring online an additional 13.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day--nearly seven times the amount that Pennsylvanians currently use on a daily basis.

The authors also suggest that in the long term, Marcellus could "be the second largest natural gas field in the world" if fully developed--... more »

In effort to provide more information about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and related issues such as industry safety and deepwater drilling, API has developed a number of comprehensive briefing papers.

These documents are available on Energy Tomorrow's Scribd account within the "Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill" Collection. They include a variety of topics: "Industry Safety and Environmental Performance" and "Impacts of Increased Liability Limits on Operations," among others.

In coming days, API plans to update the collection with additional documents as the response progresses. We hope you find these informative and useful.

Also, using Scribd's "Share & Embed" button, you can share these documents with friends on a number of social media sites including Twitter and Facebook, or embed the docume... more »

BP CEO Tony Hayward yesterday told reporters he is "devastated" that oil from the Macondo well has reached the Gulf shoreline.

"We are doing everything in our power to respond in the right way," he added.

BP officials also briefed the U.S. Department of the Interior on the initial findings of its review into the causes of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. In a news release, the company explained that it has not reached "final conclusions," but it has identified issues that need further investigation.

Despite redundant control procedures and equipment that should have prevented the explosions and fire and reduced the oil spill, questions have emerged about:

1. The cement that seals the reservoir from the well.
2. The casing system which seals the well bore.
3. The pressure tests to confirm the well i... more »