Oil prices traded mixed Thursday July 5, 2012 after China and the European Central Bank cut interest rates and Norway announced a lockout of unionized oil workers in a pensions dispute.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for August, finished at $87.22 a barrel, down 44 cents from Tuesday's closing level. The market was closed Wednesday for a public holiday.

In London trade, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in August added 93 cents to settle at $100.70 a barrel. Read more »

The Interior Department has not made any final decision to raise the royalty rate for oil and gas production on federal lands, the director of the department's Bureau of Land Management said Tuesday March 27, 2012.

Bureau Director Bob Abbey contradicted recent comments by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that the department planned to propose boosting the onshore royalty rate from 12.5 percent to 18.75 percent, equivalent to the offshore rate. Read more »

Wyoming is looking to get its fair share of royalty payments on natural gas that is burned off from oil wells while petroleum companies figure out how to exploit an oil-bearing formation deep beneath the eastern part of the state.

A public meeting in Casper on Monday November 7, 2011 will bring together staff of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and Office of State Lands and Investments to talk about the practice of flaring gas from oil wells on state land. Read more »

Ohio on Tuesday May 24, 2011 moved a step closer to opening its state parks to drilling for natural gas and oil.

Along party lines, the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee voted 12-7 to approve House Bill 133, which would open about 174,000 acres at Ohio's 75 state parks to drilling.

A full vote in the Republican-controlled House could come today Friday May 27, 2011.

Republicans on the committee rejected 16 attempts by the minority Democrats to limited drilling on state land or to add protections. Read more »