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oil
Trump Admin Quietly Approves Massive Crude Oil Expansion Project
"This thinly analyzed decision threatens the lifeblood of the American Southwest," said one environmental attorney.
Jul 04, 2025
The Trump administration has quietly fast-tracked a massive oil expansion project that environmentalists and Democratic lawmakers warned could have a destructive impact on local communities and the climate.
As reported recently by the Oil and Gas Journal, the plan "involves expanding the Wildcat Loadout Facility, a key transfer point for moving Uinta basin crude oil to rail lines that transport it to refineries along the Gulf Coast."
The goal of the plan is to transfer an additional 70,000 barrels of oil per day from the Wildcat Loadout Facility, which is located in Utah, down to the Gulf Coast refineries via a route that runs along the Colorado River. Controversially, the Trump administration is also plowing ahead with the project by invoking emergency powers to address energy shortages despite the fact that the United States for the last couple of years has been producing record levels of domestic oil.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) issued a joint statement condemning the Trump administration's push to approve the project while rushing through environmental impact reviews.
"The Bureau of Land Management's decision to fast-track the Wildcat Loadout expansion—a project that would transport an additional 70,000 barrels of crude oil on train tracks along the Colorado River—using emergency procedures is profoundly flawed," the Colorado Democrats said. "These procedures give the agency just 14 days to complete an environmental review—with no opportunity for public input or administrative appeal—despite the project's clear risks to Colorado. There is no credible energy emergency to justify bypassing public involvement and environmental safeguards. The United States is currently producing more oil and gas than any country in the world."
On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management announced the completion of its accelerated environmental review of the project, drawing condemnation from climate advocates.
Wendy Park, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, described the administration's rush to approve the project as "pure hubris," especially given its "refusal to hear community concerns about oil spill risks." She added that "this fast-tracked review breezed past vital protections for clean air, public safety and endangered species."
Landon Newell, staff attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, accused the Trump administration of manufacturing an energy emergency to justify plans that could have a dire impact on local habitats.
"This thinly analyzed decision threatens the lifeblood of the American Southwest by authorizing the transport of more than 1 billion gallons annually of additional oil on railcars traveling alongside the Colorado River," he said. "Any derailment and oil spill would have a devastating impact on the Colorado River and the communities and ecosystems that rely upon it."
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In the Caribbean, the Trump Admin Is Implementing a Dangerous Geopolitics of Oil
The new U.S. goal is to lock the region into permanent reliance on fossil fuels, only now under a network of energy-rich countries overseen by the United States.
Apr 11, 2025
The Trump administration is organizing a network of energy-producing states in the Caribbean to provide the region with a steady supply of fossil fuels, despite the environmental risks.
Hoping to sideline Venezuela, the oil-rich country that once provided the Caribbean with affordable supplies of oil, the Trump administration is working to position other oil-rich countries as the region’s primary suppliers of energy. Administration officials are particularly focused on Guyana and Suriname, two oil-rich countries that they hope the region’s leaders will embrace as alternatives to Venezuela.
“The fact that now their own countries—Guyana, Suriname—are able to have and really surpass Venezuela in its oil production and be able to work with its neighbors there in the region is a huge opportunity for the Caribbean,” U.S. Special Envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone said at a March 25 press briefing.
The Geopolitics of Oil in the Caribbean
Over the past two decades, the United States has engaged in a major rivalry with Venezuela for influence in the Caribbean. The U.S.-Venezuela rivalry has centered on oil, a fossil fuel that many Caribbean nations import to meet their energy needs.
Early in the 21st century, Venezuela took advantage of its vast oil reserves to become a major supplier of oil for the Caribbean. Under a program called Petrocaribe, Venezuela shared its oil wealth by providing Caribbean countries with shipments at low rates.
Many Caribbean countries embraced Petrocaribe. Not only did the Venezuelan program enable them to meet their energy needs, but it empowered them to begin developing their economies more independently of the United States, which has long been the dominant power in the region.
Rather than fully embracing environmentally friendly alternatives to Petrocaribe, however, U.S. officials quietly engaged in a geopolitical game over oil.
For many years, the United States failed to offer alternatives to Petrocaribe. While Venezuela emerged as a powerful counterweight to U.S. power in the Caribbean, officials in Washington faced the possibility that formerly dependent countries would break free from the U.S. orbit.
With its influence waning, the United States eventually developed its own energy program. In 2014, the Obama administration introduced the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative, which offered Caribbean countries technical assistance, financing for energy projects, and political support for regional energy planning.
U.S. officials presented the initiative as a way of bringing clean energy to the Caribbean. The program, they said, would empower Caribbean countries to transition away from fossil fuels and reduce their dependence on oil imports.
“You, the countries of the Caribbean, have a chance at the supply of energy that’s more resilient, more sustainable, cleaner, more affordable than you have ever, ever had,” Joe Biden told Caribbean leaders in 2015, when he was vice president in the Obama administration.
Rather than fully embracing environmentally friendly alternatives to Petrocaribe, however, U.S. officials quietly engaged in a geopolitical game over oil. Believing that the United States could outmatch Venezuela on fossil fuels, they set out to find ways of achieving regional dominance in oil and natural gas.
One tactic was to promote U.S. fossil fuel exports to the Caribbean. “We have more oil and gas rigs running in the United States than all the rest of the world combined,” Biden boasted in 2015, when he was promoting the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative.
Another tactic focused on finding new sources of fossil fuels in the Caribbean. Several U.S. officials developed high hopes for Guyana, a South American country with large offshore oil deposits. In 2015, ExxonMobil announced significant discoveries, raising expectations that the country would become one of the region’s largest suppliers of oil.
As U.S. officials pushed alternative sources of fossil fuels, they also sought to end Venezuelan influence altogether. Acting consistently with the long history of U.S. coups and interventions in Latin America, the United States sought to bring down the Venezuelan government.
The first Trump administration made some of the most audacious moves, openly embracing regime change. From 2017 to 2019, it imposed severe sanctions on the country’s finances and oil industry to facilitate the collapse of the Venezuelan government.
Although the Venezuelan government survived the challenges, which continued into the Biden administration, the country experienced an unprecedented economic collapse. With its oil industry in decline and under restrictions by U.S. sanctions, Venezuela could no longer maintain Petrocaribe, diminishing its efforts to be a major supplier of oil for the Caribbean.
Trump Administration’s New Approach
Since the second Trump administration entered office in January, it has faced a new power dynamic in the Caribbean. With Venezuela having undergone one of the worst economic collapses for a country not at war, including a major decline in its oil industry, the administration finds itself in a position to restore U.S. supremacy in the Caribbean.
Moving to take advantage of the situation, the Trump administration has added a new dimension to the geopolitics of oil. Hoping to permanently sideline Venezuela and exclude it from the Caribbean altogether, it has begun to create a network of oil-producing countries that will provide the region with oil under U.S. direction.
“This is an opportunity,” Claver-Carone said at the March 25 press briefing. Caribbean countries “are going to be able to support each other, to be able to create an energy security framework, which has already changed the geopolitics of the region.”
Administration officials are trying to create a security agreement with Guyana that will provide the country with the same kinds of military protections that the United States extends to its energy-rich partners in the Middle East.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has made several moves in pursuit of its goals. On March 24, President Trump issued an executive order that threatened to impose a tariff of 25% on any country that imports oil from Venezuela. Trump’s order put strong pressure on Caribbean leaders who have been hoping to revive Petrocaribe.
Second, the Trump administration has organized U.S. diplomatic visits to Caribbean nations. At the end of March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Guyana and Suriname, where he praised their leaders for embracing oil production and encouraged them to work together in a new network under U.S. leadership.
Surinamese President Chandrikapersad Santokhi said that he anticipated that Guyana and Suriname “will become important partners for the Caribbean and the Western Hemisphere.”
Still, Venezuela remains in a position to challenge the United States. It is continuing to produce more oil than Guyana and Suriname combined, enabling it to maintain some exports to countries in the Caribbean. It is also claiming sovereignty over Essequibo, the western part of Guyana that includes the country’s offshore oil deposits.
The Trump administration has responded aggressively to Venezuela’s territorial claims, signaling that the U.S. military will intervene if Venezuela attempts to seize any of Guyana’s territory. Administration officials are trying to create a security agreement with Guyana that will provide the country with the same kinds of military protections that the United States extends to its energy-rich partners in the Middle East.
Claver-Carone envisioned “a greater security cooperation agreement with Guyana—almost akin to what we’re working on with some of the Gulf states.”
The Trump administration’s strategy marks a major turning point for the Caribbean. Whereas the United States had once presented the region with options for shifting away from fossil fuels, it has now abandoned that approach. The new U.S. goal is to lock the region into permanent reliance on fossil fuels, only now under a network of energy-rich countries overseen by the United States.
What the Trump administration is doing, in other words, is implementing a far more dangerous geopolitics of oil. As it moves to isolate Venezuela, it is pushing energy-dependent nations to embrace fossil fuels, regardless of the environmental consequences for the region and the world.
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At Least 32 Casualties in Fiery North Sea Collision Between Oil Tanker and Cargo Ship
Advocates expressed concern for wildlife as emergency crews completed rescue and firefighting efforts.
Mar 10, 2025
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
British emergency workers on Monday were responding to a collision between an oil tanker and a cargo ship off the eastern coast of the United Kingdom in the North Sea.
At least 32 casualties were "brought ashore in Grimsby," a port town in Lincolnshire, reported The Guardian, and the two ships were believed to be a U.S.-flagged tanker called the MV Stena Immaculate and a cargo vessel called the Solong, which was headed for Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Photos and videos posted on social media showed the vessels on fire and surrounded by thick black smoke.
The oil tanker collision in the north sea is really significant - major damage to both ships Seems like a cargo tanker just flat-out rammed at full speed into the side of the stationary (www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRPj...) 49,7629 tonne capacity on the oil ship (!) www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03...
[image or embed]
— Ketan Joshi (@ketanjoshi.co) March 10, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Martyn Boyers, chief executive of the Port of Gimsby East, told the BBC that a "massive fireball" was seen erupting around the time of the collision.
"They must have sent a mayday out—luckily there was a crew transfer vessel out there already," said Boyers. "Since then there has been a flotilla of ambulances to pick up anyone they can find."
Boyers told Sky News that "a haze and a smog" had been reported off the coast on Monday.
"It's been very foggy, and the fog has never lifted. So I would imagine that at that time, when the accident took place, that there would have been fog," said Boyers. "Having said that all these vessels now... they've got every, every bit of kit that's known to man about how to navigate and radars and everything. So it's a very, very unusual and tragic accident."
His Majesty's Coastguard, the U.K. maritime agency, reported that an alarm was raised about the crash about 10 miles off the coast of East Yorkshire at 9:48 am local time.
The Solong appeared to have struck the oil tanker when it was anchored, according to tracking data.
The BBC reported Monday morning that all members of the Stena Immaculate crew had been accounted for and were safe; it was not clear whether there were still people in the Solong's crew who still needed to be located.
Climate campaigners have warned against continued oil extraction in the North Sea; in January, advocates celebrated as grassroots campaigners and groups won a lawsuit stopping two fossil fuel projects by Shell and Equinor from moving forward there.
David Steel, manager of the Isle of May National Nature Reserve, noted that the disaster happened just as seabirds' breeding season is about to begin.
"Seabirds pouring back into the North Sea as they head to colonies down east coast," said Steel, "and this is a breaking headline we didn't need today."
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