Oil and Gas Watch

August 20, 2026

Hawai’i considers tsunami of natural gas with first LNG terminal

Clean energy advocates want the state to reduce its reliance on oil and are pushing for solar and wind. But a Japanese-based energy firm, JERA Americas, is proposing to move away from climate-friendly solutions with the proposed construction of Hawaii's first liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal to help meet rising power demand.

Brendan Gibbons

August 13, 2026

Conservation groups raise concerns about 520-mile gas pipeline from West Texas to Phoenix area

A natural gas pipeline planned from West Texas to the Phoenix area would cross sensitive conservation land in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona on its way to provide power for data centers and other large users in central Arizona. The pipeline is one of more than a dozen planned to relieve the industry’s natural gas bottleneck in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, where drilling for oil often also produces gas as a byproduct that must be burned or released.

Canadian governments propose 2,000-mile oil pipeline from Alberta to eastern refineries

In early July, the premiers of the Canadian Provinces of Alberta and Ontario proposed a massive new West-East oil pipeline that would transport up to 500,000 barrels per day of oil across the country for refineries to process into gasoline and other fuels. The pipeline, known as the Northern Shield Energy Corridor, would end in Sarnio, Ontario, just across the border from Michigan, north of Detroit, and help reduce Canada’s reliance on foreign markets during a time of increased hostility from the Trump Administration.

16 gas storage projects planned in salt caverns along Gulf Coast for LNG industry and data centers

Companies are planning a wave of 16 projects along the Gulf Coast to store natural gas underground in salt caverns to supply the growing number of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals and provide backup fuel for the booming data center industry. Building so many caves full of methane could lead to more leaks of a powerful greenhouse gas. Eight of the proposed storage caverns would be in Texas, five in Louisiana, and three in Mississippi.

Brendan Gibbons

Despite offshore risks, industry looks to Texas Gulf waters to dump carbon waste

With billions in taxpayer subsidies up for grabs, energy companies are looking to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico as a dumping ground for carbon dioxide, despite facing more expenses and greater risks of leaks and blowouts than burying the pollutant onshore. Companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Repsol have been scooping up hundreds of thousands of acres in the Gulf, including in state waters in Texas and Louisiana, for potential carbon waste injection sites. One recent study also contemplates burying pollution off the coasts of Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey.

Trump Administration proposes weakening pollution rules for the chemical plastics ‘recycling’ industry

If the proposal were implemented, pyrolysis units – which heat plastics waste at up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit – would no longer be categorized as incinerators under the Clean Air Act and would therefore not be required to meet limits for cancer-causing air pollution