BHP Boosts Oil, Gas Exploration Spending Forecast 33% on Wells

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According to Bloomberg, because there is an increase in drilling in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and offshore Australia, the biggest oil and gas producer in Australia declared its forecast for petroleum exploration spending by 33 percent.
"BHP said in October it was on target for 10 percent annual growth in petroleum output in the year ending June 30." However, going with the increase in the prices of Crude Future is the environment concerned. After the Crude Oil is pulled from the ground it needs to be transported by truck, pipeline or super tanker. Using tanker trucks is the least efficient and has a greater environmental effect of the three methods of transportation. That’s when everything is going accident free, but that’s not how it always works out. There have been a handful of pipeline explosions over the past several years that resulted in the release of harmful emissions from burnt fuel and 100s of thousands of carbon based fuel spilt. These occurrences are the result of standard pipeline erosion as well as human intervention. Tanker spills are one of the most publicly noted environmental risks associated with oil production. The infamous Exxon Valdez tanker crash resulted in 10.8 million gallons of oil that was dumped into the ocean. Cleaning up an oil spill of this size is both expensive and time consuming. Although rare in occurrence, oil tanker spills have a devastating impact on the environment. Certain aspects of the oil industry will come and go with political favor. These changing trends will have significant implications on the crude market.