WASHINGTON/HOUSTON (Reuters) – U.S. pipeline safety regulators on Tuesday said Exxon Mobil must make fixes to its ruptured Montana oil pipeline and submit a restart plan before oil can flow again.

The U.S. Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration also ordered the company to re-bury the pipeline segment and do a risk study where it crosses any waterway.

WASHINGTON/HOUSTON, July 5 (Reuters) – U.S. pipeline safety
regulators on Tuesday said Exxon Mobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) must make fixes
to its ruptured Montana oil pipeline and submit a restart plan
before oil can flow again.

The U.S. Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous
Materials Safety Administration also ordered the company to
re-bury the pipeline segment and do a risk study where it
crosses any waterway.

WASHINGTON, July 4 (Reuters) – The U.S. pipeline safety
regulator said on Monday it is investigating the leak at Exxon
Mobil’s (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Silvertip Pipeline in Montana that spilled
about 1,000 barrels of oil and that it had warned the company
before about problems with the pipeline.

“Inspectors are on site and have initiated an investigation
into the cause of failure,” said a spokeswoman with the
Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials
Safety Administration.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The government expects it will have no problems finding buyers for all 30 million barrels of oil it auctioned as part of a global effort to address high oil prices, an Obama administration official said on Thursday.

Oil buyers have expressed strong interest in the crude that the United States is selling from its emergency reserves, the U.S. Energy Department said, calling the oil sale “substantially oversubscribed.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Oil buyers have expressed strong interest in the oil that the United States plans to sell from its emergency reserves, the U.S. Energy Department said on Thursday, calling the oil sale “substantially oversubscribed.”

The Obama administration was slammed by the oil industry lobby for its decision last week to tap the reserves. The lobbyists said there was already plenty of oil supply in the United States.

WASHINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) – Almost a dozen oil
companies and trading firms took part in a call with government
officials on Tuesday to discuss details on the U.S. sale of
millions of barrels of oil from strategic stocks as part of a
global effort to drive down oil prices.

The Energy Department hosted the pre-bid call for the
planned sale of 30 million barrels of oil on Wednesday to
answer questions about a U.S. shipping law which normally
prevents foreign vessels from moving crude between U.S. ports.

WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) – The Obama administration on
Friday backtracked on its plan to make it easier for
foreign-based ships to move the millions of barrels of
emergency crude oil the government hopes to sell to ease
expected tight global supply.

Under the administration’s plans announced on Thursday to
sell 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve, the government said it would provide an automatic
waiver from the Jones Act, a federal law that prevents foreign
ships from transporting U.S. goods, including crude oil,
between American ports.

WASHINGTON, June 21 (Reuters) – The dream of making a green
motor fuel from switchgrass or wood chips got kicked down the
road for a few more years after the U.S. government on Tuesday
slashed its proposed mandate for next-generation biofuels.

For the second year in a row, the Environmental Protection
Agency cut the amount of cellulosic ethanol that must be mixed
into motor fuel.

WASHINGTON, June 21 (Reuters) – Oil refineries running at
the lowest capacity in nearly three decades years does not
indicate that U.S. refiners are manipulating prices for
gasoline and other products, an official with the International
Energy Agency said on Tuesday.

The Federal Trade Commission said on Monday it would
investigate, in part, whether U.S. refiners operating at about
82 percent of capacity in May, down around 7 percentage points
from a year earlier, was an attempt to limit petroleum supplies
in the market.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate is scheduled to hold another vote on Thursday on whether to wipeout billions of dollars in support for the U.S. ethanol industry, while also considering another measure blocking new funding to help gas stations sell more of the corn-based fuel.

The Senate will vote on an amendment to end the 45-cent-a-gallon subsidy the government gives refiners and the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol from Brazil and other countries.