Fossil Fuel News

Halliburton, the oil services company that agreed to plead guilty of destroying evidence related to the 2010 BP spill, has also been contacted about antitrust concerns surrounding the company's dominant position in the pressure pumping market central to the practice of fracking. 

The company "signed a cooperation and guilty plea agreement," will pay the maximum fine of $200,000, and undergo three years of probation. 

Halliburton was the oil services company that oversaw the cement pouring while the Macondo well was drilled. The well malfunctioned on April 20, 2010, causing an uncontrolled blowout on the Deepwater Horizon rig and an explosion that killed 11 people and caused the largest oil spill in U.S. history. [Reuters]

A Canadian oil company is still unable to stop a series of leaks at a tar sands operation in Alberta. The leaks have contaminated a vast area of boreal forest and killed birds, mammals and amphibians. [Wall Street Journal]

Even though a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary gets business transporting coal via rail, Warren Buffet predicted that coal use in the U.S. will decline. [Businessweek]