A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-invested in the business. The current year profit as well as the retained earnings of previous years are available for distribution; a corporation is usually prohibited from paying a dividend out of its capital. Distribution to shareholders may be in cash or, if the corporation has a dividend reinvestment plan, the amount can be paid by the issue of further shares or by share repurchase. In some cases, the distribution may be of assets.
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) is an oil transportation system spanning Alaska, including the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 12 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one of the world's largest pipeline systems. The core pipeline itself, which is commonly called the Alaska pipeline, trans-Alaska pipeline, or Alyeska pipeline,, is an 800-mile (1,287 km) long, 48-inch (1.22 m) diameter pipeline that conveys oil from Prudhoe Bay, on Alaska's North Slope, south to Valdez, on the shores of Prince William Sound in southcentral Alaska. The crude oil pipeline is privately owned by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company.
A royalty trust is a type of corporation, mostly in the United States or Canada, usually involved in oil and gas production or mining. However, unlike most corporations, its profits are not taxed at the corporate level provided a certain high percentage of profits are distributed to shareholders as dividends. The dividends are then taxed as personal income. This system, similar to real estate investment trusts, effectively avoids the double taxation of corporate income.
Marathon Petroleum Corporation is an American petroleum refining, marketing, and transportation company headquartered in Findlay, Ohio. The company was a wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Oil until a corporate spin-off in 2011.
An income trust is an investment that may hold equities, debt instruments, royalty interests or real properties. It is especially useful for financial requirements of institutional investors such as pension funds, and for investors such as retired individuals seeking yield. The main attraction of income trusts, in addition to certain tax preferences for some investors, is their stated goal of paying out consistent cash flows for investors, which is especially attractive when cash yields on bonds are low. Many investors are attracted by the fact that income trusts are not allowed to make forays into unrelated businesses; if a trust is in the oil and gas business, it cannot buy casinos or motion picture studios.
The Motley Fool is a private financial and investing advice company based in Alexandria, Virginia. It was founded in July 1993 by co-chairmen and brothers David Gardner and Tom Gardner, and Todd Etter and Erik Rydholm. The company employs over 300 people worldwide.
Anadarko Petroleum Corporation was a company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration. It was organized in Delaware and headquartered in two skyscrapers in The Woodlands, Texas: the Allison Tower and the Hackett Tower, both named after former CEOs of the company. In 2019, the company was acquired by Occidental Petroleum.
Prudhoe Bay Oil Field is a large oil field on Alaska's North Slope. It is the largest oil field in North America, covering 213,543 acres (86,418 ha) and originally contained approximately 25 billion barrels (4.0×109 m3) of oil. The amount of recoverable oil in the field is more than double that of the next largest field in the United States by acreage (the East Texas Oil Field), while the largest by reserves is the Permian Basin (North America). The field was operated by BP; partners were ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips until August 2019; when BP sold all its Alaska assets to Hilcorp.
The Prudhoe Bay oil spill was an oil spill that was discovered on March 2, 2006, at a pipeline owned by BP Exploration, Alaska (BPXA) in western Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Initial estimates of the five-day leak said that up to 267,000 US gallons (6,400 bbl) were spilled over 1.9 acres (7,700 m2), making it the largest oil spill on Alaska's north slope to date. Alaska's unified command ratified the volume of crude oil spilled as 212,252 US gallons (5,053.6 bbl) in March 2008. The spill originated from a 0.25-inch (0.64 cm) hole in a 34-inch (86 cm) diameter pipeline. The pipeline was decommissioned and later replaced with a 20-inch (51 cm) diameter pipeline with its own pipeline inspection gauge (pig) launch and recovery sites for easier inspection.
The Permian Basin Royalty Trust is a United States oil and natural gas royalty trust based in Dallas, Texas. With a market capitalization of US $790,000,000, and an average daily trading volume of about 186,000 shares at the end of 2007, it was one of the largest royalty trusts in the United States. Its source of revenue is oil and gas pumped from the geologic formation for which it is named, the Permian Basin in west Texas, as well as a few locations in other parts of the state.
Harvest Operations Corp. is a Canadian oil and natural gas company based in Calgary, Alberta. Unlike many oil and gas trusts, which consist only of production fields, Harvest had both "upstream" and "downstream" components. It operated as an open-ended investment trust in Canada, and was one of the equities known as "Canroys" – short for "Canadian royalty trusts." In 2009 the Korea National Oil Corporation made a buyout offer for Harvest, which was accepted, with shareholder approval. The trust was delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange in December 2009.
Pengrowth Energy Corporation was a Canadian oil and natural gas company based in Calgary, Alberta. Established in 1988 by Calgary entrepreneur James S Kinnear, it was one of the largest of the Canadian royalty trusts ("Canroys"), with a market capitalization of US$4.12 billion at the end of 2007. Its assets were approximately evenly distributed between oil and natural gas.
Obsidian Energy Ltd. is a mid-sized Canadian oil and natural gas production company based in Calgary, Alberta.
BP p.l.c. is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. It is one of the oil and gas "supermajors" and one of the world's largest companies measured by revenues and profits. It is a vertically integrated company operating in all areas of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and extraction, refining, distribution and marketing, power generation, and trading.
In corporate finance, Contingent Value Rights (CVR) are rights granted by an acquirer to a company’s shareholders, facilitating the transaction where some uncertainty is inherent. CVRs may be separately tradeable securities; they are occasionally acquired by specialized hedge funds.
The civil and criminal proceedings stemming from the explosion of Deepwater Horizon and the resulting massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began shortly after the April 20, 2010 incident and have continued since then. They have included an extensive claims settlement process for a guilty plea to criminal charges by BP, and an ongoing Clean Water Act lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and other parties.
Following is a timeline of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill for June 2010.
Western Canadian Select (WCS) is a heavy sour blend of crude oil that is one of North America's largest heavy crude oil streams and, historically, its cheapest. It was established in December 2004 as a new heavy oil stream by EnCana, Canadian Natural Resources, Petro-Canada and Talisman Energy. It is composed mostly of bitumen blended with sweet synthetic and condensate diluents and 21 existing streams of both conventional and unconventional Alberta heavy crude oils at the large Husky Midstream General Partnership terminal in Hardisty, Alberta. Western Canadian Select—the benchmark for heavy, acidic crudes—is one of many petroleum products from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin oil sands. Calgary-based Husky Energy, now a subsidiary of Cenovus, had joined the initial four founders in 2015.
Alaska v. Amerada Hess et al., officially known as State v. Amerada Hess et al. (1JU-77-877) was a 15-year-long civil lawsuit levied by the state of Alaska against 17 of the world's largest oil companies for underpayment of oil production royalties. The case was named after Amerada Hess, the first company in the alphabetical list of defendants. The case cost the state more than $100 million to prosecute, and all 17 companies settled out of court rather than face trial. The total settlements amounted to just over $600 million of the $902 million the state alleged had been underpaid. Additional settlements covering underpaid natural gas royalties and refining royalties amounted to another $400 million.
Diamondback Energy, Inc. is a company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration headquartered in Midland, Texas.
