Something’s cooking: Chef Ryan Andre of City Pork Brasserie and Bar on Jefferson Highway is among nine Louisiana chefs who will take a taste of the Bayou State to Texas later this month at an event in Austin. The Louisiana-Lone Star Restaurant Night will take place at several popular Austin restaurants on Tuesday. Andre will participate at Jacoby’s Restaurant & Mercantile. Other Louisiana chefs participating include Jeffrey Hansell of Oxlot 9 in Covington and John Martin of Tableau in New Orleans. Get complete event details.
One by one: Houston-based oilfield services company Baker Hughes Inc. says the number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. this week declined by 14 to 795. The rig count in Louisiana, meanwhile, fell by one to 65. It was the sixth consecutive week of declines nationally. A year ago, with oil prices about double the prices now, 1,930 rigs were active. Among the other major oil- and gas-producing states, Oklahoma lost six rigs, Texas declined by four and Kansas, North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania each dropped by one. Colorado gained one rig. The U.S. rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed at 488 in 1999.
Moving on: The House passed legislation authorizing widespread crude exports today, delivering a major victory to energy companies lobbying for the freedom to sell oil around the world. But FuelFix.com reports their success may be short-lived, because getting the trade policy change through the House was actually the easy part. The real test is in the narrowly divided Senate, where stand-alone export legislation is unlikely to advance and supporters are mulling an array of strategies—and potential deals—to advance their cause some other way. Read the full story.
