Yesterday, oil was back up on a weaker dollar.

Crude oil futures gained $1.66 to settle at $114.53 a barrel on the Nymex. The euro, meanwhile, inched up 0.1% against the buck, off a six-month low of $1.4630.

Energy and oil expert Byron King says investors can expect oil to continue to head northward for all the familiar reasons. Oil’s long-term fundamentals are little changed since hit spiked to $147 a barrel at the end of July. And you can now pick up resource plays in 2008 at 2005 prices…

With oil down more than 20% from its record high, Canadian energy stocks have been beaten down to more affordable levels. But as concerns over demand and refining margins grow, it can be hard to determine which Canadian energy stocks are still viable profit plays.

Strong oil exports helped to boost Canada’s trade surplus in June. The trade surplus increased to $5.4 billion (C$5.8 billion) from $4.8 billion (C$5.2 billion) in May, the national statistics office announced earlier this week. But a large part of that increase was due to higher prices, not higher volumes. Oil reached a record of $147 per barrel on July 11. Since then, oil has dropped to below $115 a barrel.

The drop in oil prices coupled…

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his fellow central bank policymakers will be back in the spotlight this week as the group convenes for its monthly monetary-policy meeting.

If you’re a global investor looking for global profits – including one potential way to double your money – you need to “Hit the BRICs.”

Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Royal Dutch Shell PLC (ADR: RDS.A, RDS.B) announced record quarterly income of more than $10 billion yesterday (Thursday).  But continued production problems and declining output caused both companies to miss analyst expectations, and concerns about reduced U.S. consumer demand weighed on shares.Exxon Mobil reported that second-quarter income rose 14% to $11.68 billion, marking the highest one-quarter earnings level ever for a U.S. company. The profit, which amounted to $2.22 per share, was up from $10.26 billion, or $1.83 per share, for the same period last year.

Meanwhile, Royal Dutch Shell also was able to breakthrough the $10 billion level when it reported second-quarter income increased 33% from $8.67 billion to $11.56 billion.

On July 11, oil futures…

For most of the last decade the government has trumpeted its economic record. Growth was steady. Prices were stable. Employment was rising. But there was a big problem. At first, the government thought it had solved it. In fact, all it did was bury the problem under a big pile of taxpayers’ money. Now the public finances are screwed up. The government can no longer afford to keep this problem under control. It’s about to hit the economy with a vengeance.

Chevron Corp. (CVX) – the No. 2 U.S. oil company and the most-recent topic of Money Morning’s new “Buy, Sell or Hold” feature – said that a hurricane-induced evacuation of its personnel from the Gulf of Mexico should not hamper production.

Canadian Solar Shines; Battle of the Trash Barons; Run on IndyMac; Bush Lifts Drilling Ban; New iPhone Sells 1 Million Units; Middle Eastern Airlines Dominate Airshow; Russian Oil Producers Miss Targets; Shell Buys Canada’s Duvernay

In this essay, originally published by The Western Standard on July 4, Pierre Lemieux explores the idea of America as a “beacon of liberty” – what that means and how it is represented in the current socioeconomic climate of America…

Iraq has officially opened the door for foreign oil companies to invest in the country’s rich energy sector for the first time in more than 30 years.Thirty-five foreign oil majors have been invited to bid for contracts to provide technical support and help boost production in eight oil and natural gas fields.

The contracts will be awarded in 2009, as Iraq’s oil minister, Hussein Shahristani, hopes to increase production by 2 million barrels of crude oil per day by 2013.