Appeals Court Rejects Drilling Ban, Good News For Exxon (NYSE:XOM), ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP), Shell (LSE:RDSA), and BP (NYSE:BP)

The appeals court rejected the drilling ban on deep sea wells, this is good news for Exxon (NYSE:XOM), Conoco Phillips (NYSE:COP), Shell (LSE:RDSA), and BP (NYSE:BP). The Obama administration attempted to put into place a six month moratorium into place. This was decided by a three person panel in New Orleans federal court.

In the ruling, it said that the Interior Department did not prove that the government would suffer "irreparable injury" if the drilling ban was not put into place. The court also decided that it would be harmful and arbitrary where thousands of people depend upon energy companies for their livelihood.

The governments argument is that the moratorium is needed while the Obama administration develops new safety standards. With what has happened with BP being responsible for the worst oil spill in U.S. history, they want to ensure there is ample time to move in more emergency equipment to the Gulf region.

It is expected that the Interior Department will now rewrite the rules and issue a new moratorium. The current ban has stopped the drilling on 33 exploratory wells and put a halt on any new permits.

U.S Government Offers Energy Companies Testing Acreage for Oil Shale

With as much as 800 billion barrels of oil at stake, government officials have offered energy companies the chance to test whether oil shale production can be done profitably.

The states of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah are the focus of the initiative, where much of the oil shale is on public lands.

What the Bureau of Land Management is offering is plots no larger than 640 acres to test the process on, which entails heating the rocks to recover the oil.

As usual, radical environmental groups are threatening to sue if things go forward.

There are approximately 1.9 million acres relevant in the three states to the proposal.

Just this U.S. resource alone holds over 5 times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Warren Buffett Investing Heavily in ConocoPhillips

Regulatory filings show that Warren Buffett has been buying up shares of ConocoPhillips (COP) since the end of March. At that time Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) owned 17.5 million shares, while now they've acquired over 83 million shares.

That move by Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway make it the largest shareholder in Conoco at this time.

Other major investment managers have been making large share acquisitions of Conoco as well, including Chris Davis and Ken Feinberg's Davis New York Venture (NYVTX) fund. They believe investment in commodities will be a big part of increasing returns in the years ahead, even though they are temporarily out of favor.

"As developing nations add to worldwide incremental demand for commodities like oil and natural resources, we believe the long-term average price ranges for such resources could climb, notwithstanding the recent pullback in certain commodity prices. Consistent with our energy and natural resource-related investments to date, we will remain on the lookout for disciplined capital allocators who can generate attractive profits for shareholders given a stable price environment and windfall profits under more bullish scenarios."

For a good look at what differentiates ConocoPhillips from its competitors, Morningstar analyst Allen Good gives an indepth analysis of the company.