Company: TotalFinaElf, S.A.

A small company that holds a federal lease to extract petroleum from oil shale reserves in western Colorado is taking a new approach to withdrawing crude oil from solid rock — one that it hopes will avoid groundwater contamination.

Chevron never bought into North America's natural gas boom the way Big Oil peers like Exxon did.

A look at this week's earnings from select oil companies:

Shares of oil companies mostly fell Monday as broader anxiety about the economy pulled down oil prices and other stocks.

A flare near Total's Elgin drilling platform has gone out, reducing the threat of explosion at a massive gas leak from a North Sea well, the company's chief executive said on Saturday.

France's Total is laying plans to extinguish a flare on its Elgin North Sea gas platform that is leaking explosive clouds of gas, including a helicopter water drop, fire-fighting vessels and pumping nitrogen to starve it of oxygen, Britain's energy ministry said.

France's Total signed a $2.3 billion deal with Chesapeake Energy and EnerVest that will see it expand its position in lucrative shale oil and gas basins in the United States.