On two separate trips this month, API has paid for seven bloggers to travel to Houston, Corpus Christi and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico to learn about the industry and tour facilities operated by Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

“We developed a trip for the bloggers to help them get a full perspective on the technology it takes to explore and produce in the Gulf of Mexico,” Destin Singleton, a spokeswoman for Shell in the U.S., said. “This is just another audience still considered part of the media.”

In an e-mail, a spokesman for Chevron said the bloggers were invited on the trip as part of API's outreach.

Reporters who cover the energy industry are often invited by companies to visit offshore drilling rigs or production platforms. But on a recent trip to see Chevron's $1 billion Blind Faith production platform in Ingleside, Texas, four bloggers joined wire service and industry reporters.

The postings about Chevron and its facility were largely favorable, although some commenters took the bloggers to task for accepting airfare and hotel from API, a fact they were required to disclose.