** Total US propane product supplied climbed 402,000 b/d to the highest level in nearly 14 years in the week ended Jan. 8, Energy Information Administration data showed Jan. 13.
** Joe Biden’s transition team announced its top White House climate aides—Maggie Thomas, a climate adviser on the presidential campaigns of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee, will be the new office’s chief of staff. They will help oversee what the incoming administration says will be an aggressive, government-wide approach to the topic.
** Norway’s state-controlled Equinor and engineering consultancy firm Moss Maritime will launch the world’s first offshore floating solar power plant pilot study later this summer. The pilot plant will be located in the Norwegian Sea off the island of Froya near Trondheim.
** Five coal miners died last year in the US, marking a record low amid the pandemic and a shift by utilities away from coal reported the Associated Press.
** Trading volumes in Asia for fuel oil, a key shipping fuel, nearly halved in 2020 to the lowest levels in at least five years as stricter emission rules for marine fuel altered trade patterns and as the COVID-19 pandemic hurt demand reported Reuters.
** Houston’s city council votes unanimously to lease a closed landfill in a historically Black neighborhood for a solar farm reported the Houston Chronicle.
** France’s Total is teaming up with Spain-based global power giant Iberdrola to develop what they say will be one of the world’s largest offshore wind farms off Denmark’s coast.
** The International Energy Agency on Monday charged that oil and gas companies aren’t doing enough to reduce the release of methane, a potent source of planet-heating emissions, that is seeping out of pipelines and production plants. A report by the Paris-based organization found the estimated 10% drop in methane emissions from oil and gas companies last year was largely due to lower production amid a global decline in demand due to the pandemic.
** Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza criticized a U.S. court ruling authorizing a sale of the shares in the parent company of U.S. refiner Citgo Petroleum Corp, calling it the result of a “fraudulent judicial process.” A federal court in Delaware this week approved the sale as a way for Canadian gold miner Crystallex to collect on a $1.4 billion judgment for expropriation of its assets, though U.S. sanctions currently bar the transaction.