** President Joe Biden is set to unveil another batch of executive action related to climate change this week, including for his Climate Leaders’ Summit and ordering a pause on new oil, gas and coal leases on federal lands.
** In a recent note from Goldman Sachs, commodities analysts noted that Biden’s initial executive orders – which included restrictions on hydrocarbon leasing in North America, drilling, and pipelines – support oil prices. “— such actions point to both higher production and financing costs for shale producers in coming years as well as lower recoverable resources,” Goldman analysts wrote.
** The most coal-dependent U.S. utilities plan to keep around 75% of their coal-fired power plants running for another decade, according to an analysis by the environmental group Sierra Club released on Monday, posing a threat to the climate reported Reuters.
** Iran has started ramping up its crude oil production eyeing a return to pre-sanction levels in a month or two, Deputy Oil Minister Amir Hossein Zamaninia told media, as quoted by Bloomberg.
** Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX revealed in a regulatory hearing before Texas regulators that it plans to drill for natural gas near its Boca Chica spacecraft development facility in the southeast corner of Texas, near Brownsville.
** Covid-19 is destroying the market for supertankers that deliver about a fifth of the world’s crude oil. The result is likely to be booming trade on the beaches of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, where obsolete ships go to get blow-torched and sold for scrap.
** Reuters reports BP all but stops looking for more oil. The company has drastically scaled back the team that looks for new reserves going from 700 a few years ago to now fewer than 100.
** Indiana is expected to vote this week on a bill that would block local governments from prohibiting natural gas hookups for home heating in new construction, part of a growing number of state legislatures taking up the issue according to the Energy News Network.
** Transportation Secretary nominee Pete Buttigieg says the Biden administration may consider rescinding a rule allowing liquified natural gas to be transported by rail reported S&P Global.
** Energy Secretary-designate Jennifer Granholm will appear Wednesday on Capitol Hill for her nomination hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
** Chemical companies DuPont, Chemours and Corteva announced Friday they reached a $4 billion settlement to put a end to legal battles over which of them is on the hook for liabilities related to decades’ worth of use of toxic “forever chemicals,” reported POLITICO.