Energy news in brief

** Major oil sands producers in Western Canada will idle almost half a million barrels a day of production next month, helping tighten global supplies as oil prices surge. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd plans to conduct 30 days of maintenance, curtailing an estimated 250,000 barrels a day of light synthetic crude output.

** A firm hired to monitor Texas’ power markets says the region’s grid manager overpriced electricity over two days during last month’s energy crisis, resulting in $16 billion in overcharges.

** The New Mexico Oil and Gas Association launched a series of ads this week campaigning against legislative bills it says would devastate the industry.  The campaign is to drive public awareness, and advocacy action, around the consequences of what it called a reckless approach to oil and gas issues.

** A Korean electric-vehicle battery maker with a Georgia factory is scolded by an international commission for destroying evidence that it stole trade secrets from a rival company.

** Louisiana’s attorney general signs off on a settlement between an oil company and coastal parishes that alleged it caused environmental damage.

** Experts say President Biden may have to get involved in the legal dispute over the Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac as Canadian officials say a shutdown would be a threat to the country’s energy security.

** The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on March 11 on the reliability, resilience and affordability of electrical services in Texas following the deadly February winter storm.

** Sens. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and Michael Bennet (Colo.), along with Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, are introducing legislation  to expand the small wind investment tax credit in a bid to help small businesses and farmers offset the costs of developing small, distributed wind systems. The Rural Wind Energy Modernization and Extension Act would nix the existing 100-kilowatt nameplate capacity limit and replace it with a maximum wind turbine size of 10 megawatts.

** Around 15,000 of the residents on the Navajo Nation reservation continue to live without access to electricity, despite the tribe being a significant energy exporter.

** Wyoming lawmakers reject a pair of bills that would have increased taxes on wind and solar energy.