** Photos show what appears to be a miles-long oil slick near an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Ida, according to aerial survey imagery released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and reviewed by The Associated Press.
** Roughly a million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi still had no electricity Wednesday and more than 600,000 people lacked running water as power began to be restored.
** Hurricane Ida took down more than 2,000 miles of transmission lines and 216 substations, and infrastructure advocates say the damage presents the opportunity to rebuild a more resilient grid.
** Canadian pipeline operator Enbridge Inc notified oil shippers on Wednesday that it would offer capacity for 620,000 barrels per day (bpd) on its Line 3 oil pipeline starting in October, signaling confidence in completing the long-delayed project.
** Indonesia’s navy has seized a massive tanker believed to be loaded with thousands of tons of wasted black oil and has brought the ship to shore for further investigation, officials said Thursday.
** Shell has said it will double the number of electric car charging points in the United Kingdom over the next three years. The FTSE 100 energy company has set out an “ambition” to have a network of 50,000 on-street charge-points by 2024 via its subsidiary Ubitricity, which it bought in February.
** Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in his third state-of-the-union address, the halfway point in a six-year term, that he plans to present a bill revamping the energy sector to congress this month.
** Arizona Democratic lawmaker U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee proposed infrastructure legislation on Tuesday that would end oil and gas leases in an Alaskan wildlife refuge while charging billions of dollars more in fees and royalties for offshore drilling elsewhere.
** The U.S. Energy Information Administration says that despite the global COVID-19 pandemic, U.S shipments of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules, also referred to as solar panels, reached a record high of 21.8 million peak kilowatts (kW) in 2020, 5.4 million peak kW more than in 2019.
** Mexican rail officials are pushing a proposed passenger train link between San Antonio, Texas and Monterrey, northern Mexico’s largest city. They plan to begin a $2 million feasibility study for San Antonio-to-Monterrey service by the end of 2021 reported the San Antonio Express-News.
** Houston-based EPIC Midstream Holdings, LP announced Michael Garberding has joined EPIC as the Chief Financial Officer effective August 31, 2021. He will report to Brian Freed, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer.