Other energy headlines

** Some in the oil industry fear that oil prices may again return to the $100 mark, with President Joe Biden’s anti-fossil fuel stance and aggressive green agenda threatening the supply of oil and gas in the foreseeable future.

** The U.S. National Labor Relations Board  impounded ballots that will decide whether the United Steelworkers (USW) continues to represent workers at an Exxon Mobil oil refinery in southeast Texas. The NLRB said it sequestered the ballots while it reviews unfair labor practice complaints filed by the union representing workers at Exxon’s Beaumont, Texas, complex.

** The U.S. Environmental Protection agency has fined a South Carolina industry $1.1 million and ordered the company to clean up its act after receiving tens of thousands of complaints about powerful odors that sickened neighbors living near the plant.

** The renewable energy firm, Savion, is building a 200-megawatt solar installation on a former coal mine on the border of Kentucky and West Virginia. When completed, it will be the largest solar project in Kentucky.

** The Biden administration will require new testing on some “forever chemicals,” but advocates are disappointed in what they characterized as insufficient requirements. In response to a petition from North Carolina environmental groups asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study 54 chemicals further, the agency said it would require companies to conduct tests on seven of the chemicals the groups identified.

 

World

** Mexico plans to halt crude oil exports in 2023 as part of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s nationalist goal of self-sufficiency in fuel production.

** Germany planned to pull the plug on three of its last six nuclear power stations on Friday, another step towards completing its withdrawal from nuclear power as it turns its focus to renewables.

** Germany will probably miss its carbon emissions reduction targets in the coming two years, Economy and Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck told Die Zeit newspaper.

** Gas traders are relying on stockpiles to supply European buyers and avoid paying near record-high prices, industry sources and market analysts said, explaining the unusual reverse in direction of flows through a major Russian pipeline.

**  Israel’s Environment Minister said a clandestine oil deal that would have turned a scuba divers’ paradise into a waypoint for Emirati oil headed for Western markets has effectively been blocked.