** China refineries processed a record amount of crude oil last month, and now they are looking to the U.S. to find crude. China is looking to book oil tankers for August and September to ship at least 20 million barrels of U.S. crude, according to Reuters.
** The plunge in crude tanker demand in July was the steepest fall since the coronavirus started to impact global oil markets according to an analysis by Lloyd’s List Intelligence. The drop was mostly due to the plunge in demand for tankers in the Middle East, whose key producers and members of OPEC are cutting production and exports in response to the crash in global oil demand.
** Andros Capital Partners LLC, a newly formed Houston-based private investment firm, closed its inaugural fund at its $250 million hard cap with plans of targeting energy and infrastructure investments.
** TVA employees are stuck in a holding pattern as they wait to see if they will resume their jobs after President Trump intervened to end a planned job outsourcing.
** The Port of Corpus Christi was the nation’s top crude exporter last year and aims to ship out Canadian crude and Bakken Shale oil.
** The Houston Chronicle reports that if he’s elected president, Joe Biden pledges to stop new drilling on federal lands and waters to address growing concerns over climate change, which would greatly impact the Texas oil and gas industry.
** The sponsor of an amendment to the Democratic Party policy platform calling for ending fossil fuel tax breaks and subsidies said the Democratic National Committee stripped the text without his permission.
** The state of Michigan is expected to soon announce a $600 million settlement in civil cases to the victims of the Flint drinking water crisis — “a number that far outpaces other large lawsuits settled by the state in the last decade.”
** Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana signed an executive order Wednesday committing his fossil-fuel-producing state to reaching net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases no later than 2050.
** Following a policy change allowing the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation to finance nuclear projects abroad, the Department of Energy is already in talks with potential countries such as Kenya and Ghana looking to develop their own nuclear energy programs, DOE’s Assistant Secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy Rita Baranwal said.
** Advocates say it’s “decision time” for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to use her authority to decommission the Line 5 pipeline through Michigan.
