** Indian Oil Corp, India’s top refiner, operated of its 9 plants in November at 100% capacity for the first time since February, to meet rising local fuel demand, it said in a statement on Thursday.
** Energy producer Dominion Energy and U.S. food processor Smithfield Foods said on Wednesday they have completed a renewable natural gas project in Utah aimed at converting methane from hog farming into renewable natural gas reported Reuters.
** When the portrait of former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was unveiled this week at the department headquarters, it prompted House Natural Resources Chair Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) to issue a caustic statement calling the portrait “a petty monument to a petty man.”
** Enthusiasts in California and in Washington should act fast if they want to put a new Chevrolet Camaro SS or ZL1 in their garage. Both models are now illegal in those states due to the percentage of copper in their brake pads.
** Two wells in a small oilfield in northern Iraq were set ablaze by explosives on Wednesday in a “terrorist attack” but overall production from the field was not affected, the Oil Ministry and officials said Wednesday.
** The New York Times reported New York state’s $226 billion pension fund, one of the world’s largest investors, will divest its fossil fuel holdings within five years.
** Volkswagen’s new electric SUV should begin rolling out of its eastern Tennessee plant in 2022, according to company officials reported the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
** Michigan regulators order a rehearing for Enbridge’s permit request to build a tunnel for the Line 5 pipeline after state officials moved to revoke the company’s easement in the Straits of Mackinac reported the Michigan Advance.
** Pipeline opponents maintain protests in northern Minnesota as thousands of workers are expected at sites along the Line 3 replacement project according to the Star Tribune.
** The Cincinnati Inquirer reports officials are investigating the cause of a building collapse at a southern Ohio coal plant that retired in 2018 as two demolition workers remain unaccounted for.
** A Wyoming county saw its sales tax revenue increase 20% despite the pandemic, thanks in large part to construction of a new wind farm reported the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.
** A California company conducts a test flight of a hybrid-electric aircraft in Hawaii according to the Honolulu Star Advertiser.