** A catastrophic explosion and fire at an Afghan customs depot has destroyed hundreds of fuel tankers and caused traders tens of millions of pounds of losses. A series of blasts hurled trucks hundreds of yards into the air and deposited the crumpled remains of fuel tanks as far as half a mile from the blast site. An estimated $50 million in vehicles and goods were destroyed.
** Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicts Austin, Texas, will become “the biggest boomtown that America has seen in 50 years.”
** Canada’s main oil-producing province Alberta said on Friday it will provide another C$400 million in funding to clean up inactive oil and gas wells, part of a program aimed at supporting oilfield services jobs.
** Two U.S. senators, Republican Sen. Jim Risch and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen urged President Joe Biden to ensure the implementation of sanctions passed in January aimed at stopping the Nord Stream 2 Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline project, which a State Department spokesman reiterated on Friday was a “bad deal” for Europe.
** A final sale has been announced for a former coal-fired steam electric generating station which the City of Greenville in Texas once partially owned. The Texas Municipal Power Agency agreed in September 2020 to sell the shuttered Gibbons Creek plant.
** A key House lawmaker Massachusetts Rep. Richard Neal unveiled plans to pursue tax breaks for renewable energy as a way to ease the shift away from fossil fuels in President Joe Biden’s upcoming infrastructure bill. “Transitioning away from fossil fuels is going to require some tax incentives,” House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, said Friday at a virtual tax policy event.
** The United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John F. Kerry will address delegates at CERAWeek by IHS Markit 2021, to be held virtually March 1-5.
** New Hampshire-based Merchants Fleet recently announced a plan to purchase 12,600 electric vans from General Motors.
** General Motors unveils two new, lower cost electric vehicle models that seek to appeal to more drivers.
** Proposed legislation in Indiana would prohibit local governments from adopting stricter wind and solar regulators than statewide guidelines.
** Howard Energy Partners announced that it has closed on its previously announced agreement with a subsidiary of MPLX LP to purchase the Javelina Facility, located in Corpus Christi, Texas. Javelina is a treating and fractionation plant that extracts olefins, hydrogen, and natural gas liquids (NGLs) from the gas streams produced by local refineries.
