** U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (ENR), along with Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), ranking member of the ENR Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining, sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, opposing the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) recent proposal to remove helium and uranium from the list of critical minerals.
** President Biden said this week he would designate Qatar as a major non-NATO ally, amid a race to identify non-Russian gas sources that could bolster the European Union’s supplies.
** A Massachusetts-based startup that captures carbon dioxide directly from the air has raised $80 million from investors, including Bill Gates-led Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
** An Iowa company and two others in Nebraska and Missouri will pay fines for tampering with emission controls in vehicles, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday.
** Denver’s Civitas Resources Inc. said President and CEO Eric Greager has stepped down concurrent with a $346 million acquisition of a privately held Denver-Julesburg (D-J) Basin operator.
World
** The lead natural-gas contract in the U.K. lost 10% on Tuesday as Russia increased its supplies of gas to Europe through Ukraine.
** Self-charging hybrid cars, which operate on both an internal combustion engine and a battery, outsold diesel cars in Europe for the first time in 2021, albeit by just 48 vehicles, data showed on Wednesday.
