** A bill in Congress would block the U.S. Postal Service from entering into a contract for new vehicles unless 75% of them are electric.
** An auto industry report shows electric vehicle sales increased 11% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2021, while gasoline vehicle sales fell slightly.
** The U.S. Energy Department awards $9 million to Indigenous tribal nations in Western states for renewable energy projects.
** Chevron sues the state of California for rejecting hydraulic fracturing applications for over a year, saying it constitutes an unlawful de facto ban.
** The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), in coordination with the U.S. Department of Labor and the AFL-CIO, announced the launch of a national workforce development strategy for lithium-battery manufacturing. As part of a $5 million investment, DOE will support up to five pilot training programs in energy and automotive communities and advance workforce partnerships between industry and labor for the domestic lithium battery supply chain.
** Valero Energy Corporation will host a conference call on April 26, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. ET to discuss first quarter 2022 earnings results, which will be released earlier that day, and provide an update on company operations.
** Schlumberger Limited will hold a conference call on April 22, 2022 to discuss the results for the first quarter ending March 31, 2022. The conference call is scheduled to begin at 9:30 am US Eastern time and a press release regarding the results will be issued at 7:00 am US Eastern time.
** Louisiana’s oil industry struggles to rehire workers and get rigs back online as oil prices jump amid a growing global ban on Russian energy.
** The Illinois attorney general files suit against the owner of an oil pipeline that recently spilled 160,000 gallons of crude oil, claiming the incident violated the state’s Environmental Protection Act.
** The United States has imported a relatively small share of crude oil from Russia, but U.S. imports of petroleum products from Russia—namely, unfinished oils and fuel oil—is a larger share. U.S. refineries use imported unfinished oils and fuel oil as a supplement to crude oil in the refining process.
World
** Saudi Arabia said Monday that it “won’t bear any responsibility” for a shortage in global oil supplies after a fierce barrage of attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels affected production in the kingdom, the world’s largest oil exporter.
** The UK government is preparing to temporarily nationalize Gazprom’s British retail supply unit as the Russian natural gas giant is in danger of collapsing and causing supply disruption, the Financial Times and Bloomberg reported.
** The International Energy Agency’s 10-point plan to cut oil use comes as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to rupture global oil supplies. According to the IEA, the plan would lower oil demand by 2.7 million barrels a day within four months if fully carried out.
** Saudi Aramco, a major oil and gas company owned and managed by the Saudi royal family, announced it made $110 billion in profits last year, a 124% increase from 2020, according to the company’s annual financial statement released on Sunday.
** A new report from Swiss company IQAir found that no country is meeting guidelines issued by the World Health Organization in September to limit acceptable yearly pollution exposure of particulate matter 2.5 micrometers or smaller.