** Environmentalists urge the U.S. Interior Department to block a ConocoPhillips Arctic drilling project, saying it doesn’t mesh with the Biden administration’s conservation goals.
** Environmental groups sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, saying oil and gas development is driving a California lizard to extinction.
** California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes an $11 billion gasoline-price relief package that would include a $400 direct payment per vehicle.
** Signs are pointing toward the Interior Department announcing an onshore lease sale in the next month reports POLITICO. The Department hasn’t held one since President Joe Biden took office, leaving Republicans and Manchin, whose committee oversees Interior, fuming.
** New data from the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas shows oil and gas producers are ramping up drilling activity. Its business activity index for the 141 companies in Texas, northern Louisiana and southern New Mexico reached its highest reading in the survey’s six-year history.
** U.S. and British officials on Thursday accused the Russian government of running a years-long campaign to hack into critical infrastructure, including an American nuclear plant and a Saudi oil refinery.
** The Chicago City Council has voted to ban city investments in coal, oil and gas companies in an effort to combat climate change.
World
** Canada has capacity to increase oil and gas exports by up to 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of 2022 to help improve global energy security following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, said Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson.
** Iran plans to boost its crude oil production to 4 million barrels per day (bpd) in the new Persian year that started this week, Mohsen Khojasteh Mehr, chief executive of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), said, Iran’s Fars News Agency reported.
** Russian climate envoy Anatoly Chubais has resigned from his post at the Kremlin and left the country out of opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s attack on Ukraine, Bloomberg reports, per people familiar with the situation.
** Dutch multinational banking giant ING has decided to restrict financing for new oil and gas fields while at the same time increasing renewable energy efforts to push forward the energy transition. The decision is part of ING’s Terra approach to steer its portfolio towards keeping the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius to achieve net-zero by 2050.