** Oil industry executives are meeting with U.S. officials this week as surging energy prices and mounting national security concerns bring together two groups that have had a distant relationship since President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
** U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters are emerging as big winners of Europe’s supply crisis as they export record volumes to the European Union for the third consecutive month at prices that have rallied since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
** ConocoPhillips evacuated employees this week at its Alpine oil development on the North Slope due to a natural gas leak, company officials said. The leak was detected at the drill site CD1, 8 miles north of the village of Nuiqsut, ConocoPhillips said in a statement.
** The head of Canada’s largest oil-producing province, speaking at CERAWeek by S&P Global on Tuesday, commended President Joe Biden’s decision earlier to ban imports of Russian crude in the wake of the country’s invasion of Ukraine. However, Jason Kenney questioned Biden’s 2021 decision to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline connecting Alberta’s oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries, and his administration’s recent requests to OPEC countries such as Venezuela to pump more oil to ease price.
** The United States wants Venezuela to commit at least part of its oil exports to U.S. refineries as a condition for Washington to consider providing sanction relief to the South American nation, Reuters has reported, citing unnamed sources in the know.
World
** OPEC’s secretary general said there isn’t enough oil capacity to compensate for the loss of Russian supply.
** The de-facto leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have declined to arrange calls with US president Joe Biden in recent weeks as the US and its allies have sought to contain a surge in energy prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
** Brent oil pushed higher as European oil giant Shell Plc announced it will stop buying Russian crude and the International Energy Agency said it was disappointed in the actions producers have taken in the market so far.
** Developing countries should not have to target renewable energy sources and turn away from fossil fuels, Nigerian energy officials said on Tuesday, joining other emerging oil-producing nations reluctant to embrace the global energy transition trend.
** Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) and other Japan-based firms said on Tuesday that a pilot project to transport hydrogen produced from brown coal in Australia to Japan in the world’s first liquefied hydrogen tanker had proven technically feasible.
** Nigeria’s Seplat Energy is on track to buy Exxon Mobil’s offshore shallow water business in the country for $1.28 billion, Seplat’s chairman told Reuters on the sidelines of the CERAweek energy conference by S&P Global.
