** President Biden commemorated Earth Day on Friday by unveiling a raft of new policies to combat deforestation, including the signing of an executive order that safeguards old-growth forests on federal lands.
** More than 80 percent of oil and gas well completions in the United States were horizontal or directional in 2021, and although the total number of completed wells has fallen since 2010, U.S. crude oil production has more than doubled thanks to horizontal drilling, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Thursday.
* Earthstone Energy, Inc. in Houston announced the closing of the acquisition of assets of privately held Bighorn Permian Resources, LLC in the Midland Basin. The company also announced the closing of a $550 million private offering of senior unsecured notes.
** The Federal Highway Administration will put more than $6 billion toward state carbon reduction efforts, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced. The Carbon Reduction Program (CRP), funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law, will go toward local and state projects aimed at reducing on-road highway-based carbon dioxide emissions.
** The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is floating ways to cut planet-warming emissions for gas-fired power plants as it waits for a Supreme Court ruling that could limit its regulatory power. The agency on Thursday issued a new technical “white paper” that laid out potential ways to limit the plants’ contributions to climate change.
** The General Services Administration (GSA) — the federal agency in charge of government products, services and facilities — announced a major milestone toward its climate goals on Thursday. The agency said that, compared to a 2008 baseline level, federal building owns and leases have cut their emissions by 51 percent.
** John Kerry says he’s putting the natural gas industry “on notice,” suggesting it has a decade at most to solve for the emissions that drive global warming.
World
** Russia has been exporting an increasing amount of oil marked “destination unknown” since invading Ukraine. So far in April, more than 11.1 million barrels have been loaded onto cargoes with unknown destinations, compared to nearly zero prior to the war.
** Three Chinese state-run energy companies are in talks to buy Shell’s 27.5% stake in a huge Russian natural gas export project, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
