** The White House on Monday said oil production is “not the focus” of conversations Biden administration officials will have with Saudi Arabia.
** Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) slammed President Biden on Monday, accusing him of “abusing” the Defense Production Act (DPA) after the White House authorized it for the third time this year to ramp up manufacturing of solar panel parts and other clean energy equipment.
** Rivian has stepped into Normal, Illinois, with electric vehicle manufacturing plans roughly a decade after Mitsubishi unsuccessfully launched similar efforts there.
** New York City billionaire and oil refiner John Catsimatidis said President Biden should “open up the spigots” as Americans feel the wrath of soaring costs at the pump and in the food store. Reacting to the national average price of a gallon of gas reaching a new all-time high of $4.86, Catsimatidis told FOX Business’ Dagen McDowell that “it will get worse.”
** Goldman Sachs has predicted oil will surge to $140 a barrel this summer, with a fall in Russian supply adding to pressures in the market. But the bank said consumers will feel as though prices have surged to $160, in part because refinery bottlenecks mean gas prices are surging.
** According to Politico, the U.S. government is considering opening 30 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico near Texas and Louisiana to offshore wind energy projects, part of Biden’s goal to build 30 gigawatts of wind power capacity by 2030, enough to power more than 10 million homes.
** Angry over high gasoline prices in his home state, Connecticut Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal accused big oil companies of profiteering. He blamed them for the high prices paid by consumers.
World
** Russia is ramping up oil exports from its major eastern port of Kozmino by about a fifth, aiming to meet surging demand from Asian buyers and offset the impact of European Union sanctions, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
** Australia is the world’s top exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG). Right now, it is also facing a domestic gas crisis. Prices of power and gas in the land down under have surged amid what the country’s energy minister has called a “perfect storm” of factors.
** Germany’s finance minister on Tuesday rejected calls by some in the country’s governing parties to tax what they call “excessive profits” earned by oil companies since Russia’s war in Ukraine spiked energy prices.
** Shippers of Russian crude are turning to unusual methods to move cargoes displaced from Europe over much longer distances to new customers. The most recent example is a ship-to-ship transfer in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
** Exxon Mobil Corp. and TotalEnergies SE are among a group of Western energy companies poised to win stakes in a multibillion dollar project to boost Qatar’s gas exports, people with knowledge of the matter said.