More energy headlines

** Wall Street analysts sharply increased their Exxon Mobil Corp second-quarter profit estimates on Tuesday, after the largest U.S. oil producer projected it could almost double its first-quarter earnings.

** Ring Energy Inc. agreed on July 5 to acquire Stronghold Energy, a privately held E&P with a position in the Permian Basin’s Central Basin Platform, in an agreement worth up to $465 million.

** An oil industry group blasted a tweet from President Biden’s account over the weekend that called on “companies running gas stations” to lower their prices, saying the intern who penned the post should enroll in “Econ 101.”

** Toyota has just joined General Motors and Tesla as the third manufacturer to reach the 200,000-vehicle limit, meaning the $7500 federal tax credit will no longer apply to Toyota EV purchases.

** A controversial logging project that could permit thousands of trees as large as 20 inches in diameter to be felled throughout nearly 2,000 acres in Yosemite National Park has, at least temporarily, been stalled.

** A federal judge on Tuesday threw out a host of actions by the Trump administration to roll back protections for endangered or threatened species, a year after the Biden administration said it was moving to strengthen such species protections.

** BYD, the Chinese electric vehicle firm partly owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, became the world’s largest electric vehicle maker in the first half of 2022, wrestling the title from Elon Musk’s EV giant Tesla in another sign of the Chinese automaker’s resilience in the face of COVID-inflicted disruptions that plagued its rivals this year.

** Despite a recent setback for regulators working to curb greenhouse gas emissions, a new report from the Department of Energy (DOE) found that in 2021, green energy jobs were on the rise.

World

** Four months into the Ukraine war, Russia is reaping bumper revenue from its oil and gas sales — but experts say Moscow should consider other heavily sanctioned countries in recent history, including Iran and Venezuela, as a cautionary tale in the longer run.

** Russia has pocketed $24 billion from selling energy to China and India in just three months following its invasion of Ukraine, showing how higher global prices are limiting efforts by the US and Europe to punish President Vladimir Putin.

** Norway’s government has stepped in to halt a strike by oil and gas workers that would have slashed natural-gas exports by up to about 60%, exacerbating the energy crisis in Europe.

** Saudi Arabia is offering some of its crude at steep discounts to its flagship grade as flows of cheap Russian oil spark intense competition.

** OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo, an oil industry veteran who steered the group through the creation of the OPEC+ alliance, has died in his native Nigeria. He was 63.