Other headlines

** Ford Motor Company plans to lay off as many as 8,ooo employees in the coming weeks to help finance its electric-vehicle initiative.

** Ford says it has secured enough battery supplies to manufacture 600,000 electric vehicles per year by 2023.

** ConocoPhillips is exploring a sale of its stake in the Ursa platform and Princess subsea well in the Gulf of Mexico, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in what would mark its exit from deepwater energy production off the U.S. Gulf coast.

** America’s natural gas trade organizations — including the Marcellus Shale Coalition and others in Appalachia — have sent a letter to President Joe Biden, asking him to put off declaring a climate emergency.

** Small amounts of natural gas were flowing inexplicably from interstate pipelines to Freeport LNG’s shuttered liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Texas this week.

** Kinder Morgan Inc reported a 20.3% rise in quarterly adjusted profit on Wednesday as the U.S pipeline operator received a boost from jet fuel demand, with the company also benefiting from re-contracting some natural gas pipelines at a higher rate.

** A transformer caught fire at Nevada’s Hoover Dam on Tuesday and was quickly extinguished by the fire brigade without any injuries or interruption to the power grid, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said.

** BlackRock purchased Vanguard Renewables, a company that utilizes a combination of farm and food waste to produce renewable natural gas, for $700 million on Wednesday.

 

World

** Gas is flowing from Russia to Europe again. The key Nord Stream 1 pipeline had been out of action for maintenance, and many in Europe had feared Russia might delay a restart.

** Britain’s government on Wednesday gave the green light to a new nuclear power station that’s expected to generate enough low-carbon electricity to power 6 million homes.

** Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD will start selling battery electric cars in Japan next year, marking its entry into Japan’s passenger car market, the company said in a statement on Thursday.