** Exxon Mobil on Friday posted a better-than-expected $9.2 billion second-quarter profit based on rising oil prices and volume gains from its purchase this year of shale oil firm Pioneer Natural Resources. Exxon delivered a $2.14 per share profit that beat analysts’ estimates on oil production and pricing gains that offset refining weakness.
** A U.S. circuit court this week sided with a Louisiana rubber manufacturer and the state in denying a request from the Environmental Protection Agency to hold the facility to a tighter deadline to comply with limits on a toxic compound.
** General Motors is changing the way it rates the performance of its salaried employees in the U.S. in a move to better reward high-performers and put pressure on low-performers to improve or leave.
** Chevron Corp. (CVX) is relocating headquarters to Houston from California after repeatedly warning that the Golden State’s regulatory regime was making it a tough place to do business. The move announced Friday will end the company’s more than 140 years of being based in the largest US state.
** Some leading US shale producers are planning to pump more oil this year than originally projected, a sign national supply could exceed the modest growth expectations many companies had pledged.
** Shares in U.S. oil producer Hess suffered their largest daily percentage drop in 20 months on Thursday on fallout from the lengthy new delay to its proposed sale to Chevron.
** Occidental Petroleum said Colombia’s Ecopetrol will not buy a stake in shale oil producer CrownRock after the U.S. company said last month they were in talks for a potential stake sale. Last year, Occidental agreed to buy the closely held, Texas-based company, CrownRock, in a $12 billion cash-and-stock deal that closed on Thursday.
** Washington state launches a rebate program for low-income residents to lease or purchase electric vehicles.
World
** So far this year in the EU, wind and solar generated more electricity than fossil fuels. Renewable energy met 50% of EU’s power needs while fossil fuels met 27%, an Ember analysis found.
** Some of the world’s biggest truckmakers, including Volvo and MAN, are reworking combustion engines to run on low-emission hydrogen instead of polluting diesel, a quicker low-cost fix to their energy transition challenge that may give the dying technology a fresh lease of life.
** Electric cars are about to get a whole lot more eco-friendly thanks to Volkswagen and its battery manufacturer PowerCo. In early July, Volkswagen Group announced PowerCo’s major agreement with QuantumScape, which produces solid-state batteries for EVs.
