**Elk Range Royalties bought 250,000 net royalty acres in the Denver-Julesburg Basin for $905 million from from Occidental Petroleum, which is looking to shed debt after last year’s acquisition of CrownRock, reported Hart Energy.
** Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced plans to reopen 82% of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve and the 1.56-million-acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing. This initiative also includes lifting restrictions on land along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Corridor and Dalton Highway.
** Interior this week announced permanent pay increases for federal and Tribal wildland firefighters across the United States after President Trump signed the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act into law.
** Privately held clean energy solutions developer Invenergy has launched commercial operations at its first clean hydrogen project, the Sauk Valley hydrogen facility, in Rock Falls in the state of Illinois.
** In a significant development in the military drone sector, California-based Mach Industries has announced its collaboration with Israeli drone manufacturer Heven Drones to make hydrogen drones for the US military.
** The Utah Supreme Court dismissed on Thursday a lawsuit filed by seven young Utahns arguing that the state’s energy policy promoting fossil fuels is exacerbating the effects of climate change and, subsequently, reducing their lifespans.
World
** A pause in Houthi attacks on commercial shipping has seen fuel traders import more cargoes into Europe via Egypt’s Suez Canal. The period of calm has seen diesel, jet fuel and other fuels increasingly reach Europe via the canal.
** China revealed for the first time that it has developed a compact deep-sea cable cutting device that is powerful enough to severe communication lines, the South China Morning Post reported.
** Alberta Premier Danielle Smith rejected any constraints on oil and gas exports to the US in her first meeting with new Prime Minister Mark Carney, renewing her criticism of Canada’s Liberal government as the country prepares for an election.
** The United Arab Emirates will invest $1.4 trillion in the United States over 10 years following a meeting earlier this week between President Donald Trump and Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser, according to the White House.
** Hanwha Aerospace Co., one of Asia’s top-performing stocks this year, plunged after disclosing a plan to raise 3.6 trillion won ($2.5 billion) in what would be South Korea’s biggest share sale in more than three years.
** Brazil Iron Ltd. has made an offer of about $1 billion to buy a South American mine project owned by Eurasian Resources Group, according to a person familiar with the matter.