** Winter Storm Fern knocks out power to more than 1 million customers across the U.S., with outages concentrated in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. The ongoing storm causes a surge in natural gas power plant outages and restricted gas supplies in the mid-Atlantic, and has New England leaning heavily on oil-fired power plants to meet higher-than-forecast demand.
** Oil and gas refiners on the Gulf Coast shut down refining units amid freezing temperatures, disrupting as much as 10% of U.S. natural gas production.
* California files a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Trump administration’s approval of Sable Offshore’s contested proposal to restart two oil pipelines along the state’s coast, saying the “federal government has no right to usurp California’s regulatory authority.”
** Climate startup Vaulted Deep proposes a project in northeastern Colorado that would inject methane-rich cattle feedlot waste underground as a carbon capture and storage strategy.
World
** European countries plan to sign a pact this week committing themselves to building 100 GW of offshore wind power.
** The captain of a tanker intercepted in the Mediterranean Sea by the French navy on suspicion of shipping oil in violation of sanctions against Russia was being held in custody on Sunday for questioning.
** Officials are in damage-control mode in the country of Georgia after the supposed unauthorized publication of a late 2025 state decree showing that the government’s reliance on Russian natural gas imports is growing and Tbilisi is now paying more for Russian imports than it has in the past. Earlier in January, Russia’s state-owned Gazprom announced it supplied 40.4 percent more gas to Georgia in 2025 than in the previous year.
** TotalEnergies has signed an agreement extending the Waha oil concessions in Libya through December 31, 2050, securing a long-term foothold in one of the country’s most important producing areas and setting the stage for a new investment cycle.
** Despite the damaging effects of increased state control under former President Hugo Chávez and the successive administration of Maduro, Venezuela’s oil potential remains enormous. It still holds the world’s largest proven crude reserves — roughly 303 billion barrels, or about 17% of the global total.