** Interior Secretary Doug Burgum dismissed a report that the Trump administration “miscalculated” the impact its military operations against Iran would have on the global oil market.In an interview with Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade on Wednesday, Burgum called The New York Times report “completely fake news, obviously” and said the administration’s focus is on “driving down prices.”
** The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy is underway with a new effort that will use existing nuclear energy infrastructure to put more power on the grid. The Utility Power Reactor Incremental Scaling Effort (UPRISE) strives to significantly expand the United States’ nuclear energy capacity by increasing the power output of existing reactors, bringing dormant facilities back online, and completing stalled projects.
** ArcLight Capital Partners continues to invest in infrastructure to boost its power demand capabilities, having agreed to acquire InfraBridge’s 50% stake in Invenergy AMPCI Thermal Power (IATP).
** Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatens a state takeover of petrochemical hub Corpus Christi due to an escalating water crisis he says city leaders brought on themselves.
** Texas expanded its fleet of grid batteries by 69% to more than 14 GW last year, leaving it ranked second in the U.S. behind California for installed energy storage.
** Virginia lawmakers pass a bill to become just the second state in the U.S. to allow plug-in balcony solar panels that can help residents to lower their electricity bills. It followed Utah in allowing the panels.
WORLD
** Iranian crude oil has continued to flow through the Strait of Hormuz at a near-normal pace even as Tehran-linked attacks on ships in the narrow waterway have decimated exports from other Gulf countries, a Reuters review of tanker tracking data showed. Iran has exported about 13.7 million barrels of crude oil since Israel and the U.S. launched attacks on the country on February 28, according to analysis from TankerTrackers.com, a maritime intelligence company that specializes in tracking the so-called shadow fleet, a network of vessels used to transport oil and gas from countries under Western sanctions.
** Iran has continued to launch widespread missile and drone attacks on Israel and neighboring Gulf states, and has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes, even as U.S. and Israeli warplanes pummel military and other targets across Iran.
** Iran has used similar tactics before. In the “Tanker War” of the 1980–88 Iran‑Iraq conflict, attacks on vessels turned the Gulf into one of the world’s most dangerous waterways, forcing Washington to escort tankers through the Strait.
** Moscow on Friday urged the United States to lift more sanctions on its oil exports to stabilize the global energy markets, upended by the war in the Middle East. The United States has eased some sanctions imposed over Russia’s full-scale offensive on Ukraine, prompting backlash from Western allies who say proceeds from Moscow’s oil sales fund that war.