** As Qatar reels from an Iranian attack that has hobbled its giant natural gas company, its boss, QatarEnergy CEO Saad al-Kaabi, who doubles as the country’s energy minister, says he had warned officials and executives of just such a danger should Iran’s own sites be hit. He said he had even talked to the U.S. Secretary of Energy about it.
** Three to five years of 12.8 million tons in liquified natural gas exports worth some $20 billion in annual revenue. Gone overnight. That’s according to QatarEnergy which said that 17% of Qatar’s globally crucial LNG export capacity was extinguished in Iranian strikes.
** President Trump is mulling an operation to occupy or blockade Iran’s Kharg Island, which processes 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. With control of the island and leverage over Iran’s economy, the U.S. could pressure Tehran to relinquish its chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz, according to the report, easing the energy crunch that’s sent oil and gas prices soaring.
** The U.S. Treasury Department has included Cuba among the few countries that cannot benefit from a temporal lifting of sanctions on Russian oil, just as a Russian tanker carrying crude is heading to the island in defiance of the Trump administration.
** The French navy on Friday intercepted and boarded a tanker in the Mediterranean Sea that President Emmanuel Macron said is linked to Russia’s sanctioned shadow fleet shipping oil in violation of international sanctions over Moscow’s war on Ukraine.
U.S.
** Companies that own refineries in Corpus Christi say they are working to secure alternative water sources to maintain operations and prevent a shortage of gasoline and jet fuel in Texas and beyond as the city scrambles to delay or avoid a rapidly-escalating water crisis.
** North Carolina residents press a county government to adopt a data center moratorium as a developer considers a site and whether to use fracking to power it.
** NextEra Energy asks Virginia regulators to let it build a new 107.5-mile, 500 kV transmission line that extends through Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia.
** Texas regulators approve an investigation report about Tesla’s battery-grade lithium compounds factory discharging wastewater into a nearby ditch.
** Energy giant BP locked out more than 800 union workers at its northwestern Indiana refinery on Thursday after the company and the workers’ union failed to reach a contract agreement.