Political:

California’s utilities are speaking out against fossil fuel requirements after the retirement of the Diablo Nuclear plant, Utility Dive writes.

Social:

Call it green for green: oil trading houses are claiming that lending banks want them to meet environmental, social, and governance targets in order to access loans, Bloomberg reports.

Malaysian oil and gas company Petronas and Indonesian oil and gas company Pertamina have been put on a watch list to determine if they should be removed from J.P. Morgan’s ESG EMBI index, due to their scores falling below the index’s threshold, Reuters writes.

Environmental:

They keep moving the goalposts: oil companies react to the International Energy Agency’s intensive adjustments to the path to net zero, S&P Global writes.

Scottish sustainability company Marine Orbital is utilizing the power of waves to create energy via a tidal turbine, Slate reports.

Professional Development:

Looking to hire new talent? Offer services and programs targeted towards those caught up in the ‘last-mile’ problem.

Economic:

Asia’s upstream mergers and acquisitions market seemed to pick up speed again after the devastation wreaked upon the oil industry last year, Upstream Online reports.

The USDA has granted biofuel producers a total of $700 million in COVID-19 financial aid, Oil and Gas 360 writes. Officials stated that the money was part of a package that offered assistance to industries suffering from financial effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Technology:

A survey conducted by EY found that utility companies suffer from issues such as not having the right workforce to utilize technology and adopting technologies relatively slowly, Oil Price reports.

A Denver company found a way to produce wind turbines faster and cheaper by using a construction technique, The Denver Post reports. Keystone Tower Systems has received a grant from the Department of Energy to manufacture more of its spiral-welded and tapered wind towers.

Legal:

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has affirmed the state of Minnesota’s approval of the new Enbridge pipeline, the Star Tribune writes.

A federal judge in Louisiana used a preliminary injunction to stop the Biden administration from halting new oil and gas leases, saying that they don’t have the jurisdiction to do that without approval from Congress, The Wall Street Journal reports.