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Week in Review
Trump administration
- The Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general opened an investigation into the Trump administration’s largest rollback of Obama-era climate change regulations, which weakened fuel economy standards that were intended to limit vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.
- President Donald Trump said he will nominate two commissioners to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, including one Democrat, which would return the agency to its traditional party balance after months with a 3-1 Republican majority. The nominees are Democrat Allison Clements, who has worked on the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Sustainable FERC project, and Republican Mark Christie, who has served on the Virginia State Corporation Commission since 2004.
- The Bureau of Land Management would ease Obama-era requirements on measuring and reporting oil and gas drilled in federal lands under a new proposal, which the Trump administration estimates would save energy companies more than $130 million over the next 10 years and help reduce the bureaucratic workload for smaller producers.
Business and earnings
- Tonopah Solar Energy LLC, which received $737 million in loans from the Department of Energy to develop a 110-megawatt solar-thermal power plant in Nevada, filed for bankruptcy while still owing the DOE $425 million.
- Occidental Petroleum Corp. is in discussions with Indonesia-owned PT Pertamina about selling energy assets in countries including Ghana and the United Arab Emirates to the tune of about $4.5 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
- Royal Dutch Shell PLC reported adjusted earnings of $638 million in the second quarter, down from $3.5 billion a year earlier, and booked an overall impairment charge of $16.8 billion after lowering its short-term oil and gas price forecast as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
- French oil major Total SA took an $8.1 billion write-down after lowering its oil price forecast because of the pandemic, with $7 billion of that amount applied to the value of its Canadian oil sand assets and $800 million to liquified natural gas assets in Australia.
- Chevron Corp. reported a second-quarter loss of $8.27 billion, compared to a $4.31 billion profit a year earlier, due to low oil and gas prices and the significant decline in global travel as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
- Exxon Mobil Corp. posted a loss of $1.08 billion in the second quarter, its second consecutive quarterly loss, compared to a $3.13 billion profit year over year, due to low oil prices and a hit to its refining business spurred by the pandemic.
Industry data
- According to an analysis from Wood Mackenzie’s Genscape, U.S. oil production hit a bottom at 9.7 million barrels per day in the second week of June but has since rebounded by 1.2 million bpd as companies reopen Texas shale field wells that were shut when the coronavirus pandemic and oil price collapse took their toll earlier in the year.
- According to data from the Energy Information Administration, coal production in 2019 dropped to its lowest point since 1978, the year of a months-long coal miners strike that largely halted production for a portion of the year.
- The EIA said domestic energy use dropped 14 percent year over year in April due to the economic shutdown during the pandemic, marking a record fall since the EIA has been collecting data since 1973.
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What’s Ahead
- The Senate is in session. The House is operating remotely.
- The Atlantic Council is hosting an online event at 10 a.m. on Tuesday titled “Code red” about extreme heat and its impact on people worldwide.
- The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is hosting a hearing at 10 a.m. on Wednesday to discuss efforts to improve cybersecurity for the energy sector.
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Events Calendar (All Times Local)
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Morning Consult Energy Top Reads
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