The commentary atop the IEA's monthly oil market report a week ago was headlined "A floor under prices?" and said Brent crude "seems to" have found one around $60-per-barrel. That question mark, in retrospect, is doing lots of work.
Where it stands: Prices plummeted by several dollars per barrel in trading Tuesday, the latest sign of volatility that's carrying the day despite the OPEC+ efforts to stabilize the market.
Elon Musk unveiled his Boring Company's test tunnel in Hawthorne, Calif. on Tuesday night, allowing guests to take some of the first rides on the tech entrepreneur's solution to "soul-destroying traffic."
Details: "Guests boarded Musk's Tesla Model S and rode along Los Angeles-area surface streets about a mile away," the Associated Press reports. It then approached a "wall-less elevator that slowly took the car down a wide shaft, roughly 30 feet ... below the surface."
ExxonMobil Corp., the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company, is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions of methane from all new and existing oil and gas wells across the country, according to a letter obtained by Axios.
The big picture: Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is the primary component of natural gas and is sometimes purposefully or inadvertently leaked in the production and transport of the fuel, as well as when drilling for oil. The EPA has been slow in its approach toward rolling back Obama-era methane rules, in part due to industry divisions.
A survey from Yale and George Mason universities finds that respondents really like the "Green New Deal," a sweeping climate and economic proposal being pushed by a growing number of Democrats under the leadership of progressive newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Details: 81% of registered voters either "strongly" or "somewhat" support these features of the deal: a move to 100% renewable power within 10 years, upgrades to grid and other infrastructure, and job training. This includes nearly two-thirds of Republican respondents.
The oil-and-gas industry has halted years of declining investments in exploration and it's paying off in the form of big conventional finds.
Where it stands: The consultancy Rystad Energy said in a note Monday that discoveries this year will total an estimated 9.4 billion barrels of oil-equivalent. It's the biggest year for exploration since 2015, they added. The total is dominated by offshore finds, including Exxon's string of big oil exploration hits off Guyana's coast.
Global demand for coal, the most carbon-emitting fuel, is slated to grow slightly over the next 5 years, according to a new International Energy Agency forecast.
Why it matters: The latest projection of coal's persistence in the global energy mix arrives on the heels of major scientific reports warning that worldwide emissions must start plummeting — and soon — to avoid potentially disastrous warming.
