WASHINGTON— U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright today announced the termination of 24 awards issued by the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) totaling over $3.7 billion in taxpayer-funded financial assistance. After a thorough and individualized financial review of each award, DOE found that these projects failed to advance the energy needs of the American people, were not economically viable and would not generate a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.  Of the 24 awards cancelled, nearly 70% (16 of the 24 projects) were signed between Election Day and January 20th. The projects primarily include funding for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and decarbonization initiatives. By terminating these awards, DOE is generating an immediate $3.6 billion in savings for the American people. “While the previous administration failed to conduct a thorough financial review before signing away billions of taxpayer dollars, the Trump administration is doing our due diligence to ensure we are utilizing taxpayer dollars to strengthen our national security, bolster affordable, reliable energy sources and advance projects that generate the highest possible return on investment,” said Secretary Wright. “Today, we are acting in the best interest of the American people by cancelling these 24 awards.” Earlier this month, DOE issued a Secretarial Memorandum entitled, “Ensuring Responsibility for Financial Assistance,” which outlined DOE’s policy for evaluating financial assistance on a case-by-case basis to identity waste of taxpayer dollars, protect America’s national security and advance President Trump’s commitment to unleash affordable, reliable and secure energy for the American people. DOE utilized this review process to evaluate each of these 24 awards and determined that they did not meet the economic, national security or energy security standards necessary to sustain DOE’s investment. DOE’s Secretarial Policy on Ensuring Responsibility for Financial Assistance is available here.                  

Taiwan will send a delegation to a summit in Alaska to discuss procuring liquefied natural gas from a long-delayed project championed by US President Donald Trump. “We already got the invitation” from the US, Taiwan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Chen Ming-chi said in an interview with Bloomberg News on Thursday, referring the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference from June 3 to 5. A high-ranking official will lead the delegation, he said. Taiwan is interested in purchasing LNG from the US project, as well as investing in the necessary pipeline and related infrastructure for the facility, Chen said. He declined to disclose the officials who will lead the delegation. Proponents of the $44 billion Alaska LNG export project are trying to use the gathering as a way to rally support and financing for the facility, which has became a focus for the White House. The plant has been proposed in various forms for decades, but has struggled to secure binding long-term contracts and investment. Chen said Taiwan’s investment amount for the project needs to be discussed further between the two sides, and additional negotiation will be required. Taiwan’s CPC Corp. signed a non-binding letter of intent in March to invest in Alaska LNG’s pipeline and purchase fuel from the project. WHAT DO YOU THINK? Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

Oil edged down after a choppy session as traders parsed mixed messaging on the status of trade talks between the US and China. West Texas Intermediate futures swung in a roughly $2 range before settling down fractionally near $61 a barrel. Futures had sunk after US President Donald Trump said China had violated its trade agreement and threatened to broaden restrictions on its tech sector, reviving concerns that a tariff war between the world’s two largest economies would hurt oil demand. Crude later pared losses when Trump signaled openness to speaking with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Meanwhile, OPEC+ was said to consider an output increase of more than 411,000 barrels a day in July in a push for market share. The revival of idled output by OPEC and its allies at a faster-than-expected pace has bolstered expectations that a glut will form this year. “Global oil market fundamentals remain somewhat loose now and should loosen up much more later this year, with growing non-OPEC supply and relatively mild, but persistent stock builds,” Citigroup analysts including Francesco Martoccia said in a note. Geopolitical risks from Russia to Iran continue to provide price support against an otherwise softening physical backdrop, they added. Meanwhile, commodity trading advisers, which tend to exacerbate price swings, increased short positions to sit at 91% short in Brent on Friday, compared with roughly 70% short on May 29, according to data from Bridgeton Research Group. Still, some metrics are pointing to near-term strength in the oil market. WTI’s front-month futures were trading about 93 cents more per barrel than the contract for the next month, the biggest premium since early January. Libya’s eastern government threatened to curb oil production and exports in protest after a militia stormed the state oil company’s headquarters. A shutdown could result in a

Dive Brief: The U.S. Senate passed three joint resolutions May 22 nullifying California’s ability to set emissions standards for passenger cars, light duty vehicles and trucks that are stricter than national standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Auto and petroleum industry lobbyists targeted California’s Advanced Clean Car II regulations, adopted in 2022, which require all new passenger cars, trucks and SUVs sold in the state to be zero-emission vehicles by the 2035 model year. Federal law set in 1990 allows 17 additional states and the District of Columbia to follow California’s regulations. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, announced the state’s intention to file a lawsuit blocking the congressional resolutions, which await the signature of President Donald Trump to become law. Dive Insight: California’s ability to set its own vehicle emissions standards stem from the 1967 Air Quality Act, passed at a time when smog and poor air quality often permeated the Los Angeles basin. While air quality in California has improved over the years, experts fear a setback from the Senate’s action. “Public health could potentially suffer as a consequence,” said Michael Kleeman, a professor at the University of California, Davis, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “This is, plain and simple, a vote against clean air to breathe,” said Aaron Kressig, transportation electrification manager at Western Resource Advocates, in an emailed statement. He warned of potential lost days at school or work and premature deaths.    “Over 150 million people in the United States are already exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution,” Steven Higashide, director of the Clean Transportation Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in an emailed statement. “The standards are based on the best available science, and were finalized with extensive public input.”  Along with public health concerns, the debate around California’s

The U.S. Department of Energy on Friday canceled $3.7 billion in awards from its Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, including $940 million in grants for two carbon capture projects planned by Calpine. The canceled awards were mainly for carbon capture and sequestration and other decarbonization projects, according to DOE. Affected companies include PPL Corp., Ørsted and Exxon Mobil Corp. The Calpine projects are for CCS projects at its 550-MW gas-fired Sutter power plant in Yuba City, California, and its 810-MW Baytown power plant in Baytown, Texas. “After a thorough and individualized financial review of each award, the DOE found that these projects failed to advance the energy needs of the American people, were not economically viable and would not generate a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars,” DOE said. Sixteen of the 24 terminated awards were signed between President Donald Trump’s election in November and Jan. 20, according to DOE. The DOE assessed the canceled awards under a review process outlined earlier this month. The department said it is reviewing 179 awards that total over $15 billion in financial assistance. “DOE is prioritizing large-scale commercial projects that require more detailed information from the awardees for the initial phase of this review, but this process may extend to other DOE program offices as the reviews progress,” the department said. DOE created the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations in late 2021 to manage about $27 billion in funding appropriated by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, according to a mid-November report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Below is a list from DOE of the canceled awards announced on Friday. Optional Caption Permission granted by US Department of Energy DOE’s decision to terminate the awards was “shortsighted,” according to Steven Nadel, executive director of the American

Solar and wind energy output in California was curtailed by 29% more in 2024 than the year before, with solar accounting for 93% of curtailed energy that year, the Energy Information Administration said in a Wednesday report. “In 2024, [the California Independent System Operator] curtailed 3.4 million megawatthours (MWh) of utility-scale wind and solar output, a 29% increase from the amount of electricity curtailed in 2023,” EIA said.  EIA said that CAISO curtailed the most solar in the spring “when solar output was relatively high and electricity demand was relatively low, because moderate spring temperatures meant less demand for space heating or air conditioning.” Optional Caption Retrieved from Energy Information Administration. Wind and solar capacity in California increased from 9.7 GW in 2014 to 28.2 GW by the end of 2024, EIA said. California curtails solar and wind generation to keep the grid stable and to leave room for natural gas generation, in order to comply with North American Electric Reliability Corp. requirements and “have generation online in time to ramp up in the evening hours,” according to the report. CAISO is responding to increased curtailments by “trading with neighboring balancing authorities to try to sell excess solar and wind power, incorporating battery storage into ancillary services, energy, and capacity markets, and including curtailment reduction in transmission planning,” according to EIA. Later this year, companies in the state are also planning to start using excess renewable energy to “make hydrogen, some of which will be stored and mixed with natural gas for summer generation at the Intermountain Power Project’s new facility scheduled to come online in July,” the report said. One of those companies, SoHyCal, said that once it begins using solar energy for this purpose, it “[expects] to produce a total of three tons per day of green hydrogen powered