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Oil.  The Wall Street Journal reports that China’s national oil giants are maintaining large workforces despite the collapse in oil prices and dismal earnings, largely due to government concern about layoffs and unrest.   Because the government continues to pressure state-owned companies to increase profits without negatively impacting their workforces, analysts expect these companies to cut costs by continuing to divest in non-essential assets, including pipelines and exploration endeavors. WSJ

Coal.  Ongoing research in carbon capture and storage technologies has continued to fumble as a viable and economic tool to mitigate the emissions associated with coal-fired power production.  Several landmark projects in the United States and Canada have experienced repeated shutdowns and required tens of millions of dollars in new equipment and repairs; industry advocates argue that the setbacks are to be expected given the new and complex nature of the technology.  NY Times

LNG.  Clyde Russell of Reuters argues that the LNG industry needs to re-think how it operates, reversing a focus on massive and costly projects and the expectation that long-term sales contracts will provide good returns.   Clyde argues that because buyers have gained control of LNG pricing and new projects are scheduled to further skew the LNG supply-demand balance in coming years, LNG players need to look downstream to ensure its long-term viability, investing in re-gasification terminals, pipeline infrastructure and storage, and transmission and distribution grids in developing nations to boost and secure future demand prospects. Reuters

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Energy Policy.  The Department of Energy (DOE) announced approval on Friday for a major transmission project designed to channel wind energy from the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle to more populous regions of country, using eminent domain clauses to secure land if negotiations fail.  The decision is expected to encourage the spread of low-carbon electricity throughout the nation, while also increasing system reliability.  NY Times

Oil.  The Wall Street Journal reports that western oil companies are depleting their oil reserves more quickly than they are replacing them with new fields, attempting to maximize profits and production from existing fields rather than replenish stockpiles for future production.  While the shift in strategy will help producers’ bottom lines amid low oil prices,  it risks supply shortages and price spikes as the global supply imbalance subsides. WSJ

Energy Security.  John Kemp of Reuters argues that the worldwide oil price war has threatened the economic viability of domestic production, and therefore also the United States’ new sense of “energy security” that was gained as the shale revolution took hold over the past decade. While energy security has been a relatively minor (if even existent) topic in presidential and congressional campaigns so far in this election cycle, Kemp notes that falling oil production may play into the political climate in unexpected ways over coming months.  Reuters

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LNG.  The market for LNG is set to face a prolonged price rout as the market becomes increasingly oversupplied.  With an excess of 28 million metric tons of LNG expected to come online in 2018, many large buyers are working to renegotiate long-term pricing agreements — which will likely cut the price of LNG substantially and threaten the viability of megaprojects in development around the world. WSJ

Energy Outlook.  Reuters reports that some U.S. energy majors have offered greater incentive packages and lowered targets for their chief executive officers in an effort to keep top officials with the company.   While increasing executives’ financial packages during an upheaval is somewhat common practice across industries, energy companies are expected to face “particular scrutiny” in coming months due to variable performance and widespread layoffs and spending cuts that were also made at those companies over the course of 2015.  Reuters

Oil.  The Financial Times reports that exports of US crude oil have declined so far in 2016, despite the abolishment of the 40-year oil export ban last December.  The authors explain that before the ban was lifted, the US oil industry sold hundreds of thousands of barrels per day to Canada; as global oil prices have plummeted and trade with Canada has become less profitable, the industry has not made up the difference with exports elsewhere.  FT

Climate Change.  Michael O’Hanlon and Raymond Odierno of the Brookings Institute write in the National Interest magazine that a crucial challenge of the twenty-first century will be to make the world’s cities resilient to man-made crises and natural disasters.  The authors assert that vulnerabilities such as resource scarcity, emergency response services, and risks associated with climate change often grow exponentially compared with population growth, which suggests that securing cities to mitigate these threats will become increasingly imperative to global security and economic stability moving forward.  Brookings

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Oil.  An OPEC delegate has reported that Saudi Arabia is ready to join an oil production freeze as early as next month without Iran’s participation, improving the chances that other big producers will also sign on to a deal.  The delegate noted that there was “a sense of urgency” among producers to improve the economic situation, and alluded to the recent price increases as a premature market reaction to the group’s expected collaboration.  FT

Energy Policy.  The New York Times reports that the automotive industry is expected to seek adjustments to the government’s fuel economy standards during it’s 5-year review of the rules that is set to begin this summer.  As fuel economy improvements become more challenging and expensive to achieve, auto makers will likely press for an extended time frame to reach mileage targets and expansions to emissions credits to include advancements in safety and autonomous driving. NY Times

Oil Outlook.   The U.S. oil production windfall is beginning to fade as drillers add less oil from new fields than they lose to natural decline in old fields.   As investment cuts that were made at the beginning of the oil price slump begin to take hold, the trend is expected to continue and worsen, leading many industry analysts to predict that global demand and supply will come into balance “very quickly.”  Bloomberg Business