The Department of Energy looks set to award $8 bln in loan guarantees to limit greenhouse gas emissions produced from the oil & gas and coal sectors. The DOE’s proposal would apply to both downstream carbon capture – such as from coal-fired power plants – and to upstream emissions mitigation. Perhaps not what the world was expecting from President Obama’s Climate Action Plan. [Fuel Fix]

A Louisiana judge has appointed former FBI Director Louis Freeh to investigate what may have been misconduct by a lawyer involved in the settlement of claims related to the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig in 2010, which resulted in a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. “BP welcomed Freeh’s appointment and said he had been granted ‘wide latitude’ to look for other possible misconduct within the Court Supervised Settlement Program (CSSP).” [Reuters]

Russian state-controlled oil giant Rosneft has announced the purchase of the 49% of independent gas producer Itera that it didn’t already own for $2.9 bln. “Rosneft’s president and chairman, Igor I. Sechin, has ambitions to expand the company’s current relatively modest role in natural gas, challenging the monopoly of state-controlled Gazprom.” This shoud be good. [New York Times]