Daily Shorts: BlackRock backs Oxy's DAC project, Rivian ups EV production, and more

US electric vehicle maker Rivian Automotive raised its forecast for full-year production to 54,000 units, an increase of 2,000 units. The Amazon-backed company also said it would end its exclusive tie-up with the e-tailer for its electric van, which would allow it to sell the unit to more customers. Rivians news offers some cheer to an industry reeling from oversupply and pricing pressure. Rival Lucid announced it was cutting production to 8,000-8,500 vehicles from 10,000.

Financial firm BlackRock Inc announced it would pour $550 million into Occidental Petroleum Corp's direct air capture plant in West Texas. Oxy's Stratos project is the largest project designed to suck up CO2 directly from the air, and is one of 100 planned by the oil company looking to decarbonize. The company has been scouting for investors since last year, even as the project's estimated cost ballooned 50 percent to $1.3 billion and its start date deferred by a year to 2025. Oxy estimates DAC could be a multi-trillion market for oil producers by 2050.

The world isn't cutting fossil fuels fast enough, according to a UN report. According to its estimate, global fossil fuel production in 2030 is likely to be more than twice the level acceptable for meeting the climate goal decided in the 2015 Paris agreement: restricting average global temperature rise to a maximum of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The report, issued by the UN Environment Programme, comes ahead of the global COP28 climate meeting in UAE from November 30. Several companies have already written to leaders asking for a firm commitment to phasing out of fossil fuels.

Global oil giant Shell plans to scale up production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in the US, with the company's head of US operations saying the country was an attractive place for development of low-emission forms of energy. The US is incentivizing production of SAF, with President Joe Biden asking industry to supply at least 3 billion gallons a year by 2030. SAF uses waste cooking oil, agricultural waste, etc and can reduce emissions substantially vis-à-vis conventional jet fuel.