EU carmakers will sell about 2 million fewer electric vehicles than previously expected, due to the more flexible EU regulations on emission standards for 2025, green group Transport & Environment said in new research on Monday.   Earlier this year, under pressure from Europe’s automotive industry, the European Union adopted amendments to the regulation on CO2 standards for new passenger cars and vans, which aims to provide car manufacturers with flexibility to meet their emissions targets for 2025. The changes say that compliance…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded a “strong” US response to the latest massive drone strike by Russia on Kyiv, one in which a government building was hit for the first time since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. "It is important that there is a broad response from partners to this attack today," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. "We are counting on a strong response from America. That is what is needed." "Clearly, Russia is trying to inflict pain on Ukraine with even more brazen…

Oil prices could fall below $60 per barrel by the end of the year as OPEC+ continues to unwind production, analysts say after the group began rolling back the last layer of output cuts.   On Sunday, the eight OPEC+ producers – Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman – tapped the 1.65 million barrels per day (bpd) cuts announced in April 2023. The producers will return 137,000 bpd of these cuts to the market in October, “in view of a steady global economic outlook and current healthy market…

China will continue amassing crude oil in strategic and commercial reserves well into 2026, according to Frederic Lasserre, global head of research and analysis at commodity trading giant Gunvor.  After a slow start to the year, China began boosting its crude oil imports in March-April and has kept elevated import levels since then. The key driver has been crude stockpiling, not a major rebound in demand, according to analysts.  Higher Chinese purchases have helped support oil prices despite the OPEC+ production hikes and persistent concerns…

S&P Global expects Brent crude prices to drop to $55 per barrel by the end of the year as a result of supply growth resulting from OPEC+’s decision to reverse cuts agreed in 2022. Speaking at the Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference in Singapore, Dave Ernsberger, co-president of S&P Global Commodity Insights, said that “If there’s a massive surplus, if Russian oil continues to flow into the market, if stock-building stops and some of this stuff goes into commercial inventory, contangos blow out, we can see a lower price than…

Goldman Sachs expects the global oil market to swing into a surplus of 1.9 million barrels daily next year as a result of OPEC+’s output cut unwinding and producers in North and South America also ramping up production. “While a full 1.65 mb/d unwind is plausible, we assume the group will leverage its flexibility to pause quota increases from January 2026 under our assumption that OECD commercial stocks start rising noticeably in 2025 Q4,” the investment bank’s commodity analysts said in a note on Sunday, following the news…

The signing of the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline deal by the presidents of Russia and China was perhaps the biggest news to come out of the two leaders’ meeting earlier this month. It was also the deal that may very well make the new global natural gas flow order permanent, potentially interfering with President Trump’s energy dominance ambitions. The Power of Siberia 2 project has been in the works for years. Yet China took its time deciding to commit to it. Now, the decision has been made, and although details have yet to be tailored,…

In recent years, consumer concerns about microplastics have grown, with more people aware of the plastics that end up in everyday products, food, and even drinking water, as well as the potential impact they may have on human health. This has led to pushback by consumers for companies to address the issue. The petrochemicals industry is forecast to continue growing even as countries reduce their reliance on fossil fuels for power and heating, but could this controversy change this? Petrochemicals are produced from oil and gas. In 2023, the petrochemical…

President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBBA), signed into law on July 4, 2025, intended to phase out tax credits for wind and solar by mid-2026. But its true impact extends well beyond incentives: OBBBA is unsettling the entire financial and insurance underpinning of the U.S. clean energy industry. OBBBA has accelerated deadlines, with projects now required to begin construction by July 4, 2026, or be in service by December 31, 2027, to qualify for credits. It has also removed the 5% cost-based safe harbor starting September 1, 2025,…

One of the biggest hurdles to expanding the global nuclear power sector is the concern over how best to manage nuclear waste. While some believe they have found sustainable solutions to dispose of nuclear waste, there is still widespread debate around how safe these methods are and the potential long-term impact of waste disposal and storage. In the United Kingdom, the government has put nuclear power back on the agenda, after decades with no new nuclear developments; however, managing nuclear waste continues to be a major barrier to development. …

China has boosted investments in Brazil to new highs, betting on key industries in South America’s biggest economy.  Renewables, oil and gas, mining, and manufacturing took the lion’s share of Chinese investments in Brazil in 2024, a new report by the Brazil-China Business Council, CEBC, showed this week.   As Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is pursuing closer ties with China, Chinese firms more than doubled their investments in Brazil last year, and the South American nation became the top emerging market…

US President Donald Trump significantly pivoted US energy policy with the signing of The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), transforming supply chains, redirecting investment flows and solidifying the US government’s support of traditional fuels. The act, which underscored the administration’s domestic energy dominance ambitions, was packed with various cost-cutting measures that directly reversed key provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Rystad Energy estimates that the OBBBA’s aggressive foreign content tests, and…

The abrupt halt of Ørsted’s Revolution Wind project off Rhode Island has become one of the most striking examples yet of political interference derailing sound economic logic. This was not a struggling venture or a risky experimental bet. It was a nearly complete, multi-billion-dollar project designed to deliver clean power to more than 350,000 households. Eighty percent of the turbines were already in place, the investment had largely been sunk, and the project had a clear pathway to profitability. Yet the U.S. government ordered…

We don’t really know how much energy artificial intelligence is consuming. There aren’t any laws currently on the books requiring AI companies to disclose their energy usage or environmental impact, and most firms therefore opt to keep that controversial information close to the vest. Plus, large language models are evolving all the time, increasing in both complexity and efficiency, complicating outside efforts to quantify the sector’s energy footprint. But while we don’t know exactly how much electricity data centers are…

As countries worldwide strive to undergo a green transition, one sector that many are finding challenging to decarbonise is transport. Shifting large-scale passenger transport away from fossil fuels to be powered by electricity, batteries, or green fuels is a complex endeavour. However, thanks to higher investment and recent innovations, we are getting ever closer to achieving green transport technology, such as battery-powered trains. Several countries have invested in research and development into battery trains, some with greater success than…

China is now illegally drilling for oil within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone, ramping up Beijing’s campaign of aggression against the island’s sovereignty. Over the past several years, China has been intensifying performative military displays in the waters around the island, but drilling within Taiwan’s territory is a new development that could signal a new, ultra-aggressive political era for the One China policy.  Over the last two months, “at least 12 oil and gas vessels and permanent structures were detected…

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has presided over a multi-day pageant in Beijing and Tianjin staged in part to showcase the strength and unity of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a grouping that China and Russia hope can emerge as a new geopolitical center of gravity in a shifting global order. Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev might have a thing or two to say about that. Azerbaijan figures centrally in several simmering disputes and rivalries among SCO states that undermine Xi’s carefully cultivated image of an organization moving in lockstep…

Danish offshore wind developer Ørsted won shareholder approval Friday for a $9.4-billion emergency rights issue, shoring up its balance sheet as U.S. projects face mounting political and operational setbacks. The move follows weeks of uncertainty triggered by President Donald Trump’s directive halting work on Equinor’s Empire Wind 2 project, a decision that also rippled into Ørsted’s nearby Sunrise Wind venture, according to Reuters. Two-thirds of the capital raised will be directed toward Sunrise Wind, where financing…

Danish offshore wind developer Ørsted won shareholder approval Friday for a $9.4-billion emergency rights issue, shoring up its balance sheet as U.S. projects face mounting political and operational setbacks. The move follows weeks of uncertainty triggered by President Donald Trump’s directive halting work on Equinor’s Empire Wind 2 project, a decision that also rippled into Ørsted’s nearby Sunrise Wind venture, according to Reuters. Two-thirds of the capital raised will be directed toward Sunrise Wind, where financing…

Danish offshore wind developer Ørsted won shareholder approval Friday for a $9.4-billion emergency rights issue, shoring up its balance sheet as U.S. projects face mounting political and operational setbacks. The move follows weeks of uncertainty triggered by President Donald Trump’s directive halting work on Equinor’s Empire Wind 2 project, a decision that also rippled into Ørsted’s nearby Sunrise Wind venture, according to Reuters. Two-thirds of the capital raised will be directed toward Sunrise Wind, where financing…