News
OPEC+ has been withholding 2.2 million barrels of oil supply daily for well over a year now—and it might have to start thinking about these cuts as a long-term policy. The market just keeps refusing to respond to them as OPEC+ wants. The idea of the production cuts was the same as the idea of all OPEC cuts before them: curb supply, let demand take care of any perceived or real surplus, watch prices go up, and then release the withheld supply. It has always worked before. It should have worked again. But it didn’t. It isn’t working…
Russian gas giant Gazprom is cutting its planned investments for next year by 7% compared to 2024 levels as more natural gas flows out of Russia are now headed to China instead of Europe. Gazprom’s investment is now geared toward developing gas fields and processing facilities in eastern Russia and the Yamal peninsula, as the Russian firm is pivoting to supplying more gas to China than to Europe, which was its main export market until the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Gazprom cutting off supply to many European countries. Russian gas sales…
Mexico’s recently elected President Claudia Sheinbaum was just named as one of the 100 most influential climate leaders in business for 2024 by Time magazine. With a PhD in energy engineering and extensive experience rolling out renewable energy projects as mayor of Mexico City, there are high hopes that she will be the one to put Mexico on track for a green transition. However, many expect Sheinbaum to follow in the footsteps of former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), who led the Morena political party for the last six years…
The share of electricity in China generated from coal dipped below 60% of the total for the first time since the start of the year. Some have seen this as a win for the country’s transition efforts. Alas, it is a temporary one. China’s share of coal power generation in the total mix stood at 58.7% over the first ten months of the year, Reuters’ Gavin Maguire reported this week. This is down from 61.6% for the same period of 2023 and 61.8% for the first ten months of 2022. This may seem like a small but significant victory for…
The automotive industry “urgently” needs government-backed incentives to improve customer uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) or the UK faces missing its net zero targets, the boss of Ford UK has said. Speaking the morning after the government announced a consultation into its EVs sales targets for automakers, Lisa Brankin said the move was welcome but that it needed to be carried out quickly. “The first thing I would say is that the government has listened,” she told the BBC’s Today programme. “We have been talking…
One of President-elect Donald Trump’s key achievements when first in office was keeping the benchmark oil prices within a very carefully managed range – ‘The Trump Oil Price Range’. The lower part of this is US$40-45 per barrel of the Brent benchmark, which is the price at which the bulk of U.S. shale oil producers can breakeven and make a good profit on top. The upper part is US$75-80 per barrel, which ties into historical data showing that a gasoline price of under US$2 per gallon has been most advantageous for U.S. economic…
Last week the United States authorized the use of American-made long-range missiles by Ukraine against Russia which the Russian government says risks escalation to a nuclear conflict in the almost three-year-old war. The Russian government reacted by announcing an unnerving shift in nuclear doctrine. It also announced reductions in uranium exports to the United States. By how much and for how long, the government did not say. In light of what can only be seen as a proxy war in Ukraine between the United States along with its NATO allies and the…
Until about a year ago, no one paid much attention to data centers. Everyone used them, of course, but they didn’t think about them. Then, the AI rush began. It was followed by a rush for energy supply. One year in, and data centers are threatening the very energy transition on which so many governments have staked everything. Power utilities, regulators, and climate activists appear to be experiencing growing concern about the immediate outlook for oil and gas demand, Reuters reported this week, saying the fast growth in demand for electricity…
