The proposed 1 million-barrel-a-day pipeline will link to a deepwater port capable of receiving Very Large Crude Carriers, or VLCCs, with the goal of “meeting significant Asian demand from countries like Japan, Korea, China and India,” according to the government of Alberta. 

The project will largely follow the route of the existing Trans Mountain line, Carney said. That’s the only crude pipeline in Canada that currently reaches an ocean port, limiting Canada’s ability to send oil to markets other than the US.

“Canada and Alberta will be equal partners in this project, and there will be a meaningful ownership stake for Indigenous communities,” Carney said in Calgary on Thursday evening, speaking alongside Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

Carney and Smith, while sometimes political rivals, are seeking a shared goal of diversifying Canada’s exports to become less reliant on the US market after President Donald Trump launched a trade war last year.

Dealing with India and China

Selling more oil to growing Asian markets such as India and China will allow Canada to get better prices per barrel, they believe, boosting Alberta’s wealth and helping shield the economy from the protectionism that has defined US trade policy under Trump.

By doing the project through Trans Mountain, the two leaders are effectively providing a government backstop for a complex energy project that is certain to cost tens of billions of dollars. The Alberta government said construction of the project could cost between C$35.2 billion ($24.8 billion) and C$43.7 billion if investment is greenlit in the next three years. But it also forecast the potential to increase Canada’s real gross domestic product by more than 0.6% a year by the 2040s.

Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corp. will help build the new line for an initial 10% stake in the project with the option to raise the stake to 20% when the line is operating, as part of a non-bind agreement, it said in a statement. The project has now been submitted to the federal Major Projects Office for review — a process that may qualify it for faster regulatory approval.

Implementing CCS technology

The prime minister also said terms have been reached with the largest Canadian oil sands companies to move forward on Pathways, a large carbon capture system. Carney had said the project to reduce energy-sector emissions was a condition of his government’s backing of a new oil pipeline.

Kendall Dilling, president of the Oil Sands Alliance, which represents the five major oil sands firms, said they agreed to a 2032 start date for the Pathways project and construction would begin later this decade.

“No one party got everything they wanted, it’s just not how this works,” Dilling said in an interview. “But at the end of the day, everybody was committed to what needed to happen and we found a middle ground.”

The proposed third line for Trans Mountain isn’t the only expansion coming for Alberta’s oil producers. Enbridge Inc. and Trans Mountain are planning expansions equal to about 700,000 barrels a day in the next few years. At the same time, South Bow Corp. is teaming up with Bridger Pipeline LLC on a proposal for a new 550,000 barrel-a-day line to the US that’s akin to a smaller version of the canceled Keystone XL project.

“I think you’ll see as we get this MOU finalized and through final drafting and approvals, companies will be incentivized to move quickly to grow production,” Dilling said. “So I don’t think we’ll be waiting around for years to see companies starting to invest real dollars.”

Trans Mountain Chief Executive Mark Maki said in an interview that an open season would be needed to get commitments from producers before a final investment decision was made, and he expected that process to happen next year.

Persisting challenges

The choice of a route through southern British Columbia, and into Canada’s third most-populated metropolitan area, is a reversal for Smith, who had repeatedly said she preferred a northwestern route because it would shorten the shipping time to Asia. 

But earlier on Thursday, Carney and BC Premier David Eby announced a federal ban on oil tankers along the northern BC coast would stay in place with no exceptions. The federal government also announced billions in funding for energy, mining and transportation projects in BC. 

That deal removed a major hurdle to building a new pipeline, as Eby said his government won’t challenge Alberta’s new proposal in court. He had been steadfast in opposing a northwestern route and lifting the oil tanker ban.

Setting financial structures

“This agreement doesn’t require us to support any pipeline proposal from Alberta,” Eby said. “However, as I’ve said before, we recognize our constitutional position, and we do not have the authority to stop a new pipeline. We will not be going to court to fight a pipeline project.”

The BC deal also outlined plans for a legal framework that would see the province share in the economic upside from the new pipeline, including a potential annual royalty payment from the operator and the creation of an environmental liability and emergency response fund.

Carney also promised his government’s support for upgrading the Roberts Bank port south of Vancouver, which is the proposed end point for the pipeline. 

The existing Trans Mountain marine terminal in Burnaby, British Columbia, can only receive partly-full Aframax tankers, which carry less than half the amount of oil of VLCCs. The ability to ship oil on VLCCs would improve the economics of shipping western Canadian oil to distant destinations such as India. 

(Updates with reaction from 10th paragraph.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The country produced about 17.3 terawatt hours of electricity with gas in June, down 16% from last year, according to data compiled by Japan’s nine largest utilities. Coal generation rose by 4.6%, the data shows.

The move highlights how Asian countries are continuing to turn to alternatives, like coal, to reduce dependence on liquefied natural gas — as the conflict in the Middle East chokes about a fifth of global exports. Asian LNG spot prices are about 70% higher than pre-war levels, making the fuel less attractive to Japanese utilities.

Japan — the world’s second largest LNG buyer — has cut back imports since the war started in late-February. March to June imports are down about 7% compared to the same period last year, ship-tracking data shows. 

While higher demand from Northeast Asian countries pushed Australian benchmark coal prices to the highest since 2023 in early June, futures have since dropped around 15%.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

As geopolitical tensions and energy security concerns rise, Dr Sama explains how shifting investor sentiment, stronger policy frameworks and public–private partnerships can help make nuclear projects more bankable. The discussion also highlights opportunities across the nuclear value chain, from large reactors to small modular ones, and what it will take to deliver long-term, sustainable investment at scale in the years ahead.

The mirage is broken as Li Kai, a director at the local energy bureau, points to a black strip beyond the edge of the desert. A coal mine, he explains. 

In a region that ranks among China’s top producers of both coal and renewables, the two sides of the energy transition have, for now, formed an intimate alliance. Filtered waste water from the mine is funneled to the base to irrigate plants shaded by the solar panels, helping to tame vicious desert sandstorms whose effects can be felt hundreds of miles away in Beijing.

“Our model is quite innovative,” Li said. “We not only utilize the wastewater, but also solve the irrigation problem.” Further in the distance, he adds, a coal-fired power station and a set of batteries ensure the grid can meet electricity demand when the sun isn’t shining.

As China sets out to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, the central government sees its plentiful coal resources as an essential bridge to the clean-energy future. Xianlihoupo — first build, then dismantle — goes Beijing’s maxim, and Inner Mongolia is a testament to that vision of a slow and steady transition.

While trucks loaded with wind turbine towers hurtle down the northern borderland’s highways and power lines criss-cross its mountains, the coal industry here is evolving rather than fading away. The fossil fuel is now being used to balance renewables on the grid, turn deserts green and produce liquid fuels and chemicals needed for plastics.  

Inner Mongolia churns out more than 1.2 billion tons of coal every year, roughly a quarter of the nation’s total, and new facilities continue to be built. Coal mining is the region’s biggest industrial employer, providing almost 200,000 jobs, according to the 2023 regional census. It brought in 648.4 billion yuan ($95.4 billion) in annual revenue that year, more than a fifth of the region’s total. 

For policymakers in the Inner Mongolian capital of Hohhot, that economic dependence is motivation to extend coal’s use as long as possible. For China at large, it threatens to become a significant barrier to decarbonization. 

Local officials will align their development plans with the central government’s long-term vision of carbon neutrality, but progress may be slower in the country’s coal heartland, said Hu Bin, an associate professor at Tsinghua University’s Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development. “Short-term fluctuations are inevitable. It is difficult to guarantee steady, rapid progress across the board, given the current economic challenges,” he added.  

Flexible Power

Last year, China achieved a breakthrough by meeting new electricity demand nationwide with clean sources, pushing coal power generation down for the first time in a decade. President Xi Jinping called for the country to reproduce that feat going forward, even as the grid faces new pressure from artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and factory buildouts.

Inner Mongolia has emerged as a leader in this campaign, cutting thermal-power generation by 4.2% last year — more than any other province, according to research by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

The region is the nation’s top producer of wind power and now boasts China’s biggest energy-storage systems, with 25 gigawatts of battery capacity installed. But its coal-power network also played a central role. China’s policymakers are pushing for the country’s coal plants to be retrofitted wherever possible by 2027 in order to better support the renewables era. The idea is for the plants to become a more flexible power source, able to run at lower capacity, as well as to ramp up and down more quickly as required.

“It’s a practical part of this larger puzzle — on one hand, to fill in this need for flexibility and then on the other hand, it is also a strategic move to make coal less important to the power system,” said Biqing Yang, an energy analyst at UK-based think tank Ember who wrote a recent report on the issue.

Inner Mongolia has completed all of its coal-power retrofits ahead of schedule, according to Huang Zhiqiang, the region’s executive vice chairman, and running hours at the newly flexible plants have fallen in the last two years accordingly.

But that hasn’t stopped the region from developing more coal power. Inner Mongolia also had China’s largest pipeline of coal power plants under construction last year, more than 20 gigawatts of capacity, according to Global Energy Monitor (GEM). 

“Inner Mongolia in particular has a lot of local incentives to keep building, and there’s overall a bias toward overbuilding capacity rather than risk shortages,” said David Fishman, a principal at the Lantau Group who focuses on China’s power sector.  

Policymakers still describe coal power as a necessary layer of energy security. The fear is that renewables and batteries, whose economics remain uncertain, will fail to keep up with growing electricity demand. Lagging infrastructure and a power market that still favors long-term contracts mean that new renewable energy capacity in China doesn’t always translate to an equivalent increase in generation.

But the coal construction boom may extend the fuel’s use long after clean resources can provide sufficient backup, according to Kevin Tu, managing director of Agora Energy China, a Beijing-based think tank.

“If retrofitting coal-fired power plants for better flexibility is used as an excuse to permit more greenfield power capacity, then this could be quite counterproductive,” he said at a press briefing in June.

Coal to Chemicals

A new growth spurt in the region’s already formidable coal-to-chemicals industry also threatens to turbocharge emissions.

To date, China has invested in 75 projects to convert coal deposits into chemicals used in manufacturing, plastics production and fuels, according to GEM. Coal use in the sector rose 70% between 2019 and 2025, Bloomberg Intelligence data show, and Inner Mongolia became the industry’s central hub. 

The Iran war’s soaring oil prices gave coal-based production an extra boost. Across China, 34 projects are in the pipeline, seven of which are in Inner Mongolia, including a 23.8 billion yuan ($3.5 billion) coal-to-olefins project that entered construction this spring.  

“The Iran war did not create China’s coal-to-chemicals boom, but it accelerated a trend that was already gathering momentum,” said Aiqun Yu, a research analyst at GEM who has focused on the sector. 

Local officials have welcomed the industry as a way of reducing reliance on foreign imports. 

“Increasing production of coal-based chemical products will improve self-sufficiency in oil and gas domestically, helping to mitigate and offset energy security challenges at the industrial level,” said Mongolia’s executive vice chairman Huang at a press conference in Hohhot last month. 

But coal-to-chemicals projects are emissions-intensive, with a carbon footprint as much as eight times higher than petrochemical alternatives. Last year, carbon emissions in China’s chemicals sector grew 12%, according to CREA research, even as they fell in all other major sectors.

If all the coal-to-chemicals projects in China’s pipeline come to fruition, GEM estimates they will consume 300 million tons of coal annually, about 6% of China’s annual production. The latest set of projects have been paired with green hydrogen or carbon capture storage projects, but Yu says this only marginally decreases their emissions.

The industry “risks creating long-lived assets that could lock China into higher emissions for decades,” she said.

New Pathways

In its local five-year plan, Inner Mongolia set a target of peaking carbon emissions ahead of the national deadline of 2030. (All other Chinese regions and provinces did the same.) China has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 7% and 10% nationwide by 2035.

“Now it’s getting to a more painful period of the transition,” said Ember’s Yang. “That is, going into this plateau and then we need to drive this plateau down to an absolute decline.”

For Inner Mongolia and other coal-rich regions, ensuring the energy transition is minimally disruptive to regional revenue and employment is key. The calculus may start to change, though, with the implementation of a new national evaluation system this year, which will grade local officials on their carbon emissions in addition to their economic output.

Already, Hohhot’s officials have started trying to build out new economic pathways. They are pitching the region as a data-center hub, given its proximity to northeastern cities including Beijing and cheap, clean electricity. And they’ve attracted green giants like Envision Energy Co., battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. and Ming Yang Smart Energy Group Ltd., one of China’s largest wind-energy producers, to manufacture locally.

At Ming Yang’s factory and testing center near the industrial city of Baotou, 100-meter-long blades for future wind turbines underwent final quality tests. They waved like conductors’ batons in the howling wind as He Changguo, the company’s general manager for northern manufacturing, spoke to reporters. 

The wind business still sees room to grow, he said, particularly as the largest emitters  move into the “dismantling” phase of the energy transition.  

“Global demand for replacing traditional energy sources will be robust,” he said. “We are far from reaching the level of demand for wind and solar power, among other new energy sources, needed to achieve carbon neutrality.”

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The Greenlight Electricity Center, a 932-megawatt plant to be built in Sturgeon County, will serve a “major data center” development, Pembina, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and Kineticor Asset Management said on Thursday.

The project is scheduled to be completed by the second half of 2030, the company said in a release. Pembina is responsible for C$2.3 billion of the cost.

The investment comes as the Canadian province seeks to use its vast reserves of relatively cheap natural gas to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom and push to build data centers. 

A firm backed by Canadian businessman and television personality Kevin O’Leary wants to build a 7.5-gigawatt data center called Wonder Valley about 300 miles northwest of the provincial capital of Edmonton. Data District, a division of Swiss-based manager Alcral AG, has partnered with Technologies New Energy Plc, or TNE, on a proposal for multiple data centers in the western Canadian province, a potential €8 billion investment.

Last fall, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed to lift clean electricity rules and emissions limits that Alberta said hindered its energy industry, pledging to raise its industrial carbon price and shore up its carbon trading system in exchange. Those moves set the stage for the Pembina project and others, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said in a press conference on Thursday. 

“We have opened the doors for more projects like this,” she said. “The agreement will allow Alberta to increase oil and gas production, secure more energy projects, and attract billions of dollars in investment that will grow and diversify our economy.”

Pembina didn’t identify the company behind the data center project. In October, The Logic reported that the company was close to announcing a deal to build an AI data center northeast of Edmonton for tech giant Meta Platforms Inc., citing three people familiar with the project. An email to Meta wasn’t immediately returned.

The company’s shares rose 0.3% to C$65.82 in Toronto on Thursday.

Separately, Aecon Group Inc. also announced that TRA, a majority-held consortium with Técnicas Reunidas Alberta, was awarded a data center development contract for the project in which Aecon is to receive a C$1.7 billion share.

(Updates with report on Meta, Alberta premier comment in sixth to eighth paragraphs. An earlier version of this story corrected the spelling of the company name in the headline.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Brent for September traded below $71 a barrel, after sliding more than 3% in the previous two sessions, while West Texas Intermediate was around $68. Oil supply through the critical waterway has reached more than 10 million barrels a day, underscoring Tehran’s now-limited ability to halt shipping, a US official said, while President Donald Trump hailed progress in negotiations.

Qatar said the next meeting would be scheduled at the earliest possible time following the funeral processions for Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an air strike at the start of the conflict. Ceremonies are expected to begin July 4 and continue for days, according to Iranian state-run media.

Oil has extended losses after its worst quarter since 2020, as flows through Hormuz — which connects Gulf producers to global buyers — continued despite tensions over the weekend that saw the parties exchange strikes. While total supply is still crimped, the United Arab Emirates’ exports have reached pre-war levels thanks to workarounds, and key US crude grades have slumped to trade at discounts as demand for American supply fades.

“Prices continue to drift lower as the gush of oil escaping the Strait of Hormuz coincides with SPR releases and curtailed demand, as flare ups between Iran and the US remain contained at least for the time being,” said Saul Kavonic, senior energy analyst at MST Marquee, referring to the millions of barrels of strategic petroleum reserves countries tapped to replace lost Gulf supply.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “may be reluctant to relinquish their leverage over the strait, as their ability to hold the world economy to ransom is the only point of leverage they really have,” Kavonic added. 

Ahead of the Qatar talks, Iran reiterated its determination to control shipping through Hormuz, underscoring the sticking points — which include the Islamic republic’s nuclear program and fighting in Lebanon — that are complicating discussions during the 60-day ceasefire window. Trump repeated that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon in comments Wednesday to reporters in Virginia.

Total US stockpiles have fallen to the lowest levels since March 2025, with inventories excluding strategic reserves at around 1.2 billion barrels, after 12 straight weeks of declines.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef Al Otaiba said, “After leaving OPEC and while navigating months of regional disruption, the UAE is now exporting at record levels when the world needs it most. That’s good news for global energy security.” 

Ship-tracking data from Kpler and Vortexa showed that UAE crude and condensate exports stood at around 3.7 bpd in June, surpassing the previous record of 3.44 million bpd set in April in 2020 during the Saudi-Russia oil price war.

Matching prewar supplies 

Oil exports from the country in early June had already recovered to nearly 85% of the prewar levels, according to the IEA. 

Data also indicated that ADNOC had kept ferrying shipments out of the Arabian Gulf using its own fleet during the war, helping exports stay afloat. 

According to Kpler Senior Oil Analyst Johannes Rauball, exports have now exceeded the 3.1-3.3 million bpd levels seen before the recent Middle East conflict.

“The rise can be attributed to multiple factors, including a resumption in flows via the Strait of Hormuz, helping to free trapped vessels,” Rauball said. “At the same time, we have been observing a ramp-up in supply from the UAE, which we estimate is closing in on prewar levels.”

He added that the UAE has also been drawing down crude inventories, further enhancing export volumes.

OPEC exit eases production pressures 

The increase comes after the UAE formally exited OPEC on 1 May, ending nearly six decades of membership. 

The country had earlier said the move would allow it to maximise the value of its hydrocarbon resources without being constrained by OPEC production quotas.

The export surge also follows weeks of disruption in the Gulf during the conflict involving Iran, when heightened security concerns around the Strait of Hormuz prompted ADNOC to implement additional measures to safeguard crude shipments. 

According to trade sources, the company established a tanker shuttle system to move crude through the Arabian Gulf before transferring cargoes to larger vessels outside the highest-risk areas.

Vortexa Senior Oil Analyst Emma Li said Abu Dhabi crude loadings averaged 4 million bpd between June 1 and June 29, up from around 3.4 million bpd before the conflict. 

Exports reached a record 3.7 million bpd, compared with approximately 3.3 million bpd during the first two months of the year.

Non-traditional markets grab UAE oil 

While Asia continues to be ADNOC’s largest market, demand has also strengthened west of the Suez Canal, according to a source familiar with the matter. 

Buyers in Africa, the US, Europe, and the Mediterranean have increased purchases in recent weeks.

Trade sources said ADNOC has supplied crude to Nigeria’s Dangote refinery as well as Turkish refiner Tupras, reflecting the company’s strategy of expanding its customer base beyond the usual Asian markets.

Emerging alternative routes 

ADNOC has been investing heavily to raise sustainable crude production capacity to 5 million bpd, while increasing exports through infrastructure such as the Habshan–Fujairah pipeline, which enables crude shipments to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. 

Through this, ADNOC has continued marketing additional crude cargoes, issuing its fifth spot tender of the month for Upper Zakum, Umm Lulu and Das crude grades. 

The tender offers cargoes ranging from 500,000 barrels to 2 million barrels for loading between June and August.

Under the terms of the agreement, SLB will collaborate with KOC on applied research, technology deployment and digital transformation projects aimed at advancing Kuwait’s long-term energy strategy and improving upstream operations.

SLB will be part of nearly 100 projects spanning AI, industrial internet of things (IIoT) applications, production optimisation, reservoir technologies, water management, and energy transition initiatives. The programme is designed to accelerate the evaluation, testing, and deployment of emerging technologies across KOC’s operations.

Advancing Kuwait's energy systems

Ahmadi Innovation Valley is KOC’s flagship innovation platform, bringing together industry, academia and technology providers to address strategic upstream challenges while strengthening research capabilities and knowledge transfer within Kuwait’s energy sector.

“Ahmadi Innovation Valley represents an important step in advancing technology leadership across Kuwait’s energy sector,” said Ahmad Jaber Al-Eidan, Chief Executive Officer of Kuwait Oil Company. “Through collaboration with leading technology partners, we are accelerating technology deployment, strengthening local capabilities and expanding knowledge transfer to support Kuwait’s energy industry,” Al-Eidan added. 

Bringing large-scale operations online

SLB Chief Executive Officer Olivier Le Peuch said the initiative would help bridge the gap between technological innovation and large-scale operational deployment.

“The energy industry has no shortage of technology. The challenge is deploying it at scale and turning innovation into operational impact,” he said, adding that the platform “brings together technology providers, researchers and operational teams to accelerate the evaluation, deployment and scaling of new solutions across KOC’s operations.”

As part of the agreement, SLB will also establish a dedicated Ahmadi Innovation Valley facility in Kuwait. 

Construction is expected to begin some time this year, with the centre scheduled to open in 2028, which will serve as a hub for research, testing, technology validation, and workforce development, supporting collaboration between local and international experts.

The project aligns with Kuwait’s broader efforts to modernise its upstream sector through digitalisation and advanced technologies while maintaining production capacity and improving operational efficiency. 

The partnership brings together Siemens’ expertise in industrial AI, digital engineering, automation, and manufacturing execution with IFS’s capabilities in enterprise asset management, field service management, and industrial AI.

Together these companies will address one of manufacturing’s main challenges: the disconnect between how production systems are designed and how they perform in everyday operations. 

By integrating engineering, operational, and maintenance data, Siemens and IFS aim to reduce unplanned downtime, improve asset performance, and strengthen supply chain resilience. 

They will also develop comprehensive digital twins aided by Siemens’ engineering and manufacturing data, while IFS will provide its operational, maintenance, and service information. 

Supporting predictive maintenance

The companies said this will create a continuous feedback loop between product design and real-world performance, enabling manufacturers to make faster, data-driven decisions throughout an asset’s lifecycle.

The integrated approach is expected to improve production planning, and help manufacturers respond more quickly to changing market conditions while extending the operational life of industrial assets.

“Industrial AI only delivers value when it is grounded in both engineering intent and real-world performance,” said Tony Hemmelgarn, President and Chief Executive Officer of Siemens Digital Industries Software.

“Together with IFS, we are bringing these domains together by connecting design, manufacturing and asset lifecycle data in a secure, contextualised data fabric,” Hemmelgarn said, adding, “By converging our combined strengths in industrial AI, we will empower our customers with our vision of an executable digital twin that will enable them to accelerate innovation with confidence.”

IFS Chief Executive Officer Mark Moffat said manufacturers are increasingly looking for AI solutions that can operate reliably in complex industrial environments, where safety, compliance, and operational continuity are critical.

“By combining our collective strengths in Industrial AI, we can help manufacturers close the loop between design and reality, and unlock real, measurable performance gains,” he said.

Enhancing interoperability 

The announcement comes as manufacturers accelerate investments in digital transformation to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and strengthen resilience against supply chain disruptions. 

According to industry analysts, industrial AI is becoming a key enabler of predictive maintenance, quality control, and production optimisation, allowing operators to extract greater value from existing assets while supporting sustainability goals through improved energy efficiency and reduced waste.

The partnership also reflects the growing convergence of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT), as manufacturers increasingly seek integrated digital platforms, which can connect engineering with factory operations. 

The company submitted an application under the UK’s Advanced Nuclear Framework to build 14 units at three sites to provide enough power to serve nearly 8 million homes for decades, SGE said in a statement Thursday.

The installations will use GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 small modular reactors. Google Cloud and Samsung C&T are among the members of the deployment team.  

SGE expects the project to enter the Advanced Nuclear Pipeline in November with site selection and government negotiations to be completed in the first half of 2027. Together, the reactors would be able to produce 4.2 gigawatts, the equivalent of more than 10% of the country’s electricity. 

The project would help jumpstart the UK nuclear sector and expand supplies of zero-carbon energy. The country’s grid is struggling with capacity constraints and high energy bills, delaying the ability to connect data centers. 

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The NRC has proposed replacing the “as low as reasonably achievable” standard, abbreviated as Alara, with regulations the agency considers more cost effective and less complex. The new policy would be based on existing federally regulated dose limits.

The commission also proposed a range of reforms to licensing practices in an effort to streamline nuclear power plant development. 

NRC Chairman Ho K. Nieh said he doesn’t expect major changes in operations at existing nuclear facilities but the rule change will have a greater impact on new technologies. 

“These new reactor designers and new technology designers are trying to hit a moving target,” Nieh said. “What we’re doing is putting in place structure that does not currently exist today. It’s a logical, well thought out approach to managing doses below the regulatory limits.”

Nuclear advocates endorsed the shift away from Alara, saying it could free reactor developers from potentially onerous and costly requirements.

Critics argue that eliminating Alara will put workers and public health at risk. 

“The issue here is that routine exposures to workers and the public are already well below regulatory limits,” Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists said. “This rule could allow facility owners to change practices that have led to these low levels.” 

The NRC’s new approach stems from a May 2025 executive order in which President Donald Trump instructed the agency to accelerate nuclear deployment and reform regulations. The order included the mandate to reconsider the Alara standard. 

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Valar’s Ward 250 reactor was connected to the Nvidia Blackwell chip during a demonstration Wednesday at the company’s site in Utah, and used to temporarily host a website. The two companies also announced an agreement to jointly explore ways to develop nuclear-powered AI systems. 

The latest step follows the reactor reaching “criticality” last month, marking the start of a self-sustaining fission reaction. Valar is part of a wave of companies developing next-generation nuclear technologies that use new materials and designs intended to improve safety and performance. However, the industry is still in its early stages, and no US advanced reactors are commercially available.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Brent traded above $73 a barrel, after sinking by almost a third over the past three months, while West Texas Intermediate was near $70. US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff had positive discussions in Qatar and technical talks with Iran are moving ahead, a senior administration official said. The duo were in Doha for indirect talks to ease tensions over the critical waterway that connects Gulf producers to world markets.

Crude has fallen in recent days as the warring parties continued discussions to reach a more lasting accord, although recent attacks around Hormuz have marred negotiations. Oil tanker traffic is now showing signs of recovery, and has picked up since the US and Iran exchanged strikes over the weekend.

“We expect that by the end of July this is done,” said Samantha Dart, co-head of global commodities research at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., referring to the conflict. “Once we have a normalization of flows through the strait, the expectation is that we go into an oversupply.”

Goldman Sachs pegs the surplus at close to two million barrels a day next year, even after accounting for restocking of global strategic petroleum reserves following the Iran war. Morgan Stanley has also warned of a looming glut as flows through the strait return faster than expected, cutting its price forecasts for the second time in about two weeks. 

Markets are now contending with a gush of crude from other sources too. Iran said it exported more than 40 million barrels of oil since the US lifted its naval blockade, while Russian shipments are surging to records, causing a major buildup of barrels at sea.

Iran has reiterated its determination to control maritime traffic through the strait, a reminder that key sticking points — including over the country’s nuclear program and and end to fighting in Lebanon — remain in place and stand to complicate discussions during the 60-day ceasefire window.

Traders will also be looking to US crude inventory data due later Wednesday. That comes after Energy Information Administration data published last week showed nationwide stockpiles hit their lowest level since 1984.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

SK is bringing together renewable assets and businesses, including solar, wind and fuel cells, from its subsidiaries SK Innovation, SK ecoplant and SK eternix, according to the release. KKR is making an investment of undisclosed value from its Asia Pacific infrastructure investments, it said.

The new firm describes itself as Korea’s largest renewable energy business, and will have about 1.7 gigawatts of operating capacity with a development pipeline that could grow that to 10 gigawatts, according to the release. KKR will have management control initially.

South Korea’s power sector is dominated by nuclear and coal and gas, with wind and solar accounting for just 6.7% of total generation in 2024, according to BloombergNEF data. President Lee Jae Myung is pushing for more renewables to help reduce carbon emissions, while also expanding electricity output to ensure supply for building more data centers and semiconductor factories. 

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The company will take a pretax charge of as much as $2.9 billion in its fiscal third quarter tied to canceling the Louisiana Clean Energy Complex and other initiatives, Air Products said Tuesday in a statement. The firm said it made the decision to halt the project based on expected financial returns not meeting its “stringent” criteria.

Shares of the Pennsylvania-based company jumped as much as 12% in New York.

The move is the latest setback in the push to develop hydrogen as a clean fuel in the US after the Trump administration’s signature tax bill slashed a tax credit for the gas. It’s also another blow for carbon capture and sequestration, which the oil and natural gas industry has long promoted as key to fighting global warming.

“What you are seeing here is about reduced government support for the industry long term,” said Joseph Majkut, a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based research group. “The future for hydrogen projects in the United States is in great question given lack of support for climate action, no federal climate policy and a more challenging fiscal picture coming into the future.”

Once seen as a climate-friendly way to power heavy industry from ships to steel and cement factories, hydrogen projects around the world have been cancelled or scaled-back amid weak demand and high costs. The Trump has administration canceled billions of dollars in hydrogen projects destined for the West Coast, which the previous Biden administration envisioned as helping start a market for the nascent fuel.

Air Products announced the Louisiana Clean Energy Complex in 2021 in what would have been its largest-ever US investment, with an expected $4.5 billion cost. The project as envisioned would have used natural gas to produce 750 million cubic feet of so-called blue hydrogen, in which hydrocarbons are used as a feedstock in combination with carbon capture. The chief executive officer overseeing the project, Seifi Ghasemi, was later ousted. The project was expected to be operational in 2026.

Air Products also said Tuesday it will discontinue a zero-carbon liquid hydrogen facility in Casa Grande, Arizona and other smaller-scale projects supporting clean energy distribution.

“These exits are being driven by challenging commercial conditions, project-specific economic factors, and slower-than-expected development in certain markets, largely hydrogen for mobility,” the company said.

Research firm Capstone LLC said in an email that the decision by Air Products to stop developing the project is more likely the result of factors including potentially unexpected costs or challenges to secure offtake agreements.

“Market reality is not matching the exuberance the industry had a few years ago,” said Majkut, who is the director of CSIS’s Energy Security and Climate Change Program. “We are are not seeing the demand for hydrogen projects that were imagined.”

(Updates with additional context.)

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The update to the National Energy System Operator’s long-term grid plans, released on Tuesday, compares with roughly £58 billion outlined in 2024. The forecast accounts for rising power usage, including from data centers, which require massive, constant flows of power.

A congested grid is one of the biggest challenges to Britain’s clean power goals. While wind and solar generation has grown rapidly, the country’s transmission capacity has lagged behind. That can force the system to switch off renewables output because those supplies can’t reach areas where they’re needed, with more expensive gas-fired plants elsewhere paid to generate instead. 

NESO warned that without timely upgrades, those balancing costs could roughly triple between 2031 and 2035.

NESO also recommended that three times more new undersea cabling is needed than new onshore transmission lines, along with upgrades to existing infrastructure to reduce the impact on communities from pylons. It also said that investment is needed to deal with growing electricity demand from other areas too, such as transport and heating.

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State-owned PTT PCL is in discussions with developers for equity and supply on a long-term basis, including with Woodside Energy Group Ltd. about its Louisiana LNG facility, said the people, asking to not be identified because the matter is confidential. Talks are still in the early stages, they added.

The US is just one of the countries where PTT is looking for opportunities to expand its LNG portfolio, the company said in a statement to Bloomberg News, without elaborating. Woodside declined to comment.

Several leading Asian importers including Thailand have seen their LNG supply upended by the Iran war, which has choked off shipments from the Middle East and driven up prices. The Southeast Asian nation has a long-term contract with Qatar, but has been forced to take expensive spot cargoes to meet demand.

Efforts to diversify supply away from the Middle East following the war have prompted growing interest in Woodside’s Louisiana LNG plant, Chief Executive Officer Liz Westcott said in May. The goal for the project, which is currently under construction, is to begin shipments in 2029.

Separately, the Thai government is planning to accelerate investments in LNG import infrastructure, with the construction of new data centers expected to significantly increase electricity demand, Energy Ministry Permanent Secretary Prasert Sinsukprasert told reporters earlier this month.

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Demand over the past five years surpassed the government’s expectations, said Ren Yuzhi, director‑general of the planning department at the National Energy Administration. The growth of artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and other emerging sectors is compounding the problem for energy planners trying to map out the next five.

Deliberations extend to potentially rethinking China’s geography and where electricity is consumed, after decades of building up power networks to serve the massive cities in the east.

“Forecasting future energy demand — especially electricity — is a key challenge in the next planning cycle,” Ren said in an exclusive interview on Friday, after his agency released more details on the energy component of China’s new five-year plan that runs through 2030.

“AI computing centers and the development of electric vehicles are important factors,” he said. “EVs, in particular, have seen faster growth in recent years — especially this year — and charging demand has risen significantly.”

Understanding future energy demand is critical for the planners guiding trillions of dollars in investment in China’s more centrally planned economy. The task is made more complicated by the country’s transition to cleaner but less consistent renewable energy.

China now expects an average annual increase in power demand of around 600 billion kilowatt-hours in the next five years, according to the NEA, which would be more than Germany produces in a year. That compares to 570 billion kilowatt-hours over the past five years, said Ren.

Marked Shifts

The implications of getting it wrong can be seen in the marked shifts in China’s energy policy over the past five years. 

In 2021, planners estimated China would need about 4.6 billion tons of coal equivalent a year by 2025, a 14% increase from 2020 levels. Instead, demand grew so fast that total production ended up at 5.13 billion tons last year. 

A series of power shortages in 2021 and 2022 led to an about-face in the country’s policy around coal. 

In April 2021, President Xi Jinping said the country would strictly control coal-fired power generation projects, as well as limit the increase in coal consumption through 2025.

But after the shortages, which occurred during a period of disruptions related to the pandemic, skyrocketing global energy prices and a drought that shriveled domestic hydropower output, authorities changed tack. China kept its green energy ambitions, but miners were also pushed to boost output to record levels and hundreds of new coal power plants were approved.

Officials said the new coal plants were intended to backstop the country’s fleet of intermittent wind and solar plants, which saw an even greater surge in growth following the power shortages. But power output from fossil fuels still rose 19% from 2020 to 2025, and is up another 3.4% this year through May. 

China’s current plans call for peaking coal by 2030. To achieve that, clean energy will need to grow swiftly and be flexible enough to handle all additional demand. 

Traditional industries like steel continue to consume vast amounts of energy, while new sectors like AI and advanced manufacturing are becoming important new sources of demand. At the same time, China wants to shift energy use from fossil fuels to electricity, which will add further strains to the grid, Ren said. 

“We will not only need to meet traditional demand, but also the growing needs of people’s daily lives,” Ren said. “Increasingly, new areas are having a significant impact.”

Those new sources of demand are prompting policymakers to reconsider how energy and industrial capacity are geographically distributed, he said. Rather than continuing to transmit large volumes of electricity from western China to the eastern seaboard, authorities are weighing a shift toward relocating energy-intensive industries westward, closer to renewable resources.

“The western region has traditionally focused on exporting coal, electricity, and natural gas,” Ren said, referring to a point made earlier Friday at a press briefing by NEA deputy director Wan Jinsong “Going forward, it is more likely that the west will export finished products and computing power.”

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The $1.4 billion development is one of the largest integrated wind and battery energy storage projects in Central Asia. 

It will combine a 1GW wind farm with a 600 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) designed to improve grid stability and support the integration of renewable energy.

Once operational, the facility is expected to generate enough electricity to power around 880,000 homes in southern Kazakhstan while avoiding approximately 2.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year. 

The development also includes the construction of more than 400 kilometres of overhead transmission lines to strengthen the region’s electricity network.

Hitting renewable goals

The project is being led by Masdar in partnership with W Solar, Qazaq Green Power, a Samruk-Kazyna Fund company, and the Kazakhstan Investment Development Fund.

The Zhambyl wind project supports Kazakhstan’s target of sourcing 15% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2030, rising to 50% by 2050. It also contributes to Masdar’s ambition of expanding its global renewable energy portfolio to 100GW by 2030.

Kazakhstan’s Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Yerlan Akkenzhenov, said, “Our partnership with Masdar drives renewable energy development and propels Kazakhstan toward carbon neutrality,” adding that “This project will strengthen regional energy security and bring cutting-edge technologies to the renewable energy sector.”

New RTC project announced 

Alongside the ceremony, Masdar signed a roadmap agreement with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development to explore the country’s first Round-the-Clock (RTC) clean energy project. 

The initiative aims to provide continuous utility-scale renewable power and in its initial phase could supply up to 200 MW of baseload electricity for data centres and AI infrastructure.

The agreement will support site identification, technical studies, and stakeholder engagement as the project advances.

Masdar Chief Executive Officer Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi said that this project would help deliver reliable and affordable clean energy for Kazakhstan’s emerging industries. 

Warming bilateral relations

The Kazakhstan initiative builds on Masdar’s growing portfolio of large-scale renewable energy projects. 

In 2025, the company broke ground on a 24/7 solar and battery storage project in Abu Dhabi, combining a 5.2 GW solar photovoltaic plant with a 19 GWh BESS capable of delivering up to 1 GW of continuous baseload power.

Nurlan Zhakupov, Chief Executive Officer of Samruk-Kazyna, described the project as an important milestone in the strategic partnership between Kazakhstan and the UAE.

“The 1GW wind farm opens a new chapter in the cooperation between Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates and reflects our shared commitment to advancing a low-carbon economy, deploying innovative technologies and building a sustainable energy future for Kazakhstan.”

The Iran war and Qatar’s temporary export impasse brought a supply deficit, which has been filled by a combination of rising exports from elsewhere, demand substituting fuels – particularly within power plants, or pulling supplies from storage – at a much smaller extent compared to oil, however.

Most of these dynamics appear illustratively in Europe. Storage remains in deficit that largely originates from last year. Overseas natural gas imports hold up well and show no meaningful drop over the past months, despite the Middle East’s supply outage. 

The weather impact in Europe

The now-ebbing heat wave, however, leaves some marks. With hydro and nuclear power suffering from the heat and drought, natural gas power plants were in use more often than normal, especially during the evening hours. 

This additional demand seems to prolong the storage deficit somewhat, namely in France and Belgium. The past weeks’ weather impact on power markets became a hotly commented topic in Europe.

Within hours, markets shifted from abundance around noon to scarcity in the evening, when air conditioners kept humming but the sun set and solar generation dropped. Simultaneously, intraday power prices swung widely, reaching peaks so far only witnessed during cold winter evenings.

The answer may lie in battery storage

These sharp moves up and down the power generation curve likely has already been partially eased by the growth of grid battery storage capacity. With data only partially available, the impact is still difficult to gauge. A look abroad, to Australia or California, where grid battery storage is available at scale, suggests that this phenomenon could disappear as quickly as it appeared. 

On the back of significant cost reductions, battery storage has become clean energy’s boom segment, and the early adopters experience lower power prices overall, more reliability, and lower natural gas power generation. With all the attention on data centres, these observations are worth noticing.

Power scarcity is not the issue, but rather adequate alignment of the combo electrification boom on both the supply and demand side of the market. Only where this alignment is mismanaged do grid challenges seem to appear. 

Even though the natural gas market should see a similar supply improvement compared to oil and long-term pressure on prices, we stick to our neutral view.

Summer weather risks are here to stay a bit longer. After the summer, Europe’s storage deficit should narrow.

XRG’s latest acquisition covers the Meseta Buena Esperanza, Aguada Villanueva, and Las Tacanas blocks, which are operated by YPF. 

Italian energy major Eni has also acquired a 32% stake in the same assets, while YPF will retain the remaining 36%. The Final Investment Decision (FID) is expected to take place in the second half of 2026. 

A statement said that the transactions remain subject to customary regulatory approvals. 

Strengthening Argentina’s LNG export ambitions

The deal comes at a time when geopolitical tensions have severely restricted LNG supplies through the Strait of Hormuz. 

However, this project is designed to connect Vaca Muerta’s vast unconventional gas resources with international markets through a planned 12 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) LNG export facility.

XRG said the assets will provide long-term gas supply for floating LNG facilities while also supporting condensate production.

Mohamed Al Aryani, President of International Gas at XRG, said the investment strengthens the company’s role in the development of a significant new LNG supply source.

“Argentina has the potential to play an increasingly important role in meeting the world’s growing demand for natural gas, and projects such as Argentina LNG will be important to unlocking that opportunity,” he said.

Horacio Marín, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of YPF, said the agreements represent another milestone in the development of the Argentina LNG project.

Guido Brusco, Chief Operating Officer of Global Natural Resources at Eni, said, “Vaca Muerta is one of the world’s richest unconventional basins in terms of resources: our participation positions us across the entire value chain, from Argentine upstream to the supply of LNG to international customers, creating value while contributing to global energy security.”

What the deal means for XRG

XRG has previously announced a joint development agreement with YPF and Eni for the Argentina LNG project.

The company, which was launched in 2024, is an international lower-carbon energy and chemicals investment company, with an enterprise value of over $80 billion.

For XRG, the Vaca Muerta acquisition fits neatly into its goals to capitalise on the energy transition while focusing on emerging economies. 

XRG’s global gas and LNG portfolio includes interests in the Absheron gas and condensate field in Azerbaijan, Offshore Block 1 in Turkmenistan, the Area 4 concession in Mozambique’s Rovuma Basin, including the planned Coral North FLNG and Rovuma LNG developments, along with the Rio Grande LNG project in the US. 

And while energy access, reliability, and affordability are fundamental issues, during past crises, we have seen sustainability as a priority come under pressure.

At Ipieca, the global oil and gas association dedicated to advancing environmental and social performance across the energy transition, we recognise that sustainability is at the core of building not only resilient energy systems, but also creating a competitive advantage for energy companies when faced with changing and challenging markets.

Collaboration as a key enabler 

Creating reliable, sustainable energy systems depends on a surrounding enabling environment, where collaboration is key. 

Collaboration across companies, sectors, and borders can support data and knowledge sharing to build the awareness and capacity necessary for the adoption and uptake of sustainability practices related to adaptation and resilience, responsible resource management, energy efficiency, social inclusion, and local development, which can help ensure the resilience of energy companies. 

International cooperation can support the technical and regulatory frameworks, finance, and shared infrastructure needed for a reliable, sustainable, and interconnected energy system.

Reliability and affordability

This current geopolitical context has not only brought the interconnection of energy systems to the mainstream, but also highlighted the importance of energy to just about every other sector of the global economy. Achieving resilient energy systems requires the development of integrated, cross-sector pathways that advance decarbonisation while safeguarding energy security and economic prosperity. 

The oil and gas industry has a critical role to play in this transition, leveraging its technical expertise, infrastructure, and investment capacity to support the deployment of lower-carbon solutions at scale. By acting as a bridge between existing and emerging energy systems, the sector can help ensure that progress towards climate goals is accompanied by continued access to reliable and affordable energy.

Supporting new technology

Strategic investment in lower-carbon fuels and regional carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) hubs offers a significant opportunity to strengthen both resilience and sustainability. Lower-carbon fuels can enhance energy diversification and support emissions reductions across multiple sectors, while shared CCUS infrastructure can accelerate decarbonisation by enabling industries to access cost-effective emissions management solutions. 

These investments can help underpin industrial competitiveness, support economic development, and reinforce the long-term reliability of energy systems. 

This will be particularly important for hard-to-abate sectors such as heavy industry, aviation, and shipping, which are fundamental to global economic activity yet face complex decarbonisation challenges.

The continued development of lower-carbon fuels, CCUS and other enabling technologies can help these sectors maintain operational continuity while progressively reducing emissions. 

A resilient energy transition must therefore focus not only on achieving climate objectives but also on ensuring that essential industries can continue to deliver the goods, services, and infrastructure upon which societies depend.

Determining sustainable operations

Realising this vision will require cooperation across governments, industry, financial institutions, and civil society. 

Mobilising investment, harmonising regulatory frameworks, sharing knowledge, and developing common infrastructure will be essential to accelerating the deployment of low-carbon technologies. 

By strengthening global partnerships and aligning efforts across sectors, we can build a more resilient, secure, and sustainable energy system that supports both development aspirations and climate ambitions.

Our energy system can only be considered truly sustainable if it supports fair growth and improved living conditions for all, while delivering on climate mitigation goals and protecting and enhancing nature. 

To deliver this, unprecedented collaboration across all countries, sectors, energies and technologies will be required, with everyone playing their part.

The World Bank Group will still work to support borrowers “in delivering on their own ambitions as set out in their national plans” for climate objectives, it said in a statement Monday.

It also will continue with its climate change action plan, the so-called CCAP, but will now retire a 45% co-benefits target. The term refers to funding aimed at both supporting climate action while also furthering development objectives.

“We will complete our shift from inputs to outcomes to maximize development impact,” the Washington-based bank said.

Monday’s move follows strong Trump administration pushback against the bank’s climate change initiatives. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in April that the bank’s 45% target for climate finance “breeds inefficiency, distorts economic decision making and moves the bank away from its core mission.”

Bessent Expectation

Bessent also said in April he expected the bank to “immediately shift its myopic focus on climate and financing volumes to one that emphasizes high-quality, durable projects rather than shaping and selecting projects to chase arbitrary financing targets.”

Last year, 48% — over $39 billion — of the bank’s financing had climate co-benefits, up from a 44% share in 2024, according to the bank.

At the request of the World Bank’s board, the lender’s independent evaluation group will now evaluate the plan, the statement also said, without offering a timeframe for the review.

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Under an agreement with the Interior Department, Duke will voluntarily terminate its lease valued at $129 million located in the Carolina Long Bay Area and invest the same amount in additional generating capacity, the agency announced Monday.

Duke aims to invest the refunded money in projects such as nuclear generating facilities and grid upgrades before the end of the year, according to a company statement.

The Trump administration’s decision to terminate the North Carolina lease is part of broader White House strategy that’s resulted in the cancellation of billions of dollars in offshore wind leases held by companies such as Invenergy LLC and TotalEnergies SE.

Duke acquired the lease in 2022. It said the area could support up to 1.6 gigawatts of wind energy, enough to power 375,000 homes by 2032. The utility announced in 2025 it was pausing development in the area as it reevaluated costs and conditions, WRAL reported.

Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, he has followed through on a campaign pledge to block new wind projects and thwart other renewable developments. These moves have continued despite surging demand from power-hungry data centers and new factories.

(Adds comment from Duke Energy.)

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The so-called Mission 300 program is the biggest attempt yet to boost energy access on a continent that’s home to about 80% of the 570 million people globally who have no access to power. 

The program is expected to see tens of billions of dollars invested to reach a target of 300 million connections by 2030 as the development institutions push governments to enact power-industry reforms to woo private investors in exchange for funding. 

“The momentum that we’ve been working on is starting to pay off,” Anna Bjerde, the World Bank’s managing director of operations, said in an interview. “Governments have to double down on reforms because nothing flows in an area where there’s uncertainty. There’s no investment flowing to uncertainty.”

To date the program, created in 2024, has brought power to more than 50 million people. So far 36 countries have produced compacts, detailed plans on how to boost power access, under the program and that number is expected to rise to more than 40 in 2026, according to Bjerde.

This year the African Development Bank plans to approve projects itself to bring power connections to as many as 15 million people, said Kevin Kariuki, the lender’s vice president for power, energy, climate and green growth. Those projects include a program of about $59 million to roll out mini-grids in Eritrea, one of the world’s most isolated nations. 

“Some bragging rights are in order. We are currently the most active multilateral development bank in Eritrea,” Kariuki said in an interview. “It’s in countries where there is almost nothing that transformation can be most visible.”

The African Development Bank has three projects in Eritrea including one that will bring power to more than 300,000 people.

Eritrea, which has been led by Isaias Afwerki since 1993, has fought wars against its neighbors and has been in default to the World Bank since 2012.

Other programs set up under the Mission 300 umbrella are also expected to get underway this year.

Zafiri, a $176 million platform set up to buy equity stakes in companies that provide off-grid power to help them expand, expects to make its first investments this year, according to Andrew Herscowitz of the Rockefeller Foundation, which helped set it up.

Nations in east and southern Africa are also being pushed to develop cross-border trading in power through interconnected grids. 

“We’re really back into power pools,” Bjerde said. “If Africa can get these pools to work, you can lower costs across borders and take advantage of countries with surpluses.”

Next Africa newsletterhereAppleSpotify anywhere you listen

(Correct spelling of name in 11th paragraph. The story was first published on June 25.)

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The country is estimated to have bought about 5.29 million tons of the super-chilled fuel this month, according to the ship-tracking researcher, comparable to last year’s traded volumes. 

Lower domestic output, depleting storage levels, a hot summer, and international prices falling from highs reached during the peak of the US-Iran war all contributed to the uptick. While the nation’s LNG imports have been sluggish over the past months, as buyers choose cheaper pipeline gas, the renewed appetite could intensify competition with other buyers in Asia and Europe before winter.

China’s domestic gas production fell 2.1% year on year to around 21.7 billion cubic meters in May, the first annual decline for the month in more than a decade, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The drop in output is mainly due to offshore disruptions and maintenance at some processing plants, according to Go Katayama, a principal insight analyst for LNG at Kpler.

Storage levels were around 46% at the end of May, below the five-year seasonal average, and are expected to fall further by end-June, Katayama said. “This leaves China with a relatively thin inventory buffer ahead of July and August, supporting continued spot LNG purchases.”

The war in the Middle East has choked shipments from the Gulf, which typically supplies about a third of China’s LNG, though the drop in deliveries from Qatar has mostly been offset through other sources, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.

Demand in China is expected to remain elevated through August, though it should soften in the fourth quarter as domestic production recovers and petrochemical gas consumption weakens, Katayama said. Total imports this year are seen at 63.8 million tons, slightly below the 2025 level, as elevated spot prices continue to weigh on industrial use, he said.

More News:

• Pakistan LNG is seeking to purchase a cargo on a DES basis for June 30-July 4 delivery
• GAIL India purchased an LNG cargo on a DES basis for July 25-Aug. 10 delivery at the low-to-mid $14/mmbtu range
• Pakistan is seeking to buy liquefied natural gas for delivery this week as a string of attacks in the Strait of Hormuz disrupts flows of the super-chilled fuel
• A liquefied natural gas tanker docked at a US-sanctioned storage unit in Russia’s Murmansk region, the first time the vessel has loaded blacklisted fuel and the latest sign of Moscow’s efforts to expand exports despite Western sanctions

Drivers:

• European natural gas climbed as the fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran was put to the test by strikes over the weekend, despite both sides agreeing to halt attacks for now
• China’s 30-day moving average for LNG imports on June 28 was 178k tons, 11% higher than this time last year, according to ship-tracking data
• European gas-storage levels were ~48% full on June 27, compared with the five-year seasonal average of ~63%
• Europe’s 30-day moving average for LNG imports was 158k tons/day on June 28, 1.3% higher than the five-year seasonal average, according to ship-tracking data
• Estimated flows to all US export terminals were ~18.8 bcf/day on June 28, down 2.4% w/w: BNEF

Buy tender:

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Brent was near $72 a barrel after jumping as much as 1.9% at the start of trading, while West Texas Intermediate was around $70. Both sides will stand down for now and vessels can move freely before peace talks resume this week, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Oil has erased almost all of its gains since the US and Israel first attacked Iran at the end of February. About a fifth of the world’s crude and liquefied natural gas traveled through the Strait of Hormuz before the conflict, and a resumption in negotiations offers the prospect of a more permanent peace deal that will see a full reopening of the key waterway.

“The market feels increasingly comfortable treating these moves as tactical rather than structural,” said Haris Khurshid, chief investment officer at Chicago-based Karobaar Capital LP. “Until something fundamentally changes, traders are happy to fade both the rallies and the sell-offs.”

Tehran targeted the Kiku over the weekend. The very large crude carrier had loaded about 2 million barrels of oil in Qatar and last signaled its location off Fujairah, a United Arab Emirates port in the Gulf of Oman. 

Oil and natural gas shipments through the strait — which had picked up again following an interim agreement between the sides — eased following the latest flare-up. Shipowners will likely remain wary of crossing the chokepoint and hundreds of ships remain trapped in the Persian Gulf.

Over the weekend, a Saudi Aramco-operated helicopter crashed in Ras Tanura — Saudi Arabia’s energy heartland — near the Persian Gulf coast, the country’s press agency said, without elaborating on the cause. It wasn’t immediately clear if the incident on Sunday affected any energy facilities.

Elsewhere, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that the country faces fuel supply problems including queues at gas stations. He confirmed that a full ban on diesel exports is among measures under discussion to mitigate supply tightness.

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State-owned Pakistan LNG released a tender over the weekend seeking to procure a shipment for June 30 to July 4 delivery, with offers due on Monday, according to a document on its website.

The unusually prompt purchase request underscores how buyers remain unable to count on cargoes transiting Hormuz, a key conduit for about a fifth of the world’s LNG. Pakistan has been grappling with an energy shortfall since the war disrupted shipments from its top supplier, Qatar, forcing purchases of pricier fuel fuel from the spot market over the past few months.

On Saturday a ship carrying Qatari oil was attacked in the strait, days after a Singapore-flagged container ship was hit. Following the strikes, the Joint Maritime Information Center — which liaises between navies and merchant shipping — raised its threat level in the region to substantial.

Transits of inbound and outbound LNG carriers through the waterway have paused since then, ship-tracking data show. That includes an empty LNG tanker that was heading into the gulf via the strait before U-turning on Friday. It  has remained in the Gulf of Oman.

It isn’t guaranteed that Pakistan will purchase a shipment, and the country often scraps tenders if a delivery from Qatar is freed up or the prices are too high.

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The Arctic Express, which changed its flag to Russian in May, loaded fuel at the Saam floating storage unit, which holds gas from the Arctic LNG 2 project. Both Saam and Arctic LNG 2 have been sanctioned by the US.

The shipment suggests Russia is continuing to expand its fleet of vessels to circumvent Western restrictions. Including Arctic Express, at least 21 ships have been used to ferry LNG from sanctioned Russian projects, according to a Bloomberg analysis of tracking data. The biggest obstacle to increasing exports from Arctic LNG 2 remains the shortage of vessels capable of transporting the fuel to willing buyers.

The tanker, which was commissioned in 2007 and was formerly managed by a Greek company, changed ownership to St Petersburg-based Smp Techmanagement LLC around May 13, according to ship database Equasis. 

Smp Techmanagement owns three other LNG vessels that are part of Russia’s dark fleet. Bloomberg News couldn’t immediately find an email address or phone number for the company.

Russia added four other tankers —  that until recently serviced Oman’s export plant — to its shadow fleet earlier this year. Arctic LNG 2 exported over 400,000 tons of the fuel in May, a record high for the facility which began shipments in 2024, ship data shows.

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The helicopter went down at around 6 am local time, according to the Saudi Press Agency. The cause of the crash remains unknown. 

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy said investigations are underway to determine the circumstances that led to the crash. 

“The relevant authorities have launched a full investigation to determine the cause of the crash,” the ministry said in a statement. 

The ministry also extended condolences to the families of those who lost their lives.

Several Gulf countries expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia, conveying their sympathies with the families of the victims. 

The incident comes just two days after Aramco began loading crude oil from the export terminal in the Ras Tanura refinery on 26 June, which was shut for nearly four months. 

In March, Aramco had paused operations at the site as a precautionary measure after it was hit in a drone attack as part of the US-Iran conflict. 

Located on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, the Ras Tanura complex is home to one of the region’s largest refineries, with a processing capacity of around 550,000 bpd. 

The facility also serves as one of Saudi Arabia’s most important crude export terminals.

It is one of Aramco’s oldest and largest refining facilities and plays a key role in the country’s domestic refining operations and global crude exports.