The gas would come from the Ksi Lisims LNG project, a proposed C$10 billion ($7.2 billion) export plant in northwestern British Columbia, near the Alaska panhandle. 

Under the terms, Germany will agree to buy as much as 1 million metric tons a year of LNG from Canada for 20 years from the early 2030s, according to a statement from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. While those volumes represent only about 1% of Germany’s natural gas imports last year, it’s a significant step in how Europe’s largest economy manages its energy needs.

Bloomberg had reported the news of the deal ahead of the official statement. 

Recent high-level visits between Canada and Germany have accelerated as both countries look for broader realignments in the Trump era. The two sides have deepened cooperation on critical minerals, energy and defense.

The LNG deal is a step forward for the leaders of both countries, who have talked about energy deals but have been hamstrung by Canada’s failure to build the necessary infrastructure. Canada has enormous natural gas reserves, especially in the western provinces, but sends most of its production to the US through pipelines. The country didn’t have an LNG export facility on the west coast until about a year ago, with the startup of the first phase of LNG Canada, which is backed by Shell Plc and other energy companies.  

Germany, as Europe’s largest economy and its industrial powerhouse, has been buffeted by a series of energy crises — first with Russia’s assault on Ukraine and more recently by the war in the Middle East. The buyer of the gas would be SEFE, a former Gazprom PJSC unit nationalized by the German government after the invasion of Ukraine.

The super-chilled fuel currently accounts for about 13% of total gas imports into Germany, with roughly 94% sourced from the US, causing officials to push the state-owned companies to diversify their portfolios. Chancellor Friedrich Merz had set his sights on the Middle East earlier this year, before the Iran war laid bare the fragility of those flows.

Earlier this year, SEFE signed an 8-year LNG sales and purchase agreement with Argentina’s Southern Energy and also announced a tender for 10-year shipments, while Uniper signed agreements in India. 

The agreement “is a powerful and very positive symbol of German diversification away from Russia, and potentially from the US,” Susanne Nies, senior energy researcher at think tank Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, said in an email.

The group behind Ksi Lisims hasn’t yet reached a final investment decision to start construction. But the project has already received regulatory approval, and its investors want to build a facility capable of producing 12 million metric tons a year of LNG.

Ksi Lisims LNG is backed by Blackstone Inc.-funded Western LNG, as well as Rockies LNG Partners and the Nisga’a Nation, an Indigenous group that owns the development land. 

Canadian Energy Minister Tim Hodgson, speaking in a recent interview with Bloomberg News, said European nations are actively looking for a reliable supply of gas to replace flows from Russia and the Middle East, which have been disrupted by war. 

Asked whether west coast LNG could be shipped from Canada to Europe through the Panama Canal, Hodgson said there are multiple options. 

“Some ships will go through Panama, some will go around, some they’ll just trade” to other buyers, in return for LNG cargoes that are closer to Europe, he said. 

European countries don’t want to become overly reliant on American gas, the minister said — partly because of trade tensions with the Trump administration but also because they want the security that comes with having a range of suppliers.

“We can be that alternative,” Hodgson said. “We can be that reliable supplier who will not use energy for coercion.” That could eventually take the form of LNG being shipped via Canada’s east coast or through Hudson Bay in the north, but in the near term, “we have huge increases in supply coming off the west coast, which are music to their ears.”

Ultimately, it makes sense for Canada and Europe to become closer energy partners at a time when global superpowers are looking to use trade as a tool of geopolitical coercion, Hodgson said.

“They’re looking around and saying, how do we create energy security?” he said. “Where can we find a supplier who shares our values? And they look around and they don’t see a lot of choices.”

(Updates with details of the LNG deal in then 3rd paragraph)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The Umm Al Ashtan, which is managed by Adnoc Logistics & Services, reappeared northwest of Muscat, Oman, loaded with a cargo and listing its destination as India, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. The vessel stopped sending a signal around May 2, but at the time was empty and idling near the eastern entrance to Hormuz.

Satellite images show the ship appears to have loaded a cargo at Adnoc’s Das Island export plant, which is in the Persian Gulf behind Hormuz, during the period it wasn’t sending a signal. The pictures show that LNG tankers have been docking at Das Island, even though no vessels broadcast their positions near the plant.

The passage is part of a small flurry of energy flows transiting through Hormuz, with at least two non-Iranian oil supertankers exiting the Persian Gulf. The strait has remained virtually shut to LNG traffic since the war in Iran began in late February — choking about a fifth of global supply of the fuel.

Adnoc has exported three other shipments from the Persian Gulf on tankers that went dark when traversing the waterway. The last of those is currently docking in western India. Adnoc L&S said in an emailed statement that it does not comment on the position, movements, or routing of its vessels as a matter of policy.

Still, the transits represent only a fraction of pre-war volumes, when roughly three tankers carrying the super-chilled fuel exited Hormuz on a daily basis, mostly carrying fuel from bigger exporter Qatar.

(Updates with company’s comment in the fifth paragraph.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Their Novandino Litio partnership set its latest projection after wrapping up design work on a project to introduce more direct ways to recover lithium from brine under the Atacama salt flat in northern Chile, environment manager Julio Garcia said. The venture plans to submit an environmental impact study to regulators in June.

After years of testing, Novandino is advancing toward commercial operations of technologies known in the industry as direct lithium extraction, or DLE. They are touted as cleaner and faster than the traditional evaporation method, in which vast quantities of salty water get vaporized in one of the driest places on Earth, raising concerns about microbial ecosystems.

But large-scale commercial success for direct extraction remains largely unproven. The Atacama is a high-stakes proving ground: if DLE works there, it helps de-risk the technology globally. One key facet of the new process is reinjection, in which lithium-depleted brine is returned to the salt flat to preserve hydrological and geochemical balance.

“It will be rigorously monitored to determine that it not only delivers the recovery rates it promises, but also does not generate any type of impact,” Garcia said in an interview from Novandino’s Santiago offices. 

The company has completed years of testing and engineering work on the technologies as it seeks to scale up output to meet demand for electric vehicles and large battery storage, while lowering environmental impacts. The approach combines nano-filtration and mechanical evaporation, along with other technologies already in use at its refinery.

Subject to environmental and other permitting, construction at the project dubbed Salar Futuro will start toward the end of the decade, with full implementation extending into the mid-2030s, Garcia said. Novandino has yet to make a final investment decision. Its previous guidance for the project cost was $2 billion-plus. 

The project would gradually replace part of the traditional evaporation system, while maintaining some ponds for potassium production and pre-concentration. Freshwater extraction would eventually end.

Novandino was formed late last year after lithium supplier SQM agreed to hand over a majority stake in its Chilean brine assets to state-owned Codelco in exchange for extending operations.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Driven by a persistent high-pressure heat dome, the scorching conditions raised average temperatures by 9C to 15C above the norm across the region. London hit a May record of 35C (95F) on Tuesday, according to the Met Office. 

The system pushed away cloud cover across a wide swath of the UK, leading to unusually sunny skies that intensified the heat while also boosting solar power generation. At its peak around midday on Sunday, solar met almost half of the UK’s electricity demand — the highest ever, according to NESO data. The surge in renewable output weighed on Europe’s power market, pushing hourly prices in France below zero around 1 p.m. Tuesday on Epex Spot. 

The searing early season heat is raising concerns about the impact of extreme weather as summer temperatures climb. Longer-term forecasts for the world’s fastest-warming continent show more heat waves in the months ahead, especially as high temperatures drain moisture from soils, meteorologists say. 

Month-ahead power prices jumped as much as 12% on Tuesday to the highest since March in EEX data on concerns about hydro availability and nuclear curtailments this summer as temperatures climb in key rivers used for cooling French reactors. 

In Italy, where air conditioning is more common, power demand is also rising, with consumption on Tuesday expected to reach 46 gigawatts, the highest since April 7, according to Terna.

While the clear skies under the heat dome have been a boon for solar, they’re having the opposite effect on wind speeds. Below-normal wind generation is forecast this week in Germany, Spain, Italy and France, where generation slumped to about 0.5 gigawatts around 1pm, according to RTE data. It has averaged 7.4 gigawatts so far this year. 

The heat is expected to peak Tuesday, before slowly easing toward the end of the week.

“A very hot start to the week,” said Greg Dewhurst, a meteorologist with the UK Met Office. “Record-breaking by day and by night, but a cooler end, especially by Sunday.”

Over the weekend, increased water demand triggered system failures that left about 800 households in Kent and Sussex without water or experiencing low pressure. A burst pipe in the Cotswold village of Bourton-on-the-Water also left nearly 200 households with low pressure. Thames Water is still investigating the cause, but heat waves can damage pipes as demand surges and high temperatures shrink and move soil near buried pipes.

France recorded its hottest May day on Monday, with temperatures in Paris forecast to reach 33C on Tuesday, according to Météo-France.

In France, the heat wave has been directly linked to at least two deaths, government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon said Tuesday on TF1 television. At least five people died from drowning, while others died from heat-related causes during sporting events, she said. 

Daytime highs are forecast to reach as high as 39C in Languedoc in the south on Thursday, according to Météo-France. There are amber alerts in 13 departments in the west of the country.

“Before 1989, heat waves occurred on average once every five years in mainland France. Since 2000, at least one heat wave has been recorded every summer,” Météo-France said in a statement.

Amber warnings for high temperatures are in effect for western Spain, where temperatures could reach 38C on Tuesday. Similar alerts are also active for parts of the UK through Thursday, including London, east and southeast England, and the Midlands.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Global benchmark Brent rose above $100 a barrel after slumping more than 7% on Monday. The US military said it targeted missile-launch sites in southern Iran and boats attempting to lay mines, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it fired at an F-35 fighter jet and several drones after they entered Iranian airspace.

Tehran’s foreign ministry condemned the US attacks as a violation of a ceasefire agreement. A UK naval monitor later said the master of a tanker reported an explosion that caused some fuel to spill from a ship in the Gulf of Oman, though there were no further details of what caused the incident. 

The escalation came against the backdrop of talks to end a war that has upended global energy markets. Negotiations will still “take a few days” as both sides discuss language in an initial document, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in India on Tuesday. 

Oil markets will begin turning their attention to the movement of vessels and the progress of restarting energy assets, Macquarie Group strategists including Vikas Dwivedi wrote in a note Tuesday.

“Visibility to a durable end of the conflict may be significantly improved, but the underlying situation remains far from resolved,” the strategists wrote.

Crude had retreated sharply in the week’s opening session as President Donald Trump posted that the talks were “proceeding nicely,” while also threatening more attacks if they were unsuccessful. That followed a softening last week as the prospects of peace grew and a flurry of ships made their way out of Hormuz. 

West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, was down to around $93, though prices did not settle on Monday due to Memorial Day, meaning the fall reflected the move from Friday’s price.

Oil prices that rallied in March and April are now on pace for a drop in May, as the fragile ceasefire and push to reopen Hormuz outweigh signs of fast-depleting stockpiles. The strait, the key waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flowed during peacetime, remains essentially closed, subject to blockades by the US and Iran.

The two sides have been negotiating a deal that would see them extend the ceasefire for about two months, with Washington lifting its blockade and Tehran reopening Hormuz. Still, sticking points remain, with Tehran saying it must be able to manage traffic through the chokepoint, something the US, Arab states and Europe maintain cannot be allowed.

At present, it’s “premature to consider a peace deal will be reached let alone adhered to,” said Saul Kavonic, senior energy analyst at MST Marquee. “There have been claims by both sides of negotiation success, or the strait opening in the past few months already, only for it to not materialize.”

With Hormuz still largely closed, global oil inventories have been drawing at a record pace, according to a recent tally from the International Energy Agency. That’s put the spotlight on the US, where holdings — commercial and strategic combined — have been contracting at an unprecedented clip.

Highlighting additional challenges, Israel said on Monday it would intensify strikes against Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Tehran has demanded an end to hostilities in that country as part of any deal with the US.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The National Treasury will issue the agri-bonds by the end of next year for sustainable projects like solar-powered cold chains, regenerative farming, parametric insurance and climate adaptation, according to the Agriculture Ministry’s website.

The East African nation will leverage carbon credit revenues to back the bonds and target institutional investors and diaspora funds. Maturities will range between five to 10 years at interest rates of 4% to 6%.

Agriculture, the mainstay of Kenya’s economy, makes up more than a fifth of output and employs over 60% of the population, especially in rural areas.

Despite its key role, public investment in the sector has historically been insufficient, averaging only 2.8% of the national budget, below the 10% threshold agreed by African nations, according to the ministry.

Kenya is now mobilizing private capital to bridge the agricultural funding shortfall of about 300 billion shillings “stemming from conservative public budget forecasts and unconfirmed donor pledges.”

“The low level of public investment in the agri-food system has kept challenges alive, including low productivity, vulnerability to climate shocks, and limited market access, especially for small-holder farmers, who make up most producers,” it said.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Growing global demand for inputs into the clean energy industry could cause price increases in the coming years, “unless industrial capacity keeps pace,” Climate Action Ambassador Ravi Menon told Bloomberg News on Friday. 

“You need a price signal and then capital and investments will flow into this and the supply will then start to catch up. In fact, the smart money should already be investing in that now, knowing that there’s going to be demand and prices are going to go up,” the former central banker said. ‘Smart money’ typically refers to institutional investors and hedge funds.

Renewables demand is set to surge as fossil-fuel dependent countries scramble to boost their energy independence against a backdrop of prolonged oil and gas disruptions due to the Iran war. Already, South Korea and the Philippines are among those looking to fast-track such projects, and the S&P Global Clean Energy Transition Index has climbed 37% this year, outperforming the 30% gain in the S&P Global Oil Index.

“The political impetus is in line with the clean energy agenda because how do you make sure you don’t get caught in this situation again?” Menon said. He was the longest-serving chief of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, his tenure lasting more than 12 years before he retired in 2024.

This acceleration in the green transition could increase prices across the renewables sector including for consumers, Menon said. Higher demand and tighter supply for industrial metals and critical minerals, higher fuel costs in the short-term, and countries bringing clean-energy supply chains onshore would all contribute to the trend and ultimately create investment opportunities, he added.

Climate change will also bring longer-term inflationary pressures from increased spending on disaster recovery and adaptation, Menon said.

While there’s no immediate supply crunch thanks to China’s mass production and export of green technology, countries may want to diversify their supply chains to avoid relying on a single source, Menon said.

Still, “the energy security issue relating to renewables is nowhere near the scale of the concentration risk in fossil fuels,” he added.

A renewables rollout could, however, be undermined by a longer-term pivot back to coal, Menon said. It’s a strategy that some of Asia’s largest economies including India have already employed to deal with electricity shortages since the Iran war began in late February. 

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

US President Donald Trump said Monday that negotiations with Iran over an interim deal to extend their ceasefire and reopen Hormuz were “proceeding nicely.” Trump’s comments, made in a Truth Social post, added to signals that the US and Iran are nearing an agreement. Pakistan’s military chief, Asim Munir, the main interlocutor between the warring sides, told China an agreement is “close to being reached.”

Global energy markets have been upended by the crisis, which began in February when the US and Israel attacked Iran. The conflict spread rapidly across the Persian Gulf region, forcing producers to shut in millions of barrels of daily crude supplies. Hormuz, which links the region to global markets, has been subject to a double blockade by both Tehran and Washington.

There is “a presumption that the Strait of Hormuz is going to be opened in the not too distant future and I think the market is betting that the supply demand situation rebalances and things are going to normalize,” Bart Melek, global head of commodity strategy at TD Securities.

It remains unclear how key differences, including the fate of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, will be addressed. Iran’s Tasnim news agency said the draft agreement could still collapse because the US was obstructing some key clauses, including a demand that its assets be unfrozen.

“A consensus was reached on many of the topics discussed, but no one can claim that the signing of an agreement is imminent,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmail Baghaei told reporters on Monday.

“The two sides may be closer on a ceasefire and Strait of Hormuz reopening framework, but still far apart on the harder issues,” said Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo Markets in Singapore, citing sanctions and the nuclear program. “Oil has priced in relief, but not a durable resolution.”

Trading in crude futures was thinner than usual on Monday, with public holidays in the US and the UK. The US break for Memorial Day traditionally marks the start of the summer travel season, a period when demand for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel can be expected to rise.

The US and Iran have developed a memorandum that would extend the ceasefire by 60 days as the two sides seek a permanent deal, the Washington Post reported, citing a senior administration official. If agreed, the strait would be de-mined and reopened in the meantime, the newspaper said.

A full reopening of Hormuz, which in peacetime typically handled around a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas, would be a relief for energy importers across Asia, including China, Japan and South Korea.

Transits have been running at a fraction of their pre-war pace, although a few vessels have made it through. Among them, a supertanker hauling Iraqi crude to China left the Persian Gulf and crossed the US blockade, ship-tracking data show. In addition, three liquefied natural gas tankers appear to have exited.

Iran said it is seeking to collect a shipping fee for services and environmental protection in the Strait of Hormuz, pushing back on describing it as a toll, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said. It’s unclear if the US would accept that.

The Islamic Republic claimed that 33 vessels, including oil tankers and container ships, had passed through the strait after obtaining permission from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, Tasnim reported on Sunday, citing the force. The Trump administration has said that any toll system is unacceptable.

Trump has been facing growing domestic political pressure to end the conflict, particularly ahead of the November midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. The war has boosted the cost of fuels, with average US gasoline prices hitting the highest since 2022.

Elsewhere, Russia and Ukraine struck each other’s energy infrastructure. Ukraine hit the Sheskharis oil terminal, the largest on Russia’s Black Sea coast; a storage facility; and a major petrochemicals plant. State energy company Naftogaz said Russia targeted oil-and-gas facilities in the east.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The Italian oil producer, along with Vitol and state-owned oil company Petroci, took a final investment decision Monday on Baleine Phase 3, aimed to increase the project’s oil production to 150,000 barrels a day from 60,000 and raise gas output.

Eni’s teams have finished similar builds in three years or less, but higher crude prices present an incentive to potentially realize the project faster by a matter of months, Brusco said in a phone interview from Abidjan. “There are always opportunities in a project schedule to save some time and of course those are very much linked to the macro, and the macro is favorable.”

A phased approach to projects has been implemented by Eni across Africa, from Ivory Coast to Mozambique, where it’s considering a third floating liquefied natural gas platform.

Baleine Phase 3 includes the development of a floating production, storage and offloading unit. The FPSO will be built in a Chinese shipyard and completed by mid-2028, Brusco said. Upon completion, gas production from the project, expected to more than double to 200 million cubic feet a day, will be supplied to the Ivory Coast.

Eni holds a 47.25% stake in Baleine, Vitol has 30% and Petroci owns the remainder. The explorer signed an agreement with Socar in January to sell 10% of its holding, which is pending government approval.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The documents show the world’s biggest miner shelved a board-approved solar and battery project at its Jimblebar iron ore mine and deferred a 500 megawatt solar, wind and battery system. BHP also abandoned plans for a lower-emissions iron ore processing facility, that had the potential to prevent 1.7 million tons of emissions a year, according to the report.

Companies across sectors from banking to airlines and energy producers have taken recent steps to dilute commitments to emissions reduction amid rising costs, a lack of available technologies or political pressure. Rio Tinto Group, BHP’s largest competitor, in December lowered its estimated spending through 2030 on decarbonization to $1 billion to $2 billion, from a previous estimate of as much as $6 billion.

As of mid-2025, BHP reduced emissions by 36% from the firm’s 2020 baseline, with progress driven by shifting 70% of the company’s total electricity use to renewable sources, a spokesperson said. However, many of the technologies the resources industry will need to achieve net zero — notably in heavy earth moving and bulk logistics equipment — “are not yet ready to be deployed,” the spokesperson said. 

BHP is running trials with its partners of battery-electric haul trucks and locomotives to “support the acceleration of this technology,” the spokesperson said.

The rollback is likely to intensify scrutiny from investors and environmental groups, who argue that the company’s spending decisions could influence the pace of the nation’s decarbonization ambitions.

(Updated with BHP response in fourth and fifth paragraphs)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

A total of 9.52 gigawatts of solar capacity was added last month, according to data from the National Energy Administration. The monthly figure represents a slight improvement from 8.91 gigawatts added in March, but is a steep drop from the year-earlier level of 45.22 gigawatts when policy changes drove a surge in installations. 

The slowdown, which began early this year, reflects weakening domestic demand following years of rapid renewable energy expansion. The sluggish momentum is also evident in manufacturing. Solar cell output fell 26% in April, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics last week. 

However, exports remained resilient last month, despite the removal of tax rebates for overseas shipments that were expected to damp global demand for the country’s clean tech products. Shipments of solar cells grew 60% by volume from a year earlier, according to data released by China’s General Administration of Customs. 

“With conflict in the Middle East stifling energy passage via the Strait of Hormuz, overseas solar shipments should remain robust through 2H as various nations step up their push toward alternative energy,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Chia Chen said in a note.

China also added 5.49 gigawatts of wind power in April, while newly installed thermal power additions were 3.97 gigawatts, according to the NEA.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Leaning on practices including dark transits — when vessels cross the Strait of Hormuz with their transponders switched off — Adnoc has been among the most successful producers when it comes to taking supplies out of the Middle East, according to tracking data, traders and people with knowledge of the matter.

Other Middle East producers, along with Western commodity traders, have also sought ways of moving cargoes through Hormuz over almost three months of war, but most lease their tankers, and have found themselves constrained by the risk appetite of the owners.

Adnoc, by contrast, has been using vessels controlled by Navig8, a company that’s majority owned by its shipping and logistics arm, and Wanhua Chemical Group, a joint-venture partner, according to the people, who asked not to be named as the information is not public. These include crude and clean petroleum product tankers as well as gas carriers, the people said.

Adnoc is not alone in attempting to find ways to get its cargoes to market — Qatar has also been unobtrusively exporting through Hormuz in recent days. 

Liquefied natural gas tanker Al Rayyan was spotted north of Muscat, Oman, on Monday after passing Hormuz, and is heading to top customer China, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. The tanker stopped broadcasting a signal around May 22, when it had been idling near Qatar’s Ras Laffan export plant in the Persian Gulf. 

The bold gambits highlight the urgency felt by producers, who are rushing to get supply to market in part given limited storage capacity. Adding to the United Arab Emirates’ eagerness, it officially left the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on May 1.

“With the UAE leaving OPEC and finding ways to send ships through Hormuz in the dark, Adnoc has been willing to take more risks in order to get their oil out,” said Matt Wright, senior freight analyst at intelligence firm Kpler.

A spokesperson for Adnoc Logistics & Services said the company could not comment on the position, movements, or routing of its vessels as a matter of policy. Adnoc referred queries to Adnoc L&S.

QatarEnergy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Adnoc’s method allows it to send some recently exited ships back into the Persian Gulf for more cargoes, the people said — so-called shuttle runs that can keep oil and fuels flowing. Once through Hormuz, the vessels typically transfer their cargoes to clients’ tankers in safer waters off Fujairah or Sohar, a known hotspot, or sail to India’s west coast. 

The short runs mean the producer can make the most of proximity to Hormuz, with crudes such as Upper Zakum typically loading at Zirku Island, while naphtha and liquefied petroleum gas are picked up from Adnoc’s mega-refinery at Ruwais. A return journey takes roughly a week.

Adnoc has also exported at least three LNG cargoes through Hormuz using dark transits. The latest was spotted over the weekend, loaded with a cargo and heading to western India, according to ship-tracking data. 

Satellite images show that LNG tankers have been docking at Das Island, Adnoc’s export plant within the Persian Gulf, for at least a month, even though no tankers are broadcasting their positions near the plant.

For Adnoc’s gas exits, empty tankers head toward the eastern entrance of the strait near the Fujairah anchorage, where they stop transmitting signals, before transiting the waterway to load cargoes from Das Island. The vessels resume broadcasting their location only after clearing Hormuz and entering the Gulf of Oman once again.

Still, the successful transits represent only a fraction of pre-war trade flows, particularly for LNG — so far only seven shipments have been identified making it through since the US and Israel started strikes against Iran, compared to roughly three exits a day before the conflict began.

Specific figures on overall crude, gas and fuel cargoes are hard to tally with certainty, given transponders are off — an increasingly common tactic in the area, as a safety precaution. The shadow practice also means it is unclear if the vessels are sailing through the waterway close to Oman or along the Iran-approved northern route, which may involve toll payments.

But the pick up in exits underlines the extent to which more regional producers are able to find informal and temporary workarounds, balancing Iran and the US to avoid either blockade.

Senior US officials have said that the US and Iran are closing in on a deal that could reopen Hormuz, even as President Donald Trump said he would not “rush” into an agreement. Over the weekend, he said that a peace deal with Iran had been “largely negotiated”. Key sticking points remain, however, including Iran’s nuclear program.

(Adds Qatar detail in paragraphs five, six and from paragraph 10.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Benchmark futures fell as much as 6.7% after President Donald Trump said in a social media post that “the negotiations are proceeding in an orderly and constructive manner,” although he added that the US would not to rush into a deal.

Most gas from the Middle East normally goes to Asia, but persisting disruptions to flows through Hormuz could intensify competition for a limited global pool of liquefied natural gas. That would complicate Europe’s efforts to refill its lower-than-usual fuel inventories before next winter.

The region’s vast storage facilities are now about 38% full, significantly below the five-year average for this time of the year of just above 50%. While it’s normal for storage to decline in winter and be refilled in summer, this year’s campaign has been slow to take off. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also struck a cautiously upbeat tone, saying the US was going to give diplomacy every chance. “We thought we might have some news last night,” he told reporters in New Delhi. “Maybe today.”

Still, it remains unclear how key differences, including the fate of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, will be addressed. Iran’s Tasnim news agency said the draft agreement could still collapse because the US was obstructing some key clauses, including a demand that its assets be unfrozen.

Dutch front-month futures, Europe’s gas benchmark, fell 4.9% to €46.32 a megawatt-hour as of 8:56 a.m. in Amsterdam. Trading volumes are very thin as many market participants are away because of holidays in the UK and parts of the continent. 

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Indian Oil Corp., Bharat Petroleum Corp. and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. — which together control about 90% of India’s fuel retail market — increased gasoline prices in New Delhi by 2.6% to 102.12 rupees ($1.07) a liter and for diesel by 2.9% to 95.20 rupees, according to company statements and website data. Prices have been raised across India, but vary from state to state due to local taxes.

The latest hike brings cumulative increases over the last 10 days to 7.8% for gasoline and 8.6% for diesel. The prices for the fuels are at the highest level since May 2022.

India deregulated retail fuel pricing years ago, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government had effectively frozen pump prices for nearly four years. That policy became increasingly difficult to sustain as the Iran war sent crude prices sharply higher and the rupee weakened against the dollar, deepening losses for state-run refiners. 

A surge in fuel consumption during the agricultural harvest season and increasing disparities with non-state retailers have also strained inventories, adding to pressure to raise prices.

Even after the latest adjustment, government-owned retailers are still selling fueling below market-linked levels. Private operators such as Shell Plc are charging more than 116 rupees a liter for gasoline and more than 127 rupees for diesel at outlets across India.

“We expect more action to come by through another retail fuel price hike and a hike in liquefied petroleum gas prices,” said Radhika Piplani, economist at Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd. said. “The higher prices of fuel would have a bearing on inflation, which we expect to climb to 5.7% on year for the current financial year as against the Reserve Bank of India expectation of 4.6%,”she said.  

The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee is scheduled to meet June 3-5 for an interest-rate decision. Sonal Varma, Nomura Holding Inc.’s chief economist for Asia ex-Japan, expects the central bank to adopt a wait-and-watch approach. The fuel price hikes will have a cumulative impact of 38 basis points on the consumer price index, she said. 

State-run companies are selling diesel to bulk users at premiums of at least 40 rupees a liter above retail pump prices, encouraging commercial buyers and motorists to shift purchases to subsidized retail stations. The surge in demand has led to dry-outs at several fuel stations and raised concerns over supply shortages.

Indian Oil said on Saturday that diesel sales at its retail outlets climbed 18% in the first 22 days of May from a year earlier, while gasoline sales rose 14%.

India has been among the economies hardest hit by the Middle East conflict because of its dependence on crude and fuel shipments passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway that has been mostly blocked since the war began in February.

The government this month introduced a series of measures aimed at containing the economic fallout as higher oil prices pressure the rupee and accelerate foreign investor withdrawals from local equities.

The shares of the state-run fuel retailers rose on Monday. Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum all climbed as much as 4% or more.

(Updates throughout and adds analyst comments.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The fatal blast on Friday night occurred at the privately owned Liushenyu mine in the coal-belt region of Shanxi. The explosion, which left at least 82 dead, has triggered a vast rescue operation and is likely to prompt heightened scrutiny of mine safety that could threaten nationwide coal output in the near term.

Dalian futures soared as much as 8%, triggering spillover buying across the ferrous metals complex, including iron ore and steel contracts. Shares of coal miners in the northern province also rose, with Shanxi Lu’an Environmental Energy Development Co. gaining as much as 9.2% and Jinneng Holding Shanxi Coal Industry Co. as much as 7.4%, as traders bet that producers would benefit from higher prices.

The accident is the deadliest since 2009, and the country’s top leadership, led by President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang, has struck an uncompromising tone. According to state media, the central government has vowed to conduct “a rigorous and thorough investigation” into the causes of the accident and “impose severe penalties in accordance with laws and regulations.”

China has drastically reduced coal mining fatalities in recent years, making the latest explosion an even more serious incident. Though the mine based in Qinyuan county produced primarily coking coal for steelmaking, the blast will almost certainly trigger widespread safety inspections that could affect China’s much larger supplies of thermal coal, used in power generation. 

That would come at a challenging time for the thermal coal market. The Iran war has disrupted oil and gas shipments for the best part of three months. The country is heading into summer, a time when hotter weather drives up electricity consumption. And top exporter Indonesia has imposed constraints on supply.

Two thermal coal mines in Qinyuan, with a combined annual capacity of 1.8 million tons, have halted operations, according to Chinese consultancy Mysteel. Other major hubs, including Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia and Henan, have also launched inspections to prevent similar risks, such as gas leaks, following the accident. 

Still, operations outside Shanxi have so far largely remained at normal levels, Mysteel said. The province vies with Inner Mongolia as China’s largest producing region, accounting for about a quarter of national output.

“The supply tightness stemming from accident-related safety checks will not alter the broader goal of maintaining price stability,” the consultancy said in a note on Sunday.

Much depends on the duration of the government’s crackdown. The restrictions in Qinyuan have already directly impacted about 4% of China’s coking coal output, said Bu Tong, senior analyst at Horizon Insights based in Shanghai.

The broader risk is that mines may struggle to raise output in the near term to meet the expected increases in power demand, according to Chinese trading platform ocoal.com, which expects inspections to curb production for about one month without triggering widespread shutdowns.

The market is also watching for any impact on other sectors, including aluminum, where production costs can be highly sensitive to coal prices. Shanghai futures for alumina, an intermediate product, rose 0.9% before paring gains.

There’s also an expectation that safety inspections will extend beyond coal mines to other materials, including bauxite, said Peng Dinggui, an analyst with Zhongtai Futures Co.

(Updates with additional material from 10th paragraph)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The Al Rayyan vessel was spotted north of Muscat, Oman, on Monday after passing Hormuz, and is heading to China, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. The tanker stopped broadcasting a signal around May 22, when it had been idling near Qatar’s Ras Laffan export plant in the Persian Gulf. China was the biggest buyer of Qatari LNG last year.

Another vessel that loaded a Qatari shipment in late March, also transited the strait between Sunday and Monday, ship data showed. The Fuwairit stopped sending a signal on Sunday as it was partially through Hormuz and reappeared north of Muscat. It’s now heading to Pakistan, according to the data.

The Strait of Hormuz has remained virtually shut as peace negotiations between the US and Iran drag on, with both sides enforcing a de facto blockade on a waterway that normally handles about a fifth of global LNG supply. Vessels continue to face security threats and most of the transits through the chokepoint take place with transponders turned off to avoid detection.

LNG exporters in the Persian Gulf are stepping up efforts to ship out fuel that’s been trapped in the region since the war started in late February. A tanker loaded with a cargo at Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.’s Das Island export plant left Hormuz and was spotted heading to India over the weekend, Bloomberg reported on Sunday.

Still, the successful transits represent only a fraction of pre-war trade flows. So far, only seven LNG shipments have been identified making it through since the US and Israel started strikes against Iran, compared to roughly three tankers exiting the waterway on a daily basis before the conflict began.

Al Rayyan is owned by Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha and Fuwairit is owned by a joint-venture including Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd. Kawasai Kisen, Mitsui OSK and QatarEnergy didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The very large crude carrier Eagle Verona crossed into the Arabian Sea from the Gulf of Oman carrying about 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude to China, vessel tracking data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Tanker departures from the Persian Gulf are being closely watched by the oil market as most ships remain stuck in the area since Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz after it was attacked by the US and Israel at the end of February. The closure of the waterway has stopped most ships from leaving and prevented others from entering the oil and gas-rich region.

The US and Iran are inching toward a deal to end the conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The two sides are closing in on an agreement that would reopen the waterway, senior US officials said Sunday. President Donald Trump earlier said a peace deal with Iran has been “largely negotiated,” but Iran’s Fars agency dismissed this as “far from reality” without citing anyone.

Crude oil fell to its lowest level in more than two weeks as trading began Monday in Asia, while the dollar weakened on expectations that a deal may be near. Global crude benchmark Brent fell as much as 5.7% to $97.64 a barrel. 

The VLCC loaded its cargo at the Basra Oil Terminal on Feb. 28, the tracking data show and is now heading to the Chinese port of Ningbo, where it is scheduled to arrive on June 12.

The tanker’s departure follows that of a liquefied natural gas carrier, the Al Hamra, carrying the first shipment of the superchilled fuel from the Persian Gulf destined for India since the Iran war began.

Thirty-three vessels, including oil tankers, container ships and other commercial craft, sailed through the Strait of Hormuz over the previous 24 hours after obtaining authorization from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency reported on Sunday, citing an IRGC statement.

Meanwhile, the US Navy, which imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports in mid-April that it had redirected 100 commercial vessels during its six-week-long blockade of Iran’s ports, US Central Command said in a post on X Saturday.

The Eagle Verona is owned by AET Inc PTE Ltd, a Malaysian company based in Singapore, according to the Equasis maritime database. The company did not respond to an email sent outside office hours on Sunday. AET is part of the MISC Group, itself a member of the PETRONAS Group of Companies, company websites show. MISC and AET share an address in Singapore, according to Equasis.

(Updates with market reaction in fifth paragraph. A previous version corrects the spelling of a name in the second paragraph.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Companies requested approval for 51 gigawatts of new plants in the first quarter of the year, according to Global Energy Monitor, ahead of the record pace set in 2025 that saw 162 gigawatts of new proposals over the full year. Construction has boomed since a spate of power shortages in 2021 and 2022 as the government touts coal’s role as a reliable back-up to intermittent renewables.

Still, it’s unclear how long the government will let the spree continue. Beijing has said coal use will peak before 2030, and in April the environment ministry said it plans to “rationally control” coal-powered capacity. Of the new proposals in the first quarter, only 3 gigawatts have been approved, according to GEM.

Coal’s domestic abundance also relies on a hazardous mining industry that’s once again in the spotlight after the deadliest accident in years on Friday left at least 82 dead.

The onslaught of new coal plants in China comes even as a surge in clean energy reduces the need for fossil fuels. Thermal generation fell last year for the first time in a decade, although it’s since rebounded. Coal plant utilization fell from 56% to 52% in 2025, and the current batch of proposals risks intensifying that trend, tying up capital that might be better deployed elsewhere in the power system, said Christine Shearer, a researcher at GEM.

“The debate in China today is often less about whether renewables can grow quickly enough, and more about whether policymakers are willing to let coal’s role diminish as clean energy scales up,” Shearer said.

The new requests were spread evenly across the quarter, according to GEM. That indicates there wasn’t a sharp reaction to the global energy shock stemming from US and Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February. 

“The latest crisis may strengthen the justification for continuing coal development, but the underlying expansion likely would have been happening anyway,” Shearer said. 

On the Wire

China’s sharper declines in housing transactions and investment in April — after a first-quarter rebound led by top-tier cities — show the road to stabilization will be bumpy, Bloomberg Economics said.

Companies across at least nine European countries bought carbon credits from Chinese projects that may never have existed, or for which there are serious concerns over verification, a Bloomberg investigation found.

China’s world-beating coal production has helped shield its economy from the worst of the Iran war shock. Now the deadliest mining disaster in years is raising uncomfortable questions about the cost of that drive.

This Week’s Diary

(All times Beijing)

Monday, May 25

• Mysteel nickel, cobalt and recycling conference in Ningbo, day 1
• Public holiday in Hong Kong

Tuesday, May 26

• Mysteel nickel, cobalt and recycling conference in Ningbo, day 2

Wednesday, May 27

• China’s industrial profits for April, 09:30
• CCTD’s weekly online briefing on coal markets, 15:00

Thursday, May 28

• Nothing major scheduled

Friday, May 29

• China’s weekly iron ore port stockpiles
• SHFE’s weekly commodities inventory, ~15:30

Saturday, May 30

• Nothing major scheduled

Sunday, May 31

• China’s official PMIs for May, 09:30

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

More than 80 days into the 2026 Middle East conflict, global energy markets have moved from acute disruption into a stabilised crisis regime, one in which disruption is managed but not resolved.

At the centre of the disruption lies the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately 20 million barrels per day (mbpd) — close to 20% of global oil consumption, and around 20% of global LNG trade — typically transits. This disruption, described by experts as the largest oil supply disruption in history by affected volumes, has acted as a real-time systemic stress test, triggering immediate shocks across oil and gas markets, freight and insurance costs, and industrial supply chains.

Despite the scale of the shock, the system has largely stabilised through a combination of rerouting (approximately 6 mbpd of bypass capacity), strategic stock releases, and demand adjustment, offsetting much of the estimated 6.7 mbpd of disrupted flows. However, 65–70% of Hormuz-dependent volumes remain non-divertible in the short term, which underscores persistent structural vulnerability.

Market dynamics have been driven by expectations rather than actual shortages. Brent crude experienced sharp price swings, including increases of over 40% during the initial phase, while European gas benchmarks, particularly Dutch TTF, rose by approximately 15-25% in the initial shock phase, driven by LNG rerouting toward Asia, before stabilising. At the same time, freight rates and insurance premiums surged, reinforcing logistics as a key constraint.

The shock has propagated beyond energy into the wider economy, with uneven impacts across petrochemicals, fertilisers, aviation, and manufacturing. Overall, the crisis is accelerating a structural shift from efficiency-led optimisation toward resilience-led system design. Energy security is increasingly defined not by access alone, but by the ability to manage disruption across molecules, electrons, and data in real time.

The Hormuz factor: the systemic fault line

The Strait of Hormuz remains the single most critical chokepoint in the global energy system. Approximately 20 mbpd of crude oil, condensates, and petroleum products transit the Strait daily, representing close to one-fifth of global oil consumption, alongside roughly 20% of global LNG trade.

This creates extreme concentration risk: a single maritime corridor, less than 40km wide at its narrowest navigable point, effectively functions as a global macroeconomic lever. Its partial disruption immediately propagated across Asian and European markets, with Asian LNG importers in Japan, South Korea, China, and India experiencing spot market tightening, while European gas markets reacted through upward pressure on Dutch TTF pricing.

The impact extended beyond hydrocarbons. Delays and rerouting affected petrochemical feedstocks, fertilisers, food supply chains, and critical mineral logistics. Rising ammonia and fertiliser costs increased agricultural inflation risks, while petrochemical volatility disrupted plastics, industrial materials, and manufacturing inputs globally.

The Strait’s closure demonstrated that maritime chokepoints are no longer transport corridors only, but strategic nodes through which energy, food, industrial production, and inflation shocks are transmitted simultaneously.

Market volatility and pricing the war premium

As the crisis deepened, Brent crude markets rapidly embedded a geopolitical war premium, with sharp price swings, including increases of over 40% during the initial phase. Price formation reflected uncertainty over the magnitude and duration of the disruption and its impact on transport reliability, rather than over immediate production shortages. Historical precedent reinforces this dynamic.

During the 2019 attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq facilities, a disruption of approximately 5.7 mbpd triggered a 15-20% surge in Brent crude prices, one of the largest single-day increases in decades, showing the non-linear sensitivity of oil markets to perceived supply risk. In 2026, Brent pricing similarly reacted to three overlapping uncertainties: the magnitude of supply disruptions, route uncertainty, and conflict duration.

European gas markets, particularly Dutch TTF, recorded forward pricing increases of approximately 15-25% in the initial shock phase, driven by anticipated LNG diversion away from Europe toward Asian demand centres. Even in the absence of immediate shortages, TTF pricing reflected tightening marginal LNG availability and increased competition for Atlantic basic cargoes.

Freight markets reinforced this effect, with LNG shipping rates rising significantly and crude tanker spot rates increasing materially, reflecting reduced effective fleet capacity due to longer voyage cycles and rerouting constraints.

This illustrates a defining characteristic of modern energy markets: expectations move faster than molecules. In tightly interconnected systems, anticipated scarcity is priced before physical shortages materialise.

Pipeline bypass and logistical agility of the Gulf

Despite severe disruption, global supply systems remained operational due to the Gulf’s redundancy infrastructure. Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline (approximately 5 mbpd capacity, with technical capacity up to 7 mbpd) enabled partial Gulf-to-Red Sea rerouting, while the UAE Abu Dhabi- Fujairah pipeline added approximately 1.5 mbpd of export capacity outside Hormuz.

Together, this provides approximately 6 mbpd of bypass capacity under stress conditions, which arguably marked the first major live test of Gulf bypass infrastructure at scale under real crisis conditions.

However, even at full utilisation, 65-70% of Hormuz-dependent flows remain structurally constrained, reinforcing the persistent vulnerability to single-node disruption in global energy logistics.

Supply chain fragmentation: the force majeure era

Disruptions from the Strait of Hormuz closure rapidly cascaded far beyond energy markets into global industrial supply chains, triggering widespread force majeure declarations across energy, petrochemicals, LNG shipping, and downstream manufacturing. Kpler vessel tracking and industry reports indicate that the disruption led to widespread congestion across LNG and tanker flows, with significant cargo delays and vessel backlogs forming within the Gulf and at key downstream hubs such as Fujairah, Singapore, and Rotterdam. These delays reflected not only rerouting but also systemic congestion across tanker fleets, port operations, and extended voyage cycles.

Petrochemical markets experienced immediate feedstock volatility, with prices increasing by up to 40% due to inventory tightening and delivery uncertainty. Global fertiliser markets rose in parallel by 15-30% in the initial disruption phase, driven by ammonia and gas feedstock constraints, with sharper spikes in urea during peak stress periods, reinforcing downstream agricultural inflation pressures.

A particularly sensitive transmission channel emerged in aviation. Jet fuel prices more than doubled, reflecting refinery rebalancing between diesel and jet production and tighter Gulf-linked supply logistics. Airlines faced dual pressure from higher fuel costs and operational inefficiencies caused by rerouted flight paths and constrained refuelling hubs. Given aviation’s limited storage capacity and just-in-time fuel procurement model, cost increases were rapidly transmitted into operating costs, increasing the cost per available seat kilometre (CASK), particularly for long-haul carriers dependent on Gulf and Asian hubs.

Manufacturing sectors exposed to energy-intensive inputs saw mid-single- to low-double-digit increases in input costs, depending on energy intensity and supply chain exposure. Disruptions to delivery schedules and feedstock availability further amplified inefficiencies in industrial production cycles across chemicals, metals, and industrial materials.

Overall, the force majeure environment evolved into a multi-sector transmission shock, in which energy disruption propagated simultaneously across petrochemicals, agriculture, aviation, and manufacturing, with stranded cargoes serving as a physical indicator of global supply chain desynchronisation.

The strategic pivot: building resilience

The Middle East conflict has reinforced a structural lesson: systems optimised for efficiency under stable conditions are not inherently resilient under stress. As a result, a strategic pivot toward resilience is underway as a core organising principle of global energy systems.

This is increasingly expressed through geopatriation, as governments and companies seek greater strategic control over energy, technology and industrial assets. This is driving localisation of supply chains and expansion of domestic industrial capacity in critical sectors. Energy infrastructure itself is evolving away from rigid centralised models toward more adaptive architectures, including districted energy systems, battery storage, flexible load management, and AI-managed microgrids that reduce reliance on single points of failure and improve overall system responsiveness under disruption.

These adjustments reflect a system shifting from supply adequacy to transport and insurance scarcity.

Beyond distributed systems, AI has also emerged as an operational resilience tool in constrained infrastructure during routine operations. In hydrocarbon systems, ADNOC’s AI-enabled platforms (ENERGYai and Neuron 5) integrate predictive maintenance, upstream optimisation, production forecasting, and digital twins to reduce unplanned shutdowns, improve asset utilisation, and strengthen operational reliability under routine stress. ADNOC reports that these tools have halved unplanned shutdowns and cut planned maintenance by approximately 20%, illustrating how digital intelligence can improve efficiency and system reliability under normal operating conditions. While there is no evidence that these systems directly mitigated the Strait of Hormuz crisis, their predictive and optimisation capabilities could help preserve operational continuity during disruptions.

Global grid investment is projected to exceed US$600 billion annually by 2030 as countries modernise energy systems to accommodate electrification, digitalisation, and growing resilience requirements.

More fundamentally, the system is moving from reactive crisis management toward proactive system design. Energy security is increasingly defined by the ability to respond dynamically to physical and digital disruptions across interconnected infrastructure, market and information systems.

The 2026 conflict, therefore, has not simply exposed vulnerabilities within the global energy system but accelerated its redesign. Energy security is no longer defined solely by access to resources, but by the capacity to manage disruption across molecules, electrons, and data.

• This Market Outlook report was produced as a part of ADIPEC’s Energy & Geopolitics series. For more information and coverage, visit: https://www.adipec.com/press-media/insights/

The privately owned Liushenyu mine, in the coal-belt region of Shanxi, produces mostly coking coal, meaning it supplies steelmakers, not power plants. A mid-sized outfit, it produced a fraction of the region’s annual total.

But Friday night’s blast, which left at least 82 dead, is already prompting a response which belies the scale of that operation.

The accident has triggered a vast rescue operation with hundreds of emergency workers, promises of an “uncompromising” investigation and an intervention from President Xi Jinping and senior officials. An immediate increase in scrutiny is almost certain — potentially threatening overall coal output in the near term, power generation and Beijing’s efforts to prioritize energy security.

Such high-profile mine incidents tend to trigger “nationwide safety inspections and heightened enforcement,” said David Fishman, a Shanghai-based principal at The Lantau Group. “This has been the pattern in the past and it’s reasonable to expect it again this time, because of the size of the accident and the immediate strong statements from the central government, including Xi himself.”

Regional authorities have already launched inspection and remediation efforts targeting risks at coal mines, including gas, water hazards and roof conditions, the Shanxi Daily reported on Sunday, citing the region’s Communist Party secretary. 

But a crackdown comes at a delicate time for China. Conflict in the Persian Gulf and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted oil and gas shipments for the best part of three months. The country, meanwhile, is heading into summer, a time when hotter weather drives up power consumption.

Any hit to coal mining output risks tightening supplies and pushing up energy prices or, in the worst-case scenario, forcing power curbs on the industry similar to those that rattled China’s economy in the past.

China started the year with coal stockpiles ample enough to be considered a glut. Nationwide coal output has fallen in eight of the past nine months, including in April, largely because of excess supply.

But that balance is at risk of shifting, as the Iran war lifts liquefied natural gas prices and reduces imports, piling fresh pressure on coal to continue carrying the bulk of the country’s thermal power generation.

For years, Xi’s government has doubled down on China’s abundant coal reserves to reduce reliance on imported energy. Coal output hit a record high last year — up 30% from a decade earlier — and remains the backbone of the country’s power system, underpinning a broader push to electrify everything from cars to industry. Domestic coal is even being tapped as a feedstock for production of chemicals, oil and gas.

But the drive for energy security and domestic production has forced mines to juggle competing priorities: maintaining breakneck supply growth while overstretching facilities and equipment. And that has extended beyond just thermal coal: The Beijing News reported the Liushenyu mine may have had too many workers underground, some without GPS devices specifically to aid rescuers.

“It’s possible that local officials may take the rap and if so, they may be publicly shamed and prosecuted,” said Rana Mitter, historian and ST Lee chair in US-Asia relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. “But that will almost certainly be portrayed as the central government cracking down on lax behavior in the provinces — not any fundamental failing in the party’s governance.”

China has made strides when it comes to safety, and research shows a drop in the frequency and scale of coal mine accidents over the past decade or so.

Beijing has not, though, tackled structural problems, said Mary Gallagher, professor of global affairs at the University of Notre Dame — which include perverse incentives and a system that punishes local officials for problems, and not the central government.

When production is a priority, local governments can get caught between Beijing’s economic guidance and its safety standards.

“It’s a lose-lose situation,” Gallagher said. “It’s likely that in this case the local government was looking in the other direction as this mine clearly had safety issues before the accident.”

Granted, some aspects of the official response have improved. Back in 2021, a crackdown ahead of the Communist Party’s 100th anniversary curbed production to the point that it contributed to a coal shortage and nationwide power curtailments. 

Beijing has found less disruptive methods. Even after the last large disaster — a 2023 landslide at a mine in Inner Mongolia that led to 53 deaths — officials responded with a focus on accident prevention, not a hit to overall production. At the time, China’s output was rapidly increasing and the mine was restarted to help lift volumes.

It’s not yet clear that the Liushenyu mine will trigger a similarly contained response, even though it produces coking coal, and accounts for just 0.1% of Shanxi’s total annual coal production. It was penalized twice last year by local authorities for safety violations.

Several coal mines in Shanxi’s Qinyuan county, where the blast happened, have already been verbally instructed to suspend production, according to a report from consultancy MySteel. Twelve mines in the area — all but two of them coking coal assets — have halted output, risking tighter supply as local inventories are already in the low-to-mid range, the report said.

“We will strengthen oversight of mining operations, crack down on the fabrication or deletion of surveillance footage, and intensify inspection of concealed work areas,” Zhang Wenbo, director of the Emergency Management Bureau of Changzhi City said at a press conference on Saturday night.

The city’s mayor has apologized to the victims’ families and pledged to hold those responsible accountable for the accident.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Adnoc Logistics & Services’s Al Hamra tanker was spotted in the last day, loaded with a cargo and heading to western India, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. The vessel stopped sending a signal around April 19 — but at that time it was empty and idling near the eastern entrance of Hormuz.

The tanker loaded a cargo at Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.’s Das Island export plant, which is in the Gulf behind Hormuz, during the period it wasn’t sending a signal, according to Kpler. Satellite images show that LNG tankers have been docking at Das Island, even though no tankers are broadcasting their positions near the plant.

Adnoc has exported two other shipments from the Gulf on tankers that went dark when traversing the waterway — one to Japan and the other to China.

Hormuz has remained virtually shut as the US and Iran struggle to reach a peace agreement, with both sides enforcing a de facto blockade on a waterway that normally handles about a fifth of global LNG supply. Vessels continue to face security threats, and most of the transits through Hormuz take place with transponders turned off to avoid detection.

Last year, India received more than half of its LNG from Qatar and the UAE, but those flows have essentially halted over the last few months, ship data shows. The decline in deliveries has forced India to procure more shipments from the expensive spot market, as well as curb supplies to some industries.

LNG tankers linked to Adnoc have stopped transmitting signals around Hormuz and within the Gulf, ship data shows, as a safety measure to protect the vessels and their crew. Adnoc didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment outside of regular business hours.

While the move suggests Gulf LNG exporters are finding ways to deliver fuel to customers, it still represents only a fraction of pre-war volumes, when roughly three tankers carrying the super-chilled fuel exited Hormuz on a daily basis.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The Pentagon has bottled up roughly 130 proposed wind projects in an approval process that has stalled investments that would generate enough power to light 20 million US homes, according to a document prepared by the American Clean Power Association and seen by Bloomberg News.

Texas, which has worked to bolster renewable-energy development, is home to one-fourth of those projects worth some $11 billion, according to the document.

The Defense Department has stopped sending review determinations of wind projects to the Federal Aviation Administration, which must issue its own determinations before projects can go forward, according to the document. The bottleneck has meant that new onshore wind projects that haven’t already received the FAA’s Determination of No Hazard are unable to move forward.

The mounting delays suggest a new front has opened in the administration’s battle against wind projects, as President Donald Trump vows that new US turbines won’t be installed on his watch. 

The president has long criticized wind farms as bird-killing eyesores and famously battled turbines planned near one of his Scottish golf resorts. But the administration has moved more aggressively during Trump’s second term to thwart the ventures.

The Defense Department’s review process for wind farms is meant to ensure the projects don’t interfere with military operations. 

However, the power association in its document alleges the department’s actions amount to an across-the-board halt on projects, including those that present no identified military readiness or national security concerns.

Representatives of the Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Trump administration officials have broadly criticized both wind and solar power, casting the emission-free renewables as reliant on government subsidies as well as additional infrastructure to compensate for the intermittent nature of their output. Even so, the US is facing a surge in electricity demand fed by the artificial intelligence boom. 

Facing that demand crunch, there are signs the administration is taking a more flexible approach to permitting some solar ventures, but that shift has not extended to wind. While high-profile solar projects are still being announced, wind farms especially those offshore, are facing legal challenges that have hobbled their development.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

It’s not unusual for an oil-price shock to become an existential crisis for some carriers. The Iran war is no different, with the forecast hit to profits so far in the billions of dollars. But there’s a stark difference between those that hedged well, those that hedged poorly and those that didn’t hedge at all.

While airlines including Ryanair Holdings Plc and Air France-KLM have reported that hedging offset some of the price increases, other carriers from US giant United Airlines Holdings Inc. to smaller AirAsia X Bhd are more exposed.

The sticking point for some airlines is that, just like buying home or auto insurance, hedging costs money. Airlines buy derivative contracts that will in theory rise in value, offsetting the increased price of jet fuel. Most of the time, that money goes down the drain when the market is calm, just like a homeowner’s fire insurance. For an industry that often runs on relatively thin margins, that extra cost counts.

It’s only when supply is squeezed and prices shoot upward that the hedges pay off. Like now, as the war in Iran has jet fuel now trading around $160 a barrel, more than 60% higher than before the war. 

While many European and Asian airlines use derivatives to lock in their jet fuel costs, peers in the US have been historically reticent to do so. The level of coverage typically varies among carriers, ranging at the end of last year from 30% to 80% and potentially even higher. Also, the instruments they use for the hedge make a huge difference in how well-protected they are.

“We continue to be well-hedged for the rest of the year,” Luis Gallego, chief executive of International Consolidated Airlines Group, which includes British Airways and Iberia, said on a recent earnings call. “This allows us to protect customers to some extent from the volatility and allows us to take, considered decisions on pricing and capacity.” 

So far, the fuel crunch hasn’t been as bad as feared. That’s in part because refineries, particularly in the US, have ramped up output and shipped record volumes overseas, helping fill the supply gap from the Middle East. But while there may be enough barrels to go around, they don’t come cheap. 

Ryanair said last week that it currently holds jet fuel and carbon derivatives contracts worth €2.1 billion ($2.4 billion) that are partly a result of a hedging program that locked in 80% of its fuel needs at $67 a barrel. Air France-KLM said late last month that while its fuel bill is likely to rise by $2.4 billion this year at current prices, that’s expected to be about $1.5 billion lower than it would otherwise have been. 

The amount of money on the table is enormous. Facing mountainous fuel bills, carriers are passing on higher costs to consumers. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. said in late March that hedges on 30% of its fuel haven’t been enough to cover rising costs. The carrier imposed fuel surcharges, some of which have been partly rolled back.

On the other end of the spectrum is AirAsia, which doesn’t hedge. It’s shares have fallen 42% since the war began, the worst-performing member of the Bloomberg World Airlines Large, Mid & Small Cap Index.

Brent Hedging

Some in Europe and Asia hedge using Brent crude oil as a proxy for jet fuel. Typically, oil and its byproducts move largely in tandem as long as the market is relatively balanced between supply and demand. 

Brent crude is a market full of buyers and sellers on an exchange — it’s liquid, in market parlance — reducing the costs related to hedging. Hedging using gasoil or even jet fuel itself, sometimes in over-the-counter markets that are far less liquid, tends to cost more.

The problem is when there’s a shock. In March and April, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz cut off supply of jet fuel to the market from Middle East refineries, as well as the types crude oil popular with Asian refiners. That forced some to reduce operating rates, further curbing fuel supply. 

“The real killer was crack spreads,” said Zameer Yusof, head of clean petroleum products analytics at Kpler. “Brent crude hedging wouldn’t have protected you from Singapore jet fuel margins blowing out past $100 a barrel — and that’s where Asian carriers’ exposure was concentrated.”

Since jet fuel is a relatively small market, the supply crunch drove prices up as much as 150% in Singapore, for example, compared with the 63% rally in Brent crude futures. As that gap, known as the crack spread, blew out, the gains on the crude contracts bought as a hedge failed to keep pace with the higher physical jet fuel prices that the airlines were having to pay every day.

“If they hedge Brent, they’re not hedging jet fuel,” Michael Leskinen, Executive VP and CFO at United Airlines, said in an earnings call last month, referring to non-US carriers. “The biggest portion of the move in jet fuel has been crack spreads. So I think this experience has proven once again that hedging is a poor policy.”

The crisis has already claimed Spirit Airlines, which wound down operations due to the soaring prices after a government bailout fell through. It might not be the last one, with Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary warning there may be more corporate “casualties” to come among European airlines if the war continues. 

For Southwest Airlines Co., the last major US airline to buy protection, it’s the first fuel crunch they’ve entered into without a hedge for decades. The carrier ended its hedging program last year after deciding that it was too costly to run over the long term.

Southwest said the policy, which began in the 1990s, saved it over $3.5 billion from 1998 to 2008 but that higher levels of market volatility in general meant that the cost of doing so no longer outweighed the benefit. 

“Hedging had become very expensive,” Chief Executive Officer Bob Jordan said on an earnings call late last month. “You can’t predict an extraordinary circumstance like a war. If we all could, you’d hedge and then you wouldn’t, and it’s unreasonable to think you could do something like that.”

Delta’s Refinery

To be sure, one airline without a hedging program is arguably doing better than anyone else. Delta Air Lines is the best-performing carrier in the airline index, with shares up 13% since the war began. The edge: A refinery outside Philadelphia that it purchased 14 years ago. It supplies about 15% of Delta’s jet fuel needs while selling or swapping gasoline and diesel in the market.

“The refinery directly supplies a portion of our jet fuel needs, and its economics partially offset higher cracks, reducing the all-in price we pay for jet fuel,” Dan Janki, Delta’s chief operating officer, said in April on an earnings call, adding that that the refinery would save the company about $300 million on fuel in the second quarter.

If prices remain high and volatile, it’s likely to remain unattractive for many carriers to add to their hedges. 

“We’ll monitor the market closely, and when we see an opportunity, we include some new contracts,” Murat Seker, chairman of Turkish Airlines, said on the company’s most recent earnings call. “But overall, we are not continuing our regular hedge policy as the jet price and then the Brent price are very high.”

(Corrects speaker’s title in final paragraph of story published May 21)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

West Texas Intermediate traded around $96 a barrel. Pakistan’s army chief, the favored interlocutor between Washington and Tehran, arrived in the Iranian capital amid signals of progress in talks to end the war and ultimately reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz to energy flows.

Iran said the latest proposal from the US partly bridged the gap between the warring sides, but comments from the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader about keeping Tehran’s uranium stockpile and a dispute over tolls in the Strait of Hormuz clouded the outlook for a breakthrough. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates has made a more concerted push to end the war in recent days.

“Near term, oil futures seem to be pricing in some sort of an agreement as WTI prices pull back below $100/bbl,” said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president for trading at BOK Financial Securities Inc. “Still, traders are becoming more desensitized to the ongoing negotiation headlines.”

Conflicting statements on key issues left it unclear whether the two sides were any closer to a deal after renewed threats of escalation in recent days, buffeting oil prices as traders try to gauge when oil and liquefied natural gas shipments through the strait will fully resume. 

The war and the curtailment in supplies have seen global stockpiles of crude oil and products being drawn down at a record pace, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

“Should no agreement emerge between the parties to the conflict, and should passage through the Strait of Hormuz therefore remain severely restricted for the time being, stock levels will come under increased scrutiny,” Commerzbank AG analysts including Barbara Lambrecht and Carsten Fritsch wrote in a note. 

The International Energy Agency remains ready to free further stockpiles if needed, after a first release in March, Executive Director Fatih Birol said Thursday.

Meanwhile, US consumers are continuing to feel the impact of energy inflation. Gasoline prices stood at $4.55 a gallon as of Thursday, according to the American Automobile Association — the highest ahead of Memorial Day in four years. Consumer sentiment fell to a record low as long-term inflation expectations worsened.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

ICE’s futures prices for Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate, known as WTI, will underpin the new perpetual contracts offered on OKX’s platform, the companies said in a statement Friday. The new contracts will be available on OKX, in which ICE holds a stake, across territories where the crypto company is already licensed to offer perpetual futures.

“Oil markets are critical to the world economy,” Haider Rafique, global managing partner at OKX, said in the statement. Bringing ICE’s benchmarks “into regulated perpetual futures is exactly the kind of bridge between traditional and digital markets that market participants have been asking for.”

Perpetual futures, also known as “perps,” are a type of derivative contract that give traders the ability to bet on prices of assets such as oil or Bitcoin. But unlike traditional futures, perps never expire, so traders don’t have to take possession of physical barrels of oil or roll over those contracts.

While perps began on crypto-native exchanges as a way to speculate on digital token prices, the growth into other assets has taken off in recent months, especially as news breaks over the weekend, allowing investors to take action outside of regular market hours. 

Most perpetual products are offered on offshore exchanges and aren’t regulated in the way traditional commodity exchanges such as ICE and CME Group Inc. are in the US. Michael Selig, the chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has said recently that he hopes to bring them under the agency’s oversight soon.

Hyperliquid, a fast-growing crypto exchange, started offering contracts tied to real-world assets including crude.

CME and ICE have been pushing regulators including the CFTC to rein in Hyperliquid, Bloomberg reported last week. 

In a sign of the convergence of crypto and traditional financial firms, ICE and OKX struck a deal in March, where both firms said they would work together to build technology, including blockchain networks, that would give ICE’s customers access to crypto-based futures and OKX customers the ability to trade tokenized securities on NYSE’s platform.

OKX, which has an on-chain wallet and marketplace, is headquartered in San Jose, California, for the Americas and in Dubai for the Middle East. 

The new perpetual contracts based on ICE’s data “allow OKX’s customer base of 120 million retail traders to access energy benchmark products,” said Trabue Bland, senior vice president of futures exchanges at ICE.

(Updates with details on OKX in penultimate paragraph. A previous version corrected the timing of story in eighth paragraph.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Pham Nhat Vuong contributed $900 million to VinFast Auto Ltd. and paid another $1.59 billion to acquire some of its research and development assets. The $2.5 billion bet more than doubles his disclosed lifetime contributions to the EV-maker, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from corporate disclosures.

Vuong established VinFast, which has yet to break even, in 2017 in a quest to build a global carmaker. The company lost nearly $4 billion last year as it opened plants in Indonesia and India as part of a pivot to Asia, following largely unsuccessful efforts to crack the US and European markets. On Thursday, the US state of North Carolina said it sued VinFast, alleging the company breached agreements tied to a planned electric vehicle factory.

The majority of Vuong’s wealth is derived from Vingroup JSC, his sprawling conglomerate that’s also VinFast’s parent. After rising eightfold last year, Vingroup’s shares have kept climbing through 2026, making him Southeast Asia’s richest person. He is worth about $30 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The long rally reflects Vingroup’s role as the No. 1 stock for foreign investors looking for exposure to Vietnam, but it also raises questions about the company’s valuation, said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jason Low. It currently trades about 150 times price-to-earnings.

“The appreciation in Vingroup’s share price over the recent period primarily reflects the positive macroeconomic outlook of Vietnam,” a spokesperson for Vingroup said in response to emailed questions. “We aim to leverage favorable market conditions and capitalize on our market experience and execution capabilities to further strengthen and expand our businesses.”

Shares of Vingroup fell as much as 4.3% before trimming losses to close 1% lower on Friday. The stock has risen 968% since the start of 2025, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

To many in Vietnam, including senior government officials, Vuong and Vingroup are a testament to the country’s progression from a socialist economy to a market-oriented one. Vuong started in property development in the early 2000s after making a small fortune in Ukraine with an instant-noodle business. Today, Vingroup develops and operates residential and commercial real estate, resorts, hospitals and schools all over Vietnam, and has recently started ventures focused on robotics, films, steel and more.

VinFast is Vuong’s biggest bet to date. When its first car rolled off the assembly line, then-Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc declared it “a great day for Vietnam.”

The government’s increasing emphasis on the role of the private sector is also helping Vingroup’s share appreciation, a spokesperson for the company said.

Vuong has personally contributed at least one-quarter of the $17 billion of financing that’s been deployed since VinFast was founded. It sold nearly 197,000 cars last year and more than 400,000 electric scooters and bikes, posting $3.59 billion of revenue. Vingroup and other companies controlled by Vuong were responsible for 27% of that, down from 31% the prior year.

This month, VinFast said it will offload its Vietnam factories to a separate company, sell it and then enter into a manufacturing contract with it. The planned transaction will raise 13.3 trillion dong ($505 million) for VinFast.

Besides VinFast, the billionaire has recently expanded his corporate group into technology and energy — ventures that are potentially promising but very costly. They include green energy startup VinEnergo Energy JSC and high-speed rail company VinSpeed High-Speed Railway Investment and Development JSC.

Last year he gave some of his personal shareholdings in Vingroup to help establish and fund those two companies, regulatory filings show. It’s not clear what has happened to the shares, which currently would be worth nearly $6 billion. Vingroup said the companies can sell the shares as needed, or use them for capital-raising purposes. So far, they haven’t sold the stakes.

The market sees Vingroup “as a key beneficiary of the new pro-growth government,” said Anton Berg, an analyst at Sweden-based asset manager Coeli. The company can thank its size and ability to make huge investments, coupled with its low free float and retail investors chasing momentum trades, for its long stock rally, he said. 

But “the share price performance isn’t backed fundamentally,” he said. It’s “been a head-scratcher for the last two years.”

(Updates with Vingroup share price in seventh paragraph.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The company is working with advisers to sell the interest in 1.2 gigawatts of solar and wind farms in France, Germany, Poland and Spain, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. Any deal could fetch several hundred million euros, the people said.

A spokesperson for TotalEnergies declined to comment.

The potential sale is part of the oil major’s strategy of offloading 50% portions in renewable projects once they’re built to boost returns on such investments. While peers Shell Plc and BP Plc have pared back clean energy ambitions amid disappointing returns, TotalEnergies is pressing ahead with its diversification strategy in which power will represent about 20% of its energy output by 2030.

TotalEnergies last year agreed to sell a 50% stake in 1.4 gigawatts of North American solar assets in a deal valuing the portfolio at $1.25 billion including debt. It also sold 50% stakes in smaller portfolios of renewable assets in places including France, Greece and Portugal, and in some European electric car-charging networks.

This year, it agreed to sell a stake in a portfolio of German battery projects, and agreed with Abu Dhabi’s Masdar to pool onshore renewable energy assets in nine Asian countries that aren’t priority markets for the French firm.  

TotalEnergies plans to focus the growth of its power business in key markets such as Europe, the US and Brazil, as well as in countries where it produces oil and gas. It also wants to expand in select renewable markets, such as India and South Africa.

The French company bought German renewable project developer VSB Group last year, and completed the acquisition of a stake in European gas-fired power and biomass plants last month. 

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The vote will be held Oct. 19 and is a response to a bid by separatist activists to break away from Canada.

A group called Stay Free Alberta tried to force a referendum on secession, using a provincial law that allows citizens to petition the government for one. But last week, an Alberta court blocked that effort, finding the government failed to meet its duty to consult with Indigenous peoples on a major constitutional change. 

Instead, Smith’s government will call a new vote with the question: “Should Alberta remain a province of Canada or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?”

Smith said in a televised address to the province that her position and that of her United Conservative Party is to remain in Canada, but she was “deeply troubled by an erroneous court decision that interferes with the democratic rights of hundreds of thousands of Albertans.” She said this new question avoids the legal problems the petition process faced because it doesn’t bind the government to move to separate from Canada.

Longstanding disputes between Alberta and the federal government have led to a sovereignty movement that’s seeking to reap the rewards of the region’s vast natural resources. Stay Free Alberta said its petition, which asked for an independence vote, garnered more than 301,000 signatures.

Jeffrey Rath, one of the leaders of the separatist movement, said there would be a lot of people upset at Smith’s new question and he would be campaigning to have her ousted as leader of the UCP at the next opportunity.

“There’s going to be 301,000 people in Alberta who stood in the cold, who stood in blizzards that did exactly what she asked them to do in order to get their question on a referendum ballot,” he said in an interview. “And she literally stabbed 301,000 people in the back.”

Surveys also suggest separatism lacks broad appeal and is particularly opposed by women and residents of Alberta’s largest cities. A poll last month of 1,200 residents by Janet Brown Opinion Research found support for the separatist cause at 27%, with 67% saying they would vote against it.

A rival petition from a group called Forever Canada, led by former Deputy Premier Thomas Lukaszuk, garnered more than 400,000 signatures supporting the province staying within Canada.

The premier has been threading a political needle on the issue of separation, knowing that a significant portion of her United Conservative Party membership favors leaving the country, while also saying she believes in staying within Canada. Smith’s said she understands separatists’ concerns, and she lowered the threshold for a citizen petition to trigger a referendum.

“If you wanted to put something on the ballot that would keep the separatist question in play in Alberta, I think this is as far as you can go inside the legal parameters that have been set out by these court decisions,” Lisa Young, a political scientist at the University of Calgary, said in an interview.

Smith has previously announced that voters would get to weigh in on nine other questions on Oct. 19, largely to do with immigration measures and provincial powers within Canada.

Alberta, a province of about 5 million people, holds most of the country’s known oil reserves and exports millions of barrels daily to the US. Smith recently signed an agreement with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government to advance a new pipeline to Canada’s west coast that would aim to start construction in September 2027.

Sheldon Sunshine, chief of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, one of the groups who successfully challenged the separation petition, said in an interview the potential breakup of the province was a uniting cause among Indigenous groups and they would continue to campaign to stay in government.

“We’re going to challenge them legally. We’re going to use every means that we have available to us,” he said. “We’re organized, we got teams put together, we’re preparing for anything.”

Ahead of Smith’s announcement, a group of 22 First Nations issued a statement saying despite submitting documents to cabinet and a special legislative committee that they had not yet heard back from the government on their concerns about a possible new question on separation.

Federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc said on X that the government remains “focused on building a stronger Canada for all, in full partnership with Alberta and to the benefit of all Albertans and all Canadians.”

Pierre Poilievre, leader of the federal Conservative Party, earlier on Thursday said his party would be supporting the remain movement.

“I will be campaigning across the province of Alberta, encouraging Albertans to stay as part of the Canadian family, and encouraging nationwide unity for all Canadians,” he said.

The independence movement was embroiled in controversy earlier this month when police began investigating the unauthorized use of about 3 million citizens’ personal data in Alberta.

An activist group called the Centurion Project was accused of unauthorized possession of Alberta’s list of electors, which contains names, addresses and other personal information of voters. The dataset comprises about three-fifths of the province’s population, according to Elections Alberta.

(Updates with reaction starting from seventh paragraph.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The signing of two co-operation agreements between ADNOC and Indian companies will see the Abu Dhabi-based major seek future opportunities in crude oil, gas storage, and strategic reserves, in collaboration with the Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves.

One agreement could raise ADNOC’s crude oil storage in India by up to 30 million barrels, using facilities in Mangalore and exploring options at Vishakhapatnam and Chandikol.

Storing millions of barrels of crude oil in India’s domestic petroleum reserves could give the country a critical buffer against future global supply chain disruptions.

The agreements, signed during a recent official UAE visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also examined the option of crude storage in the UAE port city of Fujairah as part of India’s strategic petroleum reserve, alongside storage opportunities for LNG and LPG in India.

ADNOC also has an agreement with Indian Oil Corporation for LPG supply and trading, including through ADNOC Global Trading, which builds on their existing 2023 LPG contract.

Growing existing ties

The strategic alliances advance bilateral collaboration in the energy sector and fortify the UAE-India bond, further strengthening their already robust energy relationship.

ADNOC’s partnerships with Indian companies meet growing energy demand, support economic growth, and diversify the energy mix. 

These agreements boost energy security as global shipping faces challenges stemming from the Iran conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. They strengthen the resilience of UAE-India energy supply chains and enable ADNOC to play a greater role in India’s growth story and energy needs.

Mutual opportunities

The UAE is the country’s third-largest trading partner after the US and China, while India is its largest export destination and trading partner.

H.E. Dr Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, and ADNOC Managing Director and Group CEO, commented that India’s scale and growth trajectory make it “one of the defining energy markets of our time”.

He said: “As demand accelerates alongside a rapidly expanding population, the strength of the UAE-India energy partnership becomes ever more critical.

“These agreements reinforce supply security, deepen our strategic ties, and underscore ADNOC’s role as a dependable and reliable partner in powering India’s long-term economic growth.”

Building on historic trade

The UAE region and India have a trading legacy dating back centuries. Their energy relationship formally began in the mid-1970s — shortly after the formation of the Emirates — with crude oil exports from Abu Dhabi.

The relationship expanded to a multidimensional partnership when the UAE-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) went into force on 1 May, 2022.

With both countries targeting $200 billion in trade by 2032, they have further strengthened bilateral economic ties, including in energy and defence. Government data shows trade activity increased 14.7% in 2025.

The UAE is expected to boost oil output following the 1 May announcement to leave OPEC, enabling greater freedom to increase production and supply to importers such as India, potentially at lower prices. The country already imports more than 85% of its crude requirements — about 11% of that, or up to 450,000 bpd — from the UAE.

Fuelling India’s growth

In January, the two countries also signed a $3 billion deal for India to buy LNG from the UAE.

New Delhi aims to raise natural gas's share of its energy mix to 15% by 2030, while ADNOC Gas has pledged to broaden its customer base and expand its presence in India and other key Asian growth markets.

The ADNOC subsidiary made a 10-year sales and purchase agreement (SPA) with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), a unit of state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

This was announced during the January visit by UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to India’s Prime Minister. At the time, Dr Al Jaber and Vikas Kaushal, Chairman and Managing Director of HPCL, reiterated the importance of the growing relationship between ADNOC and its Indian partners and customers.

ADNOC Gas has signed LNG contracts and agreements totalling more than $20 billion with Indian energy firms, making India the UAE’s largest LNG customer.

By 2029, it will operate at least 15.6 mtpa of LNG, with 3.2 mtpa contracted to Indian firms.

ADNOC previously said: “As one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies and a key driver of global energy demand, India continues to be a strategic priority for ADNOC and sits at the centre of key global energy growth trends.”