Category Archives: Oil

Philippines storm survivors join climate protest outside Shell HQ in London

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Greenpeace protest draws attention to worsening typhoons and demands accountability from major polluters

For two days and two nights, Ronalyn Carbonel and her four children clung to the roof of their home as a huge storm raged around them. With the wind battering her village of Rizal, about 10 miles east of Manila in the Philippines, and water swirling through the rooms below them, they had no choice but to wait, hoping that someone would come to rescue them and hundreds of their neighbours.

“We did not have shelter, we did not have food … we just had to wait for the government for two days,” Carbonel said. “It is not easy, no electricity, no light, we just wait for the sun to rise. The children were scared, we had never experienced anything like this.”

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‘Backsliding’: most countries to miss vital climate deadline as Cop30 nears

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Developing countries urge biggest polluters to act as Trump’s return to the White House heightens geopolitical turmoil

The vast majority of governments are likely to miss a looming deadline to file vital plans that will determine whether or not the world has a chance of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown.

Despite the urgency of the crisis, the UN is relatively relaxed at the prospect of the missed date. Officials are urging countries instead to take time to work harder on their targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions and divest from fossil fuels.

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Nigel Farage says UK’s Brexit deal with EU can be improved but struggles to explain how – UK politics live

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Reform UK leader claims ‘industrial collaboration’ with EU will give UK ‘less flexibility’ to make deal with US

Nigel Farage has said the UK could be “friendly” with the EU but did not outline what kind of ties with the bloc his party would support, PA Media reports. PA says:

The Reform UK leader said that “industrial collaboration” with the EU will give the UK “less flexibility” to make a deal with the US.

His comments came in an interview on the Today programme after his party edged ahead of Labour to top a voting poll from YouGov for the first time.

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European Central Bank cuts interest rates to support growth as eurozone economy stagnates – as it happened

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Live coverage of business, economics and financial news as ECB cuts main interest rate by 0.25 percentage points in effort to support European economies

It was a flash reading on the Eurozone economy, so we don’t have the details on what the drivers were. But it’s clear that it was a weak end to 2024.

But the European Central Bank might be able to spur a bit of economic growth in the eurozone with looser monetary policy.

This marks a weak end to last year, following positive growth in the first three quarters of 2024. As a result, first estimates suggest that the currency bloc as a whole grew by 0.7% in 2024. Declining activity in Germany – the Eurozone’s largest economy – has weighed on the bloc’s growth, with German GDP contracting by 0.2% on the quarter. This suggests Germany has now seen annual declines in activity for two consecutive years.

In 2025, further loosening of monetary conditions is expected to provide a modest uptick in activity for both Germany and the Eurozone, with growth expected to amount to 0.3% and 1.0% respectively.

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Rosebank oilfield go-ahead decision ruled unlawful by Edinburgh court

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Court says UK government green light for Rosebank and Jackdaw permits does not take into account CO2 emissions

The decision to greenlight a giant new oilfield off Shetland has been ruled unlawful by the courts in a major win for environmental campaigners.

The proposed Rosebank development – the UK’s biggest untapped oilfield – had been given the go-ahead in 2023 under the previous government.

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The oil crisis fuelled by Russia’s war is evaporating – and so are the profits

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Results from Shell and Exxon this week will be weaker – and Trump’s desire to drill may result in oversupply

Almost three years ago, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine wiped out Europe’s largest source of gas and shocked global energy markets, setting the stage for quarter after quarter of better-than-expected earnings for the fossil fuel producers ready to profit from the volatility. Now those returns are beginning to cool.

But as markets have reduced to a simmer, oil executives have warned that profits are also going off the boil. A glut of new oil and gas projects, stoked by a pro-fossil-fuel agenda from the White House, could mean weaker markets in the future too.

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Andrew Forrest fires back at ExxonMobil’s claims of ‘smear campaigns and lawfare’

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Iron ore billionaire says he is ‘personally delighted’ at lawsuit as fossil fuel giant has ‘opened themselves up to cross-examination’ in a US court

Australian mining magnate Andrew Forrest is among a group accused of orchestrating “smear campaigns and lawfare” against the global oil and gas sector “for politics, publicity, and private gain” in a dramatic defamation claim launched in US courts by fossil fuel company ExxonMobil.

But the iron ore billionaire, who is not himself a defendant in the case, said he is “personally delighted” at the court action and that “Exxon has walked themselves into the court and opened themselves up to cross-examination”.

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McKinsey paid $1.6m to ‘guide’ Australian climate policy despite working for fossil fuel companies

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Guardian Australia was told firm disclosed its private sector work, but it is not known which clients were listed

Consultancy firm McKinsey was paid $1.6m over 11 weeks to “inform” and “guide” Australian energy and climate policy, despite its work for the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies.

The firm, whose links to oil and gas giants are well known, conducted “detailed market, economic and policy analysis” and produced modelling that underpinned “internal energy and climate policy work”.

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‘Royalties for everyone’: Suriname president plans to share oil wealth

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All Surinamese adults to receive payment from recently discovered oil and gas reserves – ‘no one will be left behind’

Suriname’s president has announced a program of “royalties for everyone” as the South American nation plans for a boon from recently discovered oil and gas reserves.

Suriname and its neighbor Guyana, both former Dutch colonies, expect to make billions in the years to come from rich offshore crude deposits. Earlier this month, Guyana announced all adult citizens living at home and abroad would received a payout of around £370 as part of an effort to redistribute its oil wealth.

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UAE urges countries to honour fossil fuels vow amid Cop29 impasse

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Petrostate’s rebuke comes as Saudi Arabia and allies try to derail transition promise made at climate talks last year

The world must stand behind a historic resolution made last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”, the United Arab Emirates has said, in a powerful intervention into a damaging row over climate action.

The petrostate’s stance will be seen as as a sharp rebuke to its neighbour and close ally Saudi Arabia, which had been trying to unpick the global commitment at UN climate talks in Azerbaijan this week.

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Revealed: McKinsey clients had ‘rising share of global emissions’, internal analysis shows

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Consulting giant had said it engages with clients to help them transition to cleaner energy even as it knew they were in line to exceed climate targets

The world’s biggest consulting firm found that its clients were on a trajectory to bust global climate targets, details of internal forecasting in 2021 uncovered by the Centre for Climate Reporting (CCR) and the Guardian reveal.

McKinsey & Company has worked with some of the world’s biggest emitters, including many of the largest fossil fuel producers. It has previously argued it is necessary to engage these clients to help them transition to cleaner forms of energy and hit the target of limiting global warming to less than 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

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Cop29 climate finance deal hits fresh setback as deadline looms

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Outcry after draft text contains only an ‘X’ instead of setting $1tn funding goal to support developing countries

Hopes of a breakthrough at the deadlocked UN climate talks have been dashed after a new draft of a possible deal was condemned by rich and poor countries.

Faith in the ability of the Azerbaijan presidency to produce a deal ebbed on Thursday morning, as the draft texts were criticised as inadequate and providing no “landing ground” for a compromise.

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Guyana citizens to receive £370 each in payouts from ‘mind-boggling’ oil wealth

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Country has been enjoying historic growth in economy, which has tripled since it started crude oil extraction in 2019

Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad will receive a payout of around £370 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth.

The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars will be available to any citizen of the South American country over the age of 18 with a valid passport or ID card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad will be eligible but must be in Guyana to collect the payment.

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Petrol and food prices will fall thanks to oil glut, says World Bank

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Downward trend in oil price from higher production, falling demand in China and clean energy to continue

Petrol and food prices will fall over the next two years thanks to a glut in oil production, the World Bank has said, offering hope to consumers that the cost pressures of the past three years could start to ease.

Its analysis found that this year’s downward trend in the oil price resulting from increased production, falling demand in China and the transition to clean energy is set to continue even if the conflict in the Middle East worsens.

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G7 vows to clamp down on Russia’s oil sanctions evasion

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Group commits to unspecified measures to enforce price cap on Russian exports in response to Ukraine war

Finance ministers of the G7 nations vowed on Saturday to step up efforts to prevent Russia from evading sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine.

“We remain committed to taking further initiatives in response to oil price cap violations,” the group said in a statement after a meeting in Washington. Those further steps were not spelled out in detail.

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Cuba makes progress on regaining power after second total blackout

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Authorities say they are gradually re-establishing electrical service across the island, including to hospitals

Cuba’s government said on Saturday it had made some progress in gradually re-establishing electrical service across the island, including to hospitals and parts of the capital, Havana, after state-run media earlier reported the national grid had collapsed for a second time in 24 hours.

Most of Cuba’s 10 million people, however, remained without electricity on Saturday afternoon.

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Oil price slides amid China slowdown and easing Middle East fears

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Brent crude slides by almost $3.50 a barrel to below $74 after Opec cuts forecasts for demand growth

Global oil prices have tumbled by almost $3.50 a barrel amid ongoing concerns about a slowdown in China and as fears ease about the possibility of an attack by Israel on Iran’s energy facilities.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has reportedly offered assurances to the White House that its retaliation against Iran for its missile attack at the start of October would not target oil export terminals or nuclear facilities, which could send market prices soaring.

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Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers grows despite western sanctions

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Poorly maintained and uninsured vessels transporting up to 70% of country’s seaborne oil, says report

Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers is expanding, according to research, transporting up to 70% of the country’s seaborne oil despite western efforts to curb Moscow’s wartime energy revenues.

The volume of Russian oil being transported by poorly maintained and underinsured tankers has almost doubled in a year to 4.1m barrels a day by June, according to a report published on Monday by the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE).

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Biden says US ‘discussing’ possible Israeli plans to attack Iran’s oil industry

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President’s off-the-cuff remark outside White House over possible retaliation triggers global oil price rise

Joe Biden has said that his administration has been “discussing” possible Israeli plans to attack Iran’s oil industry in retaliation for the Iranian ballistic missile attack on Tuesday.

Biden’s off-the-cuff remark did not make clear whether his administration was holding internal discussions or talking directly to Israel, nor did he clarify what his attitude was to such an attack.

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Financial markets could still avoid panic amid oil price risk in Middle East crisis

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Oil prices rose by more than 4% as Israeli troops moved into Lebanon and Iran launched missiles on Israel

As Israeli troops moved into Lebanon and Iran launched a missile attack on Israel, the risk of a jump in oil prices that could trigger another global inflation shock appeared to be materialising.

Oil prices rose by more than 4% to about $75 a barrel on Tuesday.

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