Category Archives: Energy industry

ExxonMobil’s record-breaking $20bn profit nearly matches Apple’s

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Oil company’s third-quarter result smashes Wall Street forecasts – as does Chevron’s £11.2bn

The US oil supermajor ExxonMobil has reported a quarterly profit of nearly $20bn (£17.3bn), $4bn more than analysts had forecast, almost matching the earnings of the tech giant Apple.

Exxon’s $19.7bn profit for the third quarter outstripped the record $17.9bn it reported for the previous quarter, as it became the latest fossil fuel producer to enjoy soaring earnings, a day after Shell announced global profits of $9.5bn between July and September.

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Shell doubles its profits to $9.5bn as call for windfall tax grows

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Oil giant to boost dividends as firm continues to benefit from energy price spike after Ukraine invasion

Shell has reported profits of nearly $9.5bn (£8.2bn) between July and September, more than double the amount it made during the same period a year earlier, as it said it would increase its payments to shareholders.

The oil company continued to benefit from soaring energy prices prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but it was not able to match the record $11.5bn profit it earned between April and June, because of weaker refining and gas trading.

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Peak power: hydrogen to be injected into UK station for first time

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Exclusive: Joint venture with Centrica is aimed ultimately at reducing carbon intensity at the site

Hydrogen will be injected into an emergency gas-fired power station for the first time in a pilot backed by the owner of British Gas.

Centrica has invested in an industry joint venture which will trial using hydrogen at an existing “peaking plant” at its Brigg station in Lincolnshire, the Guardian can reveal.

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Great save? Lower league clubs mull early kick-offs to cut energy bills

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With budgets always tight some smaller football clubs are looking to offset their soaring power costs

Shrewsbury Town’s fans had long since filed out of the Montgomery Waters Meadow stadium after the defender Chey Dunkley had scored an injury-time winner against Exeter, when Brian Caldwell looked angrily skyward. The League One club’s chief executive was unimpressed to see the ground’s floodlights still burning bright.

Caldwell is among the football executives trying to limit the financial pain from huge energy bills. Faced with an even bigger surge in his annual costs, Caldwell was forced to settle for a £100,000 increase, to £180,000, when signing a new energy contract in April. “It’s a massive dent in our finances. Football clubs are not normal businesses, they’re set up to break even and put the money you can into the playing budget,” he said.

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UK energy suppliers ask Rees-Mogg to reverse part of bill granting new powers

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Companies including EDF, Centrica and Octopus express ‘alarm’ over bill allowing ministers to overrule Ofgem

The UK’s big energy suppliers have urged the government to reverse part of its energy prices bill, saying it grants “extensive” new powers to ministers and puts billions of pounds worth of investment in jeopardy.

The bill, which is making its way through parliament, was introduced as part of efforts to reduce household costs and address the broader energy crisis.

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Labour vows to treble solar power use during first term if elected

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Ed Miliband criticises Liz Truss’s ‘anti-green-energy dogma’ after plans to ban solar projects revealed

Labour has criticised prime minister Liz Truss’s plan to ban solar power from most of England’s farmland and vowed to treble the renewable energy source in its first term.

Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, will visit a solar farm on Friday. He is to lay out his opposition to plans by Truss and her environment secretary, Ranil Jayawardena, who the Guardian revealed earlier this week are hoping to ban solar from about 41% of the land area of England, or about 58% of agricultural land.

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French ministers urge oil giant to raise wages as strikes continue

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Third of petrol stations struggling for fuel as striking workers call for share of oil companies’ high profits

France has told the oil giant TotalEnergies it has a duty to raise wages, as the group’s two-week standoff with striking workers drags on, disrupting petrol supplies and causing a crisis for the government.

Oil depot and refinery strikes at the French group and the US group ExxonMobil have reduced France’s petrol output by more than 60% in recent days, with one in three petrol stations struggling for fuel. Industrial action spread this week to other energy companies including the nuclear power group EDF, where some workers resumed their sporadic industrial action of recent months.

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Oil pipeline to Germany partly shut after leak found in Poland

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Cause of leak in Druzhba line, which supplies oil from Russia, not yet known, says operator

The Druzhba oil pipeline linking Russia and Germany has been partly shut after a leak was discovered in Poland, the Polish operator Pern said on Wednesday.

“The cause of the incident is not known for the moment. Pumping in the affected line was immediately stopped. Line 2 of the pipeline is functioning normally,” the operator said.

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Power giants to face windfall tax after all as Liz Truss delivers U-turn

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Prime minister accused of ‘another screeching U-turn’ having previously rejected calls to impose levy

Renewable power companies will have their revenues capped in England and Wales, after the government bowed to pressure to clamp down on runaway profits.

The announcement late on Tuesday night provoked immediate accusations that Downing Street had performed “another screeching U-turn” – having previously rejected calls to impose a windfall tax on power giants.

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British Museum urged to drop BP sponsor deal for Egypt exhibition

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Brian Eno, Ahdaf Soueif and Miriam Margolyes sign open letter about exhibition opening shortly before Cop27

Campaigners including the musician Brian Eno, the author Ahdaf Soueif and the actor Miriam Margolyes have criticised BP’s sponsorship of an exhibition of Egyptian artefacts at the British Museum.

The exhibition opens shortly before the critical Cop27 climate summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh this November.

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France’s oil strikes push on as petrol station queues worsen

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The country’s total refinery output has been reduced by more than 60% over the past two weeks

Long tailbacks of vehicles continued to grow outside French service stations on Sunday as petrol supply was hit by pay strikes at refineries run by the oil giants, TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil.

The leftwing CGT union is leading a refinery workers’ strike for better pay during the cost-of-living crisis, and for a share of companies’ high profits.

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Octopus Energy reportedly closing in on takeover of Bulb

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Deal to acquire rival’s 1.6m customers would end total cost to taxpayers at an estimated £4bn

Octopus Energy is reportedly closing in on a takeover of its rival Bulb in a deal that will set the final bill to the taxpayer at an estimated £4bn.

Ministers at the Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have been informed that a sale of Bulb’s customer base of 1.6 million would be the most favourable outcome, according to Sky News.

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Truss says Nord Stream gas pipeline damage ‘clearly sabotage’

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Russia is suspected to have carried out explosions to put pressure on western energy supplies

Liz Truss has said a series of explosions that severely damaged Russia’s undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines were an act of sabotage.

In a joint report delivered to the United Nations last week, the Danish and Swedish governments have claimed that the leaks in the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which can carry gas to Germany, were caused by blasts equivalent to the power of “several hundred kilograms of explosive”.

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UK isolated as EU agrees windfall tax on energy firms

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Levy could raise €140bn, and energy ministers also set targets to cut electricity use

EU energy ministers have agreed to levy windfall taxes on energy companies’ profits, and to cut electricity use, but remain at loggerheads over proposals to cap the price of gas.

Meeting in Brussels on Friday, the bloc’s 27 energy ministers signed off on proposals to levy a “solidarity contribution” on fossil fuel producers that have benefited from soaring energy prices.

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Nord Stream attacks highlight vulnerability of undersea pipelines in west

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As Norway steps up seabed security, experts say underwater cables carrying world’s internet traffic are also at risk

Nato countries are scrambling to improve security of highly vulnerable undersea pipelines and communications cables after the apparent Nord Stream attack in the Baltic Sea underlines the west’s extreme vulnerability.

Four gas leaks on two Nord Stream pipelines have now been reported after blasts were detected on Monday. According to several reports citing European officials, Russian vessels were seen in the vicinity of the Nord Stream I and II pipelines where they were damaged, but an examination of the damage may not be possible for weeks for safety reasons, and no proof of Moscow’s involvement has been presented.

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Great British Energy: what is it, what would it do and how would it be funded?

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The details behind Keir Starmer’s proposed publicly owned energy company when Labour take power

The key pledge of Keir Starmer’s Labour conference speech was the proposed launch of Great British Energy, a publicly owned energy company to invest in clean UK power as part of the party’s commitment to “fight the Tories on economic growth”. But how does it work, and is it the same as renationalising energy?

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Keir Starmer promises to launch publicly-owned UK energy company as he hails ‘Labour moment’ – UK politics live

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Latest updates: the Labour party leader used his conference speech to spell out his plan for the UK

The decision to pay Liz Truss’s new chief of staff, Mark Fullbrook, through a private company has been dropped after criticism from within the Conservatives as well as from opposition parties.

The government admitted over the weekend that Fullbrook would be paid through his lobbying firm, a move that could have helped him avoid paying tax. He had previously claimed the firm had stopped all commercial activities.

The world we are heading for is a bumpy few weeks. The chancellor is now going to have quite a tough time because he has now set out plans to balance the books in November. That is going to be very hard.

Actually balancing the books in November is going to be harder than it would have been to show you are balancing the books last week because higher interest rates will make it harder to do. You might need £15bn worth of tough choices now that you didn’t need last Friday.

In the end, lower taxes will mean worse public services, or other people’s taxes having to go up, and it is those choices and ducking those choices that markets are looking at and saying that is not what serious policymaking looks like.

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Cost of using electric car charging point in UK up 42% since May

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Soaring energy prices after invasion of Ukraine have added almost £10 to cost of charging family-sized car, says RAC

The price of charging an electric car using a public rapid charger has jumped by almost £10 since May because of soaring energy costs after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The increased price of wholesale gas and electricity has pushed up the price to charge an average family-size car by 42% to above £32, according to analysis by the RAC. That was £9.60 more than in May, and £13.59 more than a year earlier.

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Tory MPs angrily challenge Rees-Mogg’s fracking revival plan

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Energy secretary considers bypassing local planning rules as backbenchers voice opposition

Ministers face a furious backlash from Conservative MPs after overturning a manifesto pledge to pause fracking until it is proved safe, and then indicating drilling could be imposed without local support.

Outlining a return to shale gas extraction in England after three years, Jacob Rees-Mogg dismissed worries about earthquakes caused by the practice as “hysteria”, claiming this was often down to a lack of scientific understanding.

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Israel risks crossing Hezbollah ‘red line’ as it prepares to connect to disputed gas field

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The Karish maritime reservoir, part of which is claimed by Lebanon, is estimated to hold 2-3tn cubic feet of natural gas

Israel is preparing to connect a disputed Mediterranean gas field to its national gas network, a development helping the country cement its new role as a supplier to Europe at the risk of inflaming tensions with Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

The Israeli energy ministry said last week that it would conduct tests on the rig and natural transmission system in the Karish maritime reservoir, part of which is claimed by neighbouring Lebanon. The work is expected to begin on Tuesday, and London-listed company Energean, which has licensed the field, has said that it is “on track to deliver [the] first gas from the Karish development project within weeks.”

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