Energy

Bloomberg The pain felt by Big Oil from the coronavirus-led plunge in demand may derail global efforts to cut pollution, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said. The slowdown and falling prices “undermines the ability of the oil industry to develop some of the technologies needed for clean energy transitions around the world,” said the Paris-based agency. The industry has repeatedly ...

Bloomberg A researcher at China’s biggest oil company said the country’s drillers should copy the hedging strategies of Mexico and shale firms in the US, which use financial derivatives to protect against falling oil prices. Most of China’s oil production is unhedged, leaving the stability of the sector exposed to global market fluctuations, according to Dai Jiaquan, director of the ...

Bloomberg Japan revised lower its latest greenhouse gas emissions figures, which it had already reported as the least since records began in 1990. Emissions fell 3.9% from a year earlier, data on Tuesday from the environment ministry showed, a bigger drop than the 3.6% estimate in November. The figures, for the year through March 2019, are the latest available. The ...

Bloomberg Springtime is a difficult moment to puzzle out what the ongoing economic shutdown means for global warming. Carbon-dioxide levels always drop throughout the spring and summer in the Northern Hemisphere, as hungry plants absorb the primary greenhouse gas. This seasonal effect is occurring as pandemic lockdowns have stopped billions of people from driving and working, slashing fossil-fuel use and ...

Bloomberg China’s overseas energy purchases weakened in March as demand from the top importer took a hit from the coronavirus pandemic. Crude oil imports fell to the equivalent of about 9.72 million barrels a day, the least since July, according to customs data released on Tuesday. Natural gas shipments were little changed from a year ago at 6.92 million tons ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said the “Big Oil deal” sealed will save hundreds of thousands of American jobs. But the agreement he brokered depends on a sharp downturn in shale that will likely bring about a wave of bankruptcies and job cuts. Days of frantic diplomatic maneuvering culminated in an agreement by Opec+ to pare production by 9.7 million barrels ...

Bloomberg China’s coal prices have sunk to levels that threaten state intervention, but this time policy makers may refrain from doing so as they continue efforts to buttress the economy hurt by the coronavirus pandemic. The government will try to keep power prices low as it pushes to restart the economy, according to analysts. That goal will be helped by ...

Bloomberg Exxon Mobil Corp said that it would slash its capital expenditures by $10 billion, to about two-thirds of what it had planned just a month ago. It’s the second-largest capex cut in the company’s modern history, according to Bloomberg News. While those capex cuts are in the future, oil production dynamics are changing in real time. Rystad Energy analysis ...

Bloomberg More than a third of new US electricity generation expected to come online over the next six months could hit roadblocks as the coronavirus pandemic curbs power consumption and disrupts supply chains. About 4.9 gigawatts, or 39%, of new utility-scale capacity will be “either cancelled or indefinitely postponed” from April through September, said Energy Information Administration economist Tyler Hodge. ...

Bloomberg By proposing to obliterate the legal justification for restricting toxic pollution from power plants, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has flouted bedrock practices that have driven federal policymaking for decades, according to a group of resource economists writing in the journal Science. Finalised in 2012, the agency’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) was the first US rule ...