Wednesday, 8 July 2026

Colombia votes June 21 in a presidential runoff that sets the country's next call on oil and gas exploration, with Iván Cepeda of the governing Historical Pact party against Abelardo de la Espriella of the Defenders of the Homeland party, according to Mongabay. De la Espriella's government plan would restart oil and gas exploration and production and treat both as strategic priorities, according to Mongabay.

De la Espriella led the May 31 first round with 43.7%, ahead of Cepeda at 40.9%, according to Mongabay.

That proposal reverses the line held since Petro took office in 2022, when he blocked new oil and gas exploration contracts, according to Mongabay.

Colombia has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions 51% by 2030 and carries a legally binding net-zero target for 2050, according to Mongabay. The country held its First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in April, according to Mongabay.

The Stockholm Environment Institute counts 1,128 oil and gas lease blocks in Colombia, with 13% sitting in the Colombian Amazon across 18 million hectares of forest, according to Mongabay.

A Musselshell County commissioner who warned that a federal coal bill could strip the county of up to USD 11.6 million in tax revenue was voted out in the Republican primary, losing by 26 percentage points to challenger Mark Olson, according to Inside Climate News. Olson, a Musselshell resident, is the undersheriff in Golden Valley County.

Pancratz reached the USD 11.6 million figure in his work as a risk analyst consultant, tying the potential loss to passage of the Crow Revenue Act combined with high coal prices, Inside Climate News reported.

Sen. Steve Daines introduced that bill, which would move federally held coal to Signal Peak Energy through a land transfer routed via a private intermediary. The transfer would end Musselshell County's cut of the taxes Signal Peak Energy pays to mine coal on federal land.

Signal Peak Energy runs Montana's only longwall coal mine, at Roundup, and ships most of its coal to buyers in Asia, per Inside Climate News.

The company has said the mine could close if it loses a case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana. That suit contests the Trump administration's "energy emergency," which opened federal coal to the mine.

Abelardo de la Espriella held 49.66% against Iván Cepeda Castro's 48.7% with 99.9% of results tallied, Colombian election authorities said, according to Inside Climate News.

De la Espriella declared himself the winner Sunday night, per Inside Climate News. In social media posts, outgoing President Gustavo Petro said the count showed irregularities, and both he and Cepeda plan to contest the outcome.

The result threatens two of Petro's signature energy measures. His government banned fracking and stopped issuing new oil and gas exploration licenses, a first among major oil-producing nations, according to Inside Climate News.

De la Espriella has staked out the opposite position on drilling. In May he said Colombia should pursue "all the fracking possible" and called worries about the practice's environmental risks "urban myths," Inside Climate News reported.

Commercial-scale fracking already operates in Argentina and Mexico, according to Inside Climate News.

More than 15,000 people and 318 communities receive protection from the Colombian government for defending the environment, safeguarding human rights, or exposing corruption, according to Inside Climate News.

American Petroleum Institute (API) President Mike Sommers said the Iran war and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz exposed vulnerabilities in the US energy system that Congress and policymakers should prioritize and fix, speaking at a June 22 energy security forum in Washington.

Sommers urged reengineering the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to permit larger daily withdrawals above its current 1.4 million b/d, according to Oil & Gas Journal. He also called for adding sites, particularly in California and the West Coast.

SPR inventories stand at 43-year lows of about 340 million barrels, Oil & Gas Journal reported.

A Jones Act waiver that began in mid-March 2026 because of the Strait of Hormuz closure is slated to expire Aug. 16, according to Oil & Gas Journal.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act set a July 4, 2026 deadline for renewable projects to begin spending to remain eligible for federal investment tax credits during construction, according to Inside Climate News.

The cutoff puts pressure on local clean energy efforts in Pennsylvania. Inside Climate News reports that the state's Solar for Schools program secured $25 million in state funding in each of its first two years to help schools install solar arrays.

Municipal agencies also feature in the effort. According to Inside Climate News, the Philadelphia Energy Authority was established by the mayor and city council in 2010 as an independent municipal agency to facilitate large-scale energy projects the city could not undertake on its own.

The UK government has secured more than GBP 100 billion of private clean energy investment announcements since coming to office, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is due to confirm at London Climate Action Week.

This year's renewable auctions mobilised GBP 27 billion in clean energy investment, the largest chunk of private investment this parliament, according to the government.

National Grid confirmed GBP 1.2 billion of contracts on 23 June 2026 to upgrade 1,000km of transmission lines.

The government also pointed to Rolls-Royce SMR winning a multi-billion-pound Sweden nuclear export contract off the back of the UK's SMR programme.

Miliband is due to speak alongside UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen and IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol at the Global Energy Transition and Electrification Summit.

The IEA World Energy Investment Report 2026 expects around USD 2.2 trillion globally in 2026 to go collectively to renewables, nuclear, grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency and electrification, with some USD 1.2 trillion to oil, natural gas and coal.