Wednesday, 12 August 2026

A fishing cooperative is challenging TotalEnergies in court over a proposed oil and gas drilling programme covering 30,000 square kilometres of ocean west of South Africa, according to Climate Home News. The Aukotowa Fisheries Cooperative is supported in the case by two nonprofits, The Green Connection and Natural Justice.

Hearings before the Western Cape High Court closed in late March, and a judgment is expected later this year, Climate Home News reported.

The wider licensing effort behind the block is Operation Phakisa, a state programme under which the seabed off a coastline of nearly 3,000 kilometres has been surveyed for oil and gas prospects. Mapping now covers more than 95% of that ocean area, according to Climate Home News.

Thirty exploration wells are targeted over a decade under the plan, Climate Home News reported. Officials put potential output at an average of 370,000 barrels of oil and gas per day across 20 years, and have designated Saldanha Bay as a key logistics hub.

Offshore acreage now dominates the industry's exploration results: more than 85% of new oil and gas discoveries in 2024 were made at sea, according to Climate Home News.

Sales of gasoline cars in China dropped 44% year-over-year in July 2026, while battery electric vehicle sales rose 6% over the same month, according to Electrek.

The divergence sits inside a shrinking overall market. Electrek reported that cumulative Chinese car sales fell 12.5% across the first seven months of 2026. That leaves the 6% BEV gain as a modest advance against a contracting base, rather than a broad demand recovery.

Export figures moved far harder than domestic ones. New energy vehicle shipments out of China climbed 147.8% year-over-year in July, per Electrek. NEVs made up 58.8% of all Chinese vehicle exports in the month, according to the same report, putting electrified models above the combined share of every combustion export category.

The combination of a 44% collapse in domestic gas car sales and an NEV export share close to three-fifths marks the sharpest split reported between the two powertrain segments in the figures cited by Electrek.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has published an initial list of transmission infrastructure projects expected to be eligible for its Bill Discount Scheme, which cuts electricity bills for households sited close to new grid build.

Eligibility turns on distance. The scheme covers households within 500 metres of new or significantly upgraded electricity transmission infrastructure, such as pylons, in England, Scotland and Wales, according to the department.

Payments for eligible projects are expected to start in the first half of 2027, the department said.

The published list is described as initial, covering the projects anticipated to qualify rather than a closed register. The department frames the discount as directed at communities living near new transmission network infrastructure projects.

The 500 metre threshold is the operative test for households seeking the discount, and it applies to upgrades of existing infrastructure as well as entirely new lines.

Arcfox, the electric vehicle startup owned by BAIC Group, is entering battery swapping with support from CATL, according to CleanTechnica.

CleanTechnica describes CATL as the world's biggest battery producer. The partnership places that supplier behind a swapping push by a carmaker that has not previously built its business around the technology.

Battery swapping replaces a depleted pack with a charged one at a dedicated station rather than recharging the vehicle in place. Adoption has been concentrated: NIO has been far and away the leader in EV battery swapping in the industry, per CleanTechnica.

Arcfox's entry, backed by CATL, adds a second serious brand-and-supplier pairing to a segment that NIO has dominated.

Underground thermal energy storage can hold servers in computing facilities at operating temperature through every season, according to a new national laboratory study reported by CleanTechnica.

The cooling load at stake is large. CleanTechnica reports that keeping computing equipment cool can consume as much as 40% of a facility's total annual energy consumption, alongside water use.

The study frames the subsurface as a year-round heat sink, rather than a seasonal supplement to conventional chillers.

Aker BP and Equinor drilled a dry exploration well at the Svarteknippa prospect in the North Sea and have permanently plugged and abandoned it, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The well, designated 15/6-17, was the first exploration well drilled in production license 979, which was awarded through APA (awards in pre-defined areas), Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Offshore Engineer OEDigital placed the prospect 15 kilometers west of the Solveig field and 220 kilometers west of Stavanger.

Drilling reached a vertical depth of 3704 meters below sea level, with water depth at the site of 102 meters, according to the same report.

The Scarabeo 8 drilling rig carried out the work.

Cadeler has bought Menck, a Germany-based supplier of specialist equipment and technology for offshore foundation installation, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The buyer plans to keep Menck running as a standalone business, preserving its independent market position while reinforcing its role as a supply chain provider across the offshore wind industry, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

The two companies already work together on equipment now in the field. Menck supplies the 4,400kJ impact hammer that Cadeler is deploying on the Hornsea 3 offshore wind project, according to the same report.

Impact hammers of that class drive monopile and jacket foundations into the seabed, the installation step that precedes turbine erection. Bringing the hammer supplier in-house places that equipment inside the same corporate structure as the installation vessel operator running it on Hornsea 3.

New South Wales energy minister Penny Sharpe has kept open the possibility of further changes to coal generator closure dates, according to RenewEconomy.

That stance leaves the state's exit timetable unsettled at a point when developers are already struggling to raise capital. RenewEconomy reported that uncertainty over closure dates has been cited as a major reason for the difficulty in financing new wind and solar projects in the Australian state.

The two threads run together. Lenders price the timing of coal retirements into revenue assumptions for new generation, and a movable date weakens that basis. Sharpe's refusal to lock in the schedule keeps that variable in play.

Data centers of 10 MW or more in Ireland must cover at least 80% of their energy demand with new onsite renewable generation and storage under the country's Large Energy User Action Plan (LEAP), according to pv magazine.

The threshold sets the design constraint for any large computing site seeking to connect: the renewable capacity and the batteries have to be new and located on the site itself, rather than contracted from existing assets elsewhere on the system.

The rule lands on a demand base that is already unusual by international standards. Data centers took 23% of national electricity consumption in Ireland in 2025, pv magazine reported.

The state is spending heavily on the wires alongside the onsite mandate. In December 2025, the Irish government announced an EUR 18.9 billion (USD 22.2 billion) investment package for electricity grid infrastructure out to 2030, according to pv magazine.

Supply of the technology the mandate depends on is scaling from a modest base. Solar Ireland's 2026 market outlook report estimates that total connected solar capacity in Ireland will surpass 3.3 GW by year's end, pv magazine reported. That figure covers the entire national fleet, not just the behind-the-meter systems LEAP would require large energy users to build.

The gap between the 80% onsite requirement and the size of the installed solar base is the operative tension. A single hyperscale campus drawing tens of megawatts continuously would need substantial dedicated generation and storage to reach the threshold, while the whole country's connected solar capacity is measured in low single-digit gigawatts.

The Who Dat East Joint Venture, operated by LLOG, has sanctioned development of the Who Dat East field, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

The field sits in lease MC 509-1 in a water depth of approximately 1,300 metres, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

First production is expected in the second half of 2028, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported, at an initial gross rate of approximately 6,500 bopd of liquids and 50 MMscf/d of gas.

The initial development is expected to generate an internal rate of return in excess of 20%, according to the same report.

Tesla has applied for a ten-year property tax limitation in Texas tied to a USD 10.1 billion solar cell manufacturing facility in Fort Bend County, according to application documents posted by the Texas Comptroller and reported by pv magazine.

The application, code-named Project Crystal Sun, describes a 3,050-acre site near Richmond in Fort Bend County, within the jurisdiction of the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District, pv magazine reported.

The capital commitment splits into USD 1.5 billion of real property and USD 8.6 billion of manufacturing equipment and personal property, according to the filing as described by pv magazine.

Staffing projections in the paperwork put permanent employment at 9,712 full-time positions once the plant is fully operational, with peak construction employment of 1,147, pv magazine reported.

Whether the plant lands in Texas is not settled. Tesla stated in the paperwork that it is actively evaluating a competing out-of-state site, and that receipt of local tax incentives is a key factor in final site selection, according to pv magazine.

An economic impact analysis attached to the filing estimates that full buildout could contribute USD 107 billion to Texas gross domestic product and USD 6.4 billion in state and local tax revenue over a 38-year horizon, pv magazine reported.

Consulting firm Kroll prepared the filing, which was signed on July 22 and surfaced publicly in early August, according to pv magazine.

Researchers at the University of Newcastle recovered almost 100% of the silver in end-of-life solar panels during what they describe as the world's first continuous pilot-scale flotation trial for solar panel recycling, according to pv magazine.

The trial processed 22 kilograms of solar-cell material stripped from 468 kg of panels, pv magazine reported. Under continuous operating conditions over roughly 90 minutes, the silver was concentrated into a product amounting to just 1.25% of the original material. That concentrate carried more than 80 times the silver content of the feed material, according to the same report.

Froth flotation, a separation technique borrowed from mineral processing, replaces the acid-leaching route used in conventional silver recovery. The team's early assessment suggests the flotation process could be three to five times less expensive than acid leaching, pv magazine reported.

Cost is the binding constraint on panel recycling. Recycling is currently estimated to cost about USD 10 to USD 15 per panel, against only a few dollars to send the same panel to landfill, according to pv magazine. Any process that shifts the balance changes the economics of collection.

"Silver is the highest-value material in a solar cell," said lead researcher Mahshid Firouzi, adding that recovering it has the potential to make solar-panel recycling far more financially attractive.

The volume at stake is substantial. Australia is expected to accumulate more than one million tonnes of waste panels by 2035, containing an estimated 300 to 500 tonnes of silver, pv magazine reported. Silver used in cell metallisation is otherwise lost to landfill when panels are discarded whole.

The pilot result establishes that the separation holds up under continuous operation rather than in batch laboratory conditions, the distinction the researchers claim as a first.

Borr Drilling reported a second quarter net loss of USD 241.4 million, widening from a net loss of USD 29.0 million in the first quarter of 2026, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The swing was primarily driven by a USD 176.3 million debt extinguishment charge tied to the refinancing of the company's senior secured notes due 2028 and 2030 and its convertible bonds due 2028, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Total operating revenues came in at USD 232.3 million for the quarter, down USD 14.7 million or 6% against the first quarter of 2026. Adjusted EBITDA fell more steeply, to USD 43.8 million, a drop of USD 44.7 million or 51% from the prior quarter.

The refinancing itself covered substantially all of Borr Drilling's debt, executed through USD 300 million of convertible notes and USD 2,035 million of senior secured notes, according to the company. Borr Drilling also upsized its super senior revolving credit facility to USD 250 million.

After the quarter closed, the driller completed the purchase of five premium jack-up rigs through a new 50/50 joint venture at a total price of USD 287 million, per Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

On the commercial side, Borr Drilling has secured 21 contract commitments year-to-date in 2026, covering roughly 4,350 days and USD 541 million of dayrate equivalent backlog.

Contract coverage for 2026 now stands at 73% at an average dayrate of approximately USD 134,000 per day, with second-half coverage at 70%.

Two-thirds of India's iron ore reserves cannot be used efficiently without upgrading, a constraint that sits directly beneath the government's plan to lift crude steel capacity beyond 400 million tonnes by 2035-36 under the proposed National Steel Policy 2025, according to IEEFA.

IEEFA cited an inter-ministerial committee finding that medium- and low-grade material accounts for 66.5% of the reserve base, leaving beneficiation as a precondition for efficient use. Output volume is not the binding issue: FY2024-25 iron ore production reached roughly 289Mt, fourth-largest worldwide.

Moving beneficiation capacity from about 136 MTPA to 170 MTPA by FY2030 could take roughly INR51,000 crore (USD5.37 billion) of investment, IEEFA said.

The Australian government projects that Indian iron ore imports climb to 50Mt in 2031, up from 3Mt in 2025, on IEEFA's account.

Grade quality also shows up in furnace fuel bills. Each percentage point of added alumina raises coke burn by 2.2% while trimming blast furnace productivity by 4%, according to an Indian study cited by IEEFA. Around 85% of India's coking coal already arrives from abroad.

Global Energy Monitor puts the blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace share of India's announced capacity under development at about 57%, which keeps that import exposure attached to the buildout. Alongside the capacity figure, the policy also sets out lower emissions intensity and reduced coking coal dependence as objectives, IEEFA reported.

Site preparation has started for the Kola II nuclear power units in Russia, following the granting of a site licence by Russian regulator Rostekhnadzor, according to World Nuclear News.

Rosatom intends to build four units at the site using the VVER-S design, a 600 MWe water-cooled reactor still under development, with the first two scheduled for construction between 2027 and 2037.

The fuel cycle is central to the design case. Rosatom says that if the proposed VVER-S reactors can run on a full load of mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, natural uranium use would fall by 50%.

The new capacity is meant to replace the four VVER-440 units already operating at Kola, each rated at 411 MWe and connected to the grid between 1973 and 1984, World Nuclear News reported.

Murmansk Governor Andrey Chibis said the project will create over 5,000 new jobs during the construction phase, and will require hundreds of highly qualified specialists once the units are running.

Iran restated its conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, demanding that the US and its allies unfreeze Iranian assets and end hostilities across the region, according to Semafor Net Zero.

The statement narrowed the prospect of an interim workaround. Semafor Net Zero reported that Tehran's position dampened hopes a deal with Oman could open a route for commercial shipping before the US and Iran reach an agreement of their own.

Enforcement action continued the same day. Semafor Net Zero reported that the US fired on a Panama-flagged vessel that attempted to break its blockade on Tuesday.

Semafor's White House correspondent reported that President Donald Trump is increasingly concerned the conflict could damage his legacy by inviting unfavorable comparisons to past US leaders.

Wells serving 28 homes in the Mount Eyre Manor neighborhood have tested positive for toxic fuel components including benzene and xylenes since the contamination crisis began, Inside Climate News reported. The United States neighborhood sits near a pipeline leak that has left residents living in fear, according to the outlet.

One week after PHMSA issued its first notice to Energy Transfer over the spill, the company and its executive chairman gave a combined USD 25 million to Trump-aligned MAGA Inc., Inside Climate News reported.

That contribution landed against a backdrop of thinning federal oversight. Enforcement on the nation's interstate oil and gas pipelines fell to a record low last year as staffing fell at PHMSA, according to Inside Climate News.

The deregulatory direction was set at the top. President Trump signed an "Unleashing American Energy" executive order on the first day of his second term to roll back regulation of the industry, the outlet reported.

Benzene and xylenes are components of refined fuels. Their presence in drinking-water wells is the measurable trace of the spill that residents of the affected homes are still contending with.

A community solar array has been deployed at a Public Storage facility in Justice, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, according to Canary Media.

The panels sit on roof space that was otherwise unused, Canary Media reported.

Canary Media identified Krzysztof Wasowicz as the mayor of Justice, and described the array as located in his village.

LCH2 is advancing a 150-acre site in Lewis County, Washington, that would turn forest residuals into hydrogen, capture carbon and host a data center, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

The developer frames the acreage as a "regional energy and industrial ecosystem" rather than a single hydrogen plant.

Capacity targets in the current planning envelope are set at roughly 1,000 tonnes per day of biomass throughput and about 100 tonnes per day of fuel-grade hydrogen once the site is fully built out, according to Hydrogen Fuel News. The same envelope adds carbon capture and productization, dispatchable clean-power generation, and a 50 MW Advanced Compute Complex supplied behind the meter from on-site generation.

Supply for the plant is drawn from a resource assessment cited by Hydrogen Fuel News. Within a 75-mile drive zone centered on Centralia, that assessment counts about 600,000 bone-dry tons per year of pulpwood, forest residuals and sawmill residuals, and rates the volume as available at low supply-chain risk.

Ways2H is contributing the conversion technology and the engineering basis, per Hydrogen Fuel News. Under its RefHynery platform, steam-enhanced thermochemical conversion runs without oxygen, so the feedstock is not combusted directly.

A grant application filed by LCH2 puts ongoing employment at 140 to 220 direct jobs and a further 250 to 500 indirect or supported jobs, on top of a construction workforce.

Ken Cavallon, Executive Director of LCH2, told Hydrogen Fuel News that Lewis County has "the forest resources, the energy-transition need and the industrial know-how" for clean hydrogen made from forest residuals.

Batteries in Italy's SUD region earned EUR 592,000/MW/year on a four-hour configuration in June, the third straight month above EUR 500,000/MW/year, according to Clean Horizon's June Battery Profitability Index reported by ESS News.

Clean Horizon attributed the SUD result primarily to a higher weighted average price in the intraday market.

Belgium posted the index's standout recovery. Revenue there reached EUR 340,000/MW/year, the highest level since July 2015, which Clean Horizon linked to a rebound in solar and wind generation that pushed energy prices up.

In Spain, two-hour battery revenues climbed 18.9% month-on-month to EUR 252,000/MW/year, per the index. Clean Horizon pointed to higher earnings from the continuous intraday market, alongside better spreads on automatic frequency restoration reserve (aFRR) and day-ahead contracts.

The sharpest monthly move came in Estonia, where two-hour index revenues rose 84% against May to EUR 322,000/MW/year. Manual frequency restoration reserve (mFRR) was the dominant earnings stream, at 58% of the total, ESS News reported.

Latvia and Lithuania followed with gains of 31% and 32%, landing at EUR 443,000/MW/year and EUR 431,000/MW/year respectively.

Poland ran against the trend but stayed near the top of the table. Two-hour battery revenue there fell 35% from the previous month, yet still registered EUR 529,000/MW/year.

The index measures battery market share across energy and ancillary services markets, covering frequency containment reserve (FCR), aFRR and mFRR. Its benchmark asset assumes 85% round-trip efficiency, 1.5 cycles per day and full availability.

Slovenia's electricity market operator Borzen shut its battery storage grant call ahead of schedule after bids came in at more than twice the EUR 10 million on offer, according to ESS News.

ESS News reported that 278 applications arrived in the first three days of the call. The oversubscription figure covers the full application set against the EUR 10 million budget.

Successful applicants can claim up to 45% of eligible investment costs under the scheme, with support capped at EUR 225/kWh, per ESS News.

The grant call sits alongside a larger state aid decision. Earlier in August 2026, the European Commission approved a EUR 59 million funding program backing 370 MWh of new battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity in Slovenia, ESS News reported.

South Korea's Shinsung E&G has started up a 350 MW solar module production line at its Gimje plant in Jeollabuk-do province, according to pv magazine. The addition lifts total capacity at the site to 600 MW.

A company spokesperson told pv magazine the line turns out modules built on n-type cell technology.

Output is earmarked for project contracts Shinsung has secured in the Saemangeum development area, pv magazine reported. Those include an 80 MW ground-mounted plant, a separate 74 MW project, and a 300 MW floating solar installation.

The company said it has no plans for further expansion, but would respond to growth in domestic market demand by bringing its remaining line into operation.

Behind-the-meter photovoltaic (BTM PV) output across New England could fall by 600 to 800 MW during the partial solar eclipse on August 12, according to ISO New England, which said the reduction will be noticeable but manageable.

The grid operator attributed the width of that range to cloud cover and wildfire smoke, both of which shape how much rooftop and other distributed solar output is available when the moon crosses the sun.

Obscuration varies sharply across the footprint. ISO New England said the moon will cover about 23% of the sun as seen from northern Maine, falling to roughly 10% in southwest Connecticut.

That gradient explains why the grid operator expects minimal power system impacts from the event. The comparison it drew is the April 8, 2024 eclipse, when parts of northern New England saw a total eclipse and BTM PV generation dropped by more than 2,800 MW. The upper end of the August 12 estimate is well under a third of that earlier swing.

BTM PV sits behind customer meters, so its output is not directly dispatched by the grid operator and instead appears as a change in net demand that other resources must cover as sunlight returns.

Verano Energy has picked Sungrow to supply a 152 MW / 606 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) for its Observatorio project in the O'Higgins region of Chile, according to ESS News.

The order covers Sungrow's PowerTitan 2 product and a 25-year long-term service agreement, ESS News reported. Sungrow will also deliver SG350HX-20 inverters for the 135 MW photovoltaic plant paired with the batteries at Observatorio.

Chile's storage build-out gives the award scale context. ESS News put the country at 19.2 GWh of battery capacity under construction as of June 2026, with a further 11.8 GWh in the testing phase.

In Australia, Global Power Generation selected Hithium for a 421 MWh BESS at the Fraser Coast project in Queensland, ESS News reported. The supplier will provide 84 liquid-cooled storage units with grid-forming capabilities, plus design and testing services and site support.

Fraser Coast pairs 330 MW of solar PV with a 180 MW battery, according to ESS News. Naturgy holds 75% of GPG and the Kuwait Investment Authority owns the remaining 25%.

On the supply side, Sungrow ranked first among BESS integrators in a global ranking by Wood Mackenzie, with six of the top 10 integrators based in China.

Cadeler has placed the last turbine at the 960 MW He Dreiht offshore wind farm in the German North Sea, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The project was developed by EnBW. Offshore Engineer OEDigital reports it comprises 64 Vestas V236-15.0 MW machines, the first commercial-scale deployment of Vestas' flagship offshore turbine.

Installation ran across two vessels. Wind Orca started the campaign in April 2025, and Wind Keeper picked up the remaining scope in Q1 2026 under Cadeler's long-term contract with Vestas, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The site sits roughly 90 km northwest of Borkum and around 110 km west of Helgoland.

Once fully operational, He Dreiht will produce enough renewable electricity for approximately 1.1 million households, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Petrovietnam Gas, the state-controlled gas company, has approached potential suppliers about a tender to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) on a five-year contract, per a document Reuters said it reviewed. Should it proceed, Vietnam would land its second term deal, following an agreement with Shell plc earlier this year.

The approach went out in June and is labelled a "market sounding exercise" in the document. Volumes span 250,000 to 450,000 metric tons destined for the Thi Vai Terminal, and the earliest delivery window opens in January 2027.

Shell won the earlier award in January 2026, the first term contract PV GAS has signed. That five-year deal covers roughly 400,000 tons a year, with cargoes arriving between 2027 and 2031.

PV GAS operates Thi Vai at a throughput ceiling of 1 million tons a year, with expansion work under way to lift that to 3 million tons a year. Two power plants totalling 1.5 GW draw fuel from the terminal.

Both of Vietnam's LNG import terminals sit in the south of the country, and both have so far taken cargoes on spot terms. Cutting coal dependence and reducing carbon emissions are among the drivers behind the build-out, according to the reporting.

The range put to suppliers in June, 250,000 to 450,000 tons in total, falls below the roughly 400,000 tons a year Shell committed to under the January 2026 award.

Twelve companies submitted 69 bids covering 330,000 acres, roughly 0.4% of the more than 81 million acres the Trump administration offered to oil and gas drillers in the Gulf of America, according to a pre-sale document reported by Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The acreage is part of an effort to raise domestic energy production through regular offshore lease sales, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported. The Interior Department put up 15,100 unleased blocks sitting between 3 and 231 miles offshore on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.

This is the third of 30 auctions mandated by the tax cut and spending law that U.S. President Donald Trump signed in 2025, according to the same report.

Interest has thinned across that sequence. The first auction, held in December under the 2025 law, drew USD 279.4 million in high bids. The second, in March, produced nearly USD 47 million in high bids for 25 blocks spanning about 141,000 acres.

The Marine Minerals Administration will run the sale. The Trump administration created the body to unify the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

Offshore output supplies about 15% of U.S. production, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported, and has trailed onshore shale fields in recent years because offshore projects carry longer timelines and higher upfront costs. That cost profile frames the gap between the acreage on offer and the acreage bid: drillers committed to a fraction of one percent of the blocks made available, while shale wells reach production far faster.

Nigeria has signed an executive order offering tax incentives designed to draw as much as $50 billion in oil and gas investment, according to Semafor Net Zero, as the country works to revive international interest in offshore projects.

The order copies a framework of tax rebates already approved for Shell, which plans to invest at least $10 billion into offshore projects, Semafor Net Zero reported.

President Bola Tinubu said the measure offers "clear and predictable terms" for new investments.

The incentive package addresses a retreat that has reshaped where majors put capital in the country. Global oil companies have pulled back from their onshore Nigerian assets because of pipeline vandalism, according to Semafor Net Zero. Offshore acreage sits beyond the reach of that damage, which is where the rebate framework is pointed.

The target is set against a continent-wide spending pool that is smaller than the figure Nigeria alone is chasing. The African Energy Chamber, a South Africa-based advocacy group, estimates African oil and gas investments could reach $41 billion this year, Semafor Net Zero reported. Nigeria's $50 billion ambition therefore exceeds the Chamber's estimate for the whole of Africa over a single year, making the timeline over which the capital would arrive the central question for any operator weighing a bid.

Shell's committed figure gives the scheme a reference point rather than a forecast: at a minimum $10 billion, the company's planned offshore outlay represents a fifth of the headline national target.

France collected 13,760 tonnes of end-of-life solar modules in 2025, a 40% increase on the previous year, according to pv magazine.

Soren, the body that manages panel take-back, oversaw the processing of more than 12,736 tonnes of modules over the year, with a recovery rate above 90%, pv magazine reported.

The processed volume splits three ways. Recycling absorbed 10,684 tonnes, energy recovery accounted for 1,298 tonnes, and 754 tonnes went to disposal, according to the same reporting.

Volumes on that scale remain small against what Soren sees coming. The organisation expects nearly 180,000 tonnes of photovoltaic panels to reach the end of their useful life each year in France by 2040. That figure is more than an order of magnitude above what was collected last year.

Soren CEO Nicolas Defrenne framed the collection business in industrial rather than environmental terms, saying panel recycling is no longer a niche issue but a strategic imperative for European industrial sovereignty.

The recovery rate reported for last year matters for that argument: material that stays above 90% recovery is material that does not need to be imported again. The residual streams, the 1,298 tonnes routed to energy recovery and the 754 tonnes sent for disposal, are the portion that leaves the loop.

How fast collection scales from 13,760 tonnes toward the 180,000-tonne annual figure Soren projects will determine whether the recycling base built so far can absorb the wave of retirements without new capacity.

CAPE Holland, a Venterra Group company, and GBM Works have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly develop and commercialize the Vibrojet foundation installation system worldwide, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Vibrojet installs offshore wind monopile foundations by pairing vibratory driving with controlled water jetting, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported. The combination targets the seabed penetration step that governs schedule risk on monopile campaigns.

The two companies want the system commercially available as an integrated offering for offshore wind farm installation projects from 2027 onwards, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. The MoU covers joint further development alongside commercialization, rather than marketing of a finished product.

The technology already has field time behind it. Earlier this year it was used to install three offshore wind turbine monopile foundations at the Hollandse Kust West wind farm, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported. That deployment gives the partners a reference installation ahead of the commercial launch window they have set.

Monopiles remain the dominant foundation type for fixed-bottom offshore wind, and installation method is one of the few remaining levers on cost and permitting for developers. Vibratory driving and jetting approaches compete with conventional impact hammering, which is the source of the underwater noise emissions that shape offshore consent conditions. The named partnership structure here, with CAPE Holland operating under Venterra Group, places an installation equipment specialist alongside the technology developer.

What the parties have committed to is a development and commercialization pathway with a stated target year, not a signed supply contract. The 2027 ambition is the date to test against: it is the point at which Vibrojet is meant to move from a three-foundation reference campaign to a service offered across installation projects.

Turkish carmaker Togg is folding the Octopus Electroverse charging platform into its Trumore app, giving drivers access to more than 220,000 public charging points in Germany at the outset, according to electrive.

The German network is the starting scope rather than the ceiling. Electroverse aggregates more than 1.4 million charging points from various operators across Europe, electrive reported. The integration means Togg drivers reach that roaming pool through Trumore rather than a separate charging app.

Togg's German footprint is recent. The company has sold its first two battery-electric models, the T10X SUV and the T10F saloon, in Germany since the end of September 2025, according to electrive. Charging access is the practical gap a new entrant must close in a market where drivers expect a single point of authentication across operators.

The initial German count of more than 220,000 points, as reported by electrive, represents a fraction of the wider Electroverse total.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has approved an offshore reform intended to unlock up to USD 50 billion in deep offshore investment and revive stalled offshore projects, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

NAN reported that the measure ends project-by-project negotiations and puts a rules-based investment framework in their place.

The framework is designed to draw long-term capital into Nigeria's offshore oil and gas sector, per the same report. The approval also targets offshore projects that had stalled.

Porsche has left Volkswagen Group's EU CO2 emissions pool and will instead pool its new-car registrations with Xpeng in 2026 and 2027, electrive reported. An official EU filing dated 5 August 2026 confirms the change in how Porsche intends to meet European fleet emissions requirements.

Pooling lets carmakers combine registrations so that surplus low-emission sales offset a partner's heavier fleet average. Xpeng brings limited volume to that arithmetic: the manufacturer delivered just under 20,000 vehicles across Western Europe in the first six months of 2026, according to data from Schmidt Automotive Research cited by electrive.

Separately, research from UCSC published in Science examined the timing question that sits underneath fleet policy. The researchers analysed more than 400 vehicle scenarios, electrive reported. An electric car typically offsets the additional CO2 emissions generated during vehicle and battery production after around three years, according to the study.

At the niche end of electrification, Whitby Morrison, a UK converter, has unveiled a fully electric ice cream van built on the Mercedes-Benz eSprinter platform, electrive reported.

Saudi Arabia told OPEC it pumped 8.2 million barrels per day of crude in July, up from 7.1 million barrels per day the previous month, according to World Oil.

The reported production figure sits roughly 780,000 bpd above the volume the kingdom said it supplied to the market. World Oil described that gap as consistent with assessments that Saudi Arabia is adding to inventories while its export routes remain impeded.

The International Energy Agency estimated in a report that Saudi domestic crude stockpiles had reached their highest level since at least 2016 by early August, World Oil said.

Across the seven OPEC members that report production directly to the group's secretariat, output rose by 1.88 MMbpd. Iraq and Saudi Arabia accounted for the majority of that increase, according to World Oil.

Venture Global raised its 2026 adjusted EBITDA forecast to USD 8.7 billion to USD 9.1 billion, up from USD 8.2 billion to USD 8.5 billion three months earlier, according to Oil & Gas Journal. Shares fell more than 6% to about USD 13.30 on the earnings report and management commentary.

Capital spending guidance moved up too, though only at the margin. Oil & Gas Journal reported that executives now expect capex of USD 13 billion for the year, against an earlier range of USD 12 billion to USD 13 billion.

The volume story underpins the higher earnings guidance. The company sold more than 466 TBtu in the second quarter, up from 329 TBtu in the same period a year earlier, according to Oil & Gas Journal. That output generated adjusted EBITDA of nearly USD 2.5 billion, 79% above the year-earlier quarter.

Pricing assumptions were revised sharply higher. Venture Global now assumes liquefaction fees of USD 12.50/MMBtu to USD 13.50/MMBtu for the remainder of 2026, up 30% from May, per Oil & Gas Journal.

On the trajectory of spending against earnings, Jack Thayer said the relative scale of the incremental capital investment is expected to decline compared with the company's growing cash flows, creating more opportunities for other capital allocation priorities.

Researchers at Shenyang Agricultural University report that decorating cadmium sulfide with carbon quantum dots made from cellulose nearly doubled visible-light hydrogen production in laboratory tests, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The method described by Hydrogen Fuel News converts cellulose into carbon quantum dots, then attaches those dots to cadmium sulfide nanoparticles. Cadmium sulfide is a visible-light photocatalyst, and the reported gain applies to hydrogen output measured under visible light at lab scale.

The feedstock is the distinguishing element. Cellulose, a biomass-derived material, supplies the carbon for the quantum dots rather than a synthetic precursor. The doubling figure cited by Hydrogen Fuel News refers to lab tests, not to a pilot or commercial installation.

Analyst firm Wood Mackenzie puts the oil and gas industry's cash windfall on course for USD 495 billion in 2026, a figure cited by The Conversation.

One levy already claims a share of that pool. Stacked on earlier charges, a windfall tax covering North Sea oil and gas lifts the combined burden on profits to 78%, and The Conversation reported it should bring in an estimated GBP 8 billion in 2026, about twice what the levy delivered in 2024-25.

A European Union-wide tax followed a different design, applied once after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. That measure collected EUR 26.15 billion, according to The Conversation.

The Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax, enacted in 1980, was originally projected to bring in USD 393 billion across a planned 10-year life. Actual receipts came to roughly USD 80 billion before lawmakers repealed the tax in 1988, The Conversation reported.

Two bills now on the table reach for the same revenue in different ways. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Rep. Ro Khanna would apply a 50% excise tax per barrel to the gap between the current average Brent crude price and the 2025 average of USD 69.

The other bill goes after shareholder distributions instead of production volumes. The Taxing Buybacks from Big Oil Windfalls Act, from Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden, Chuck Schumer, and Michael Bennet, would lift the excise tax on stock buybacks by large oil and gas companies from 1% to 25%, according to The Conversation.

A scandium surface coating applied to a layered sodium-ion cathode held 91.2% of its initial capacity after 300 cycles in a full cell, according to ESS News.

The work compared two routes for using scandium in O3-Na[Ni1/2Mn1/2]O2 cathodes: bulk doping through the material and a coating confined to the particle surface. ESS News reported that researchers from Tokyo University of Science and the Institute of Science Tokyo in Japan carried out the comparison.

The contrast with untreated material is the headline number. Capacity retention after 100 cycles rose from 18.6% for the undoped baseline to 75.4% for the coated NNMO-SC800 sample, ESS News reported. The doped variant, NNMSO at 8% scandium, reached 67.8% over the same window.

In full cells paired with hard carbon anodes, the doped sample held 71.4% of initial capacity after 300 cycles, according to ESS News. That leaves the coated cathode ahead of the doped one on the longer test, on the figures reported.

The two approaches work through different mechanisms. Bulk doping stabilized the layered crystal structure and cut volume changes during cycling, while the surface coating formed a protective layer that suppressed interfacial degradation and side reactions, per ESS News.

The technique appeared in the journal Small, in a paper titled "Scandium Doping and Coating for Improving O3-NaNi1/2Mn1/2O2 Electrode in Sodium Battery," ESS News reported.

Cathode durability is the constraint that has kept nickel-manganese layered oxides awkward for sodium-ion cells, and the undoped retention figure of 18.6% after 100 cycles shows the scale of the fade being addressed. Both scandium routes narrow that gap, with the coated electrode delivering the stronger result across both the 100-cycle and 300-cycle tests.

Weakening the UK's electric vehicle sales targets could cost consumers as much as GBP 3 billion a year by 2030, according to Carbon Brief analysis of an upcoming government consultation.

The consultation covers the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate. Carbon Brief reports that the government under new Labour prime minister Andy Burnham is considering cutting the battery electric vehicle (BEV) target for 2030 to just 50% of new car sales, with options of 60% or 70% also on the table.

The fuel bill is the mechanism behind the consumer cost. Previous Carbon Brief analysis found BEVs are around GBP 1,100 cheaper to run each year than a petrol car, because fuel costs are far lower.

Fewer electric cars on the road also means more crude on tankers. A weaker mandate could require an extra 17 million barrels of oil imports in 2030, lifting expected net imports by 8%, the analysis shows. The same shift would add 2.5% to national emissions in that year.

Industry group Energy UK has defended the existing policy, saying the mandate is "working in the way it was designed to work" and calling it the "single biggest driver of emissions reductions" in government climate plans.

Sandia and Elemental Nuclear will jointly design, build and demonstrate supercritical CO2 power generation at two scales, starting with a 1 MWe natural-gas- and waste-heat-fired power and cooling system aimed at small modular data centers and remote military installations, according to Power Engineering.

That first unit is expected to be operable in 2027, with supporting commercial system deliveries beginning in 2028, Power Engineering reported.

Elemental then plans a scaled-up 10 MWe machine engineered to run on a range of heat sources, including the company's ISTR nuclear reactor.

The technical case rests on temperature. In the Brayton Cycle, supercritical CO2 can reach 1,290 degrees Fahrenheit (700 Celsius), hotter than steam, and the CO2 stays inside the system rather than being released as a greenhouse gas, according to Power Engineering.

The pairing of a gas- and waste-heat-fired demonstration with a later nuclear-capable unit gives the same power block two distinct customer routes: near-term deployment at small data center and remote base sites, and a reactor-coupled configuration once the larger 10 MWe design is engineered.

BYD launched the 2027 Seal 06 on Tuesday in China with both pure-electric and plug-in hybrid powertrains, spread across 12 variants, according to Electrek.

Electrek reported the EV version starts at 109,900 yuan, with the plug-in hybrid DM-i version priced from 99,900 yuan. For comparison, Electrek noted the Tesla Model 3 RWD starts at 235,500 yuan in China.

The Model 3 RWD carries a CLTC range of up to 634 km, per the same report. The Seal 06 EV is rated at either 530 km or 630 km on the CLTC cycle, depending on configuration. The plug-in hybrid is rated at up to 320 km of pure electric CLTC range and up to 2,307 km combined.

Electrek said the Seal 06 pairs BYD's Blade Battery 2.0 with Flash Charging, moving the pack from 10% to 70% in 5 minutes and from 10% to 97% in 9 minutes.

The 2027 Seal 06 is available with BYD's God's Eye B driver-assist system, which Electrek described as the first application of the ADAS technology to a sedan in its price range.

The DM-i variant undercuts the battery-electric variant on sticker price. Both sit within the same 12-variant lineup under a single nameplate.

The UK government is weighing a relaxation of its electric vehicle sales rules, Electrek reported, even as EV uptake is already running fast enough to clear the current target, oil prices sit high, and the country logs record temperatures and wildfires.

Battery-electric vehicle sales set a record in July, rising 44.5% year over year, according to Electrek. The end-of-year target for this year is 33% EV sales.

The existing framework calls for 80% EVs by 2030, with the remainder hybrid, followed by a total ban on sales of new combustion-engine vehicles in 2035.

A report by The Times, described by Electrek as a right-wing UK outlet, says the government under Prime Minister Andy Burnham will revisit those EV targets, and that a consultation could happen as soon as next week.

The cost case for switching sits in the background. UK petrol prices average GBP 1.62 per liter, among the highest in the world, according to Electrek.

So does the physical one. Drought conditions currently cover three-fourths of England.

Tesla has filed planning permits for a 124-stall V4 Supercharger station in San Francisco, according to Electrek.

The filing targets a yellow-cab storage lot at the corner of Alemany and Bayshore, wedged against the US-101 freeway, Electrek reported. Electrek said the permits were filed for the city's south side.

The permit scope lists 124 V4 charging posts, plus switchgear and 28 parking-lot lights to power and illuminate the site, per Electrek.

A site plan cited by Electrek shows 16 Tesla power units feeding the charging posts around a triangular lot off US-101.

The permits also cover a 400-square-foot amenity building on the property, according to Electrek, which places the micro-amenity structure at the lower right of the site plan.

Australian company PlasmaLeap is building modular systems that make nitrogen fertiliser on farms using electricity, air and water, according to RenewEconomy.

The outlet reported that fertiliser supplies and prices are under pressure from disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

That pressure framed discussion at the Renewables in Agriculture conference, where reliable and affordable fertiliser supply was high on the agenda, RenewEconomy said.

PlasmaLeap's approach shifts fertiliser production to the point of use, replacing a purchased input with electricity plus two locally available feedstocks, air and water.

The Critical Services Building at Canberra Hospital is the first fully-electric hospital building in Australia, according to RenewEconomy.

RenewEconomy reported that dropping gas in favour of electric equipment could save public hospitals millions.

Hospital campuses have long relied on gas for heat, hot water, sterilisation and cooking, which makes the all-electric designation for the Canberra facility a departure from standard practice in the sector. RenewEconomy framed the switch as a cost question for public health budgets rather than a purely technical one.

The U.S. Department of the Interior's third Gulf of America/Mexico oil and gas lease sale drew USD 82.7 million in high bids from 16 companies competing for offshore acreage, World Oil reported.

Bidders filed 69 bids on 59 blocks at Big Beautiful Gulf Lease Sale 3 (BBG3), held Wednesday in New Orleans, with total bids reaching USD 99.5 million, according to World Oil.

The acreage on offer was far larger than the acreage bid on. World Oil reported the sale covered roughly 15,100 unleased blocks spanning 80.4 million acres in the Western, Central and portions of the Eastern Gulf planning areas.

BBG3 is the third of 30 Gulf of America lease sales required under the 2025 reconciliation law, World Oil reported. That schedule locks in a recurring auction calendar rather than leaving sale timing to agency discretion.

MMA will review the bids before awarding leases and expects to publish a final statistical summary within 90 days, according to World Oil. High bids are not leases until that review closes, so the USD 82.7 million figure is a provisional read on demand.

The basin remains weighted toward liquids. Citing the American Petroleum Institute, World Oil reported the Gulf of America accounts for about 14% of total U.S. crude oil production and 2% of natural gas production. That split explains why offshore bidding tracks crude economics more closely than gas fundamentals, and why a single auction result carries more signal for oil supply than for gas.

The gap between the 80.4 million acres offered and the 59 blocks that attracted bids is the sharpest number in the result. Under the reconciliation-law schedule, companies face 30 required sales, which reduces the pressure to bid aggressively at any one of them.