Friday, 14 August 2026

Yemen's Houthi rebels said they carried out fresh attacks on a Saudi Arabian oil refinery on Thursday, according to Semafor Net Zero.

The attacks land as Saudi Arabia works to keep shipping volumes flowing through continuing disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. Bloomberg reported that the strikes could weigh on that effort.

Riyadh is weighing whether to back a new ground offensive in Yemen, The Media Line reported.

BP plc has secured a license to explore and develop the second phase of Venezuela's offshore Loran gas field in partnership with United Arab Emirates firm XRG and a unit of Qatari conglomerate UCC Holding, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The award carries the right to produce 4 trillion cubic feet of gas at Loran, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

BP said it will operate the second-phase project, holding equal interests with the oil and gas unit of UCC Holdings and with XRG, which is owned by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

The first phase of Loran went to Shell plc, which was awarded that license in June, according to the same report.

Loran and the Manatee field together hold about 10 TCF of recoverable gas.

Separately, BP and Venezuelan officials signed a memorandum of understanding to evaluate exploration opportunities in the Carupano East Block, part of the Mariscal Sucre marine area off Venezuela's northeastern coast.

The Tupi field in the pre-salt layer of the Santos Basin has produced 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent since start-up, the first asset in Petrobras' 73-year history to reach that volume, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The field also moved back above an average of 1 million barrels of oil per day, a level it first hit in 2019, the same report said. Tupi was the first pre-salt system to enter commercial production, in 2010.

Petrobras operates the asset alongside partners Shell and Petrogal Brasil, with PPSA acting as the Union's representative in the Tupi Shared Field.

The pre-salt now carries the bulk of the company's output plan. Petrobras' Business Plan for 2026-30 says the area could account for up to 82% of total company production over that period, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. Total oil and gas production until 2030 is estimated at between 3.1 million and 3.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.

The hardware behind that projection is already concentrated offshore. Of the 57 production platforms Petrobras operates, 28 sit exclusively in the pre-salt layer, which passed cumulative production of 7 billion barrels of oil in January 2025, the report said.

Measured against that basin-wide total, Tupi alone accounts for a large share of everything the pre-salt has delivered since Petrobras brought the play into commercial service.

Tesla is reportedly planning to stop building vehicles at its China factory for almost a month in January 2027, CleanTechnica reported.

The outlet did not establish a reason for the planned shutdown.

The reported pause lands against weaker demand for the carmaker in the Chinese market. Tesla sales in China fell 9% in the first half of the year, according to a China EV sales report cited by CleanTechnica.

Portugal's MCA group has brought two large-scale off-grid solar-plus-storage plants online in Angola since December 2025, according to pv magazine.

The first of the pair, switched on in December 2025, was described by MCA as Africa's largest off-grid renewable energy system, pv magazine reported.

One of the sites, the Cazombo photovoltaic park in eastern Angola, pairs a 25.4 MW off-grid solar array with a 75.26 MWh battery energy storage system, according to pv magazine.

The plants sit inside Angola's rural electrification program. That program targets 46 autonomous solar and storage minigrids serving 60 communities across six provinces, pv magazine reported.

Off-grid minigrids of this scale carry their own generation and storage rather than drawing on transmission capacity, which places the full daily load-following duty on the battery. At Cazombo, the 75.26 MWh of storage backs 25.4 MW of solar output with no interconnection to fall back on.

The 46-minigrid target and the 60-community figure set the yardstick against which the two commissioned plants can be measured.

A parliamentary inquiry in Victoria, Australia, has handed down its findings on apartment energy, naming several matters that need urgent attention to fix failures of energy policy, according to RenewEconomy.

Roof area is the binding constraint for the buildings in question. Tall apartment blocks offer occupants almost no usable roof, and that shortage is pushing interest toward plug-in balcony panels mounted close to vertical, RenewEconomy reported.

Modelling for Tullamarine near Melbourne using PVWATTS gives that mounting style a workable case over the cooler part of the year. Across April to August, RenewEconomy said, output from a vertical or near-vertical array oriented anywhere between north-east and north-west matches what a rooftop array delivers. Outside that window the comparison is not made.

Two routes are open to apartment residents and owners: a panel clipped to a balcony by a single household, or photovoltaics built into the structure of the building itself.

A sodium-ion battery sale has been hailed as a first for Australia, according to RenewEconomy.

The unit at the centre of the deal is described as a commercial system that has a customer, RenewEconomy reported.

Sodium-ion chemistry sits outside the lithium-ion designs that dominate grid and behind-the-meter storage, using sodium rather than lithium as the charge carrier. RenewEconomy's framing of the transaction as a first places it ahead of other sodium-ion units in reaching a paying buyer in the Australian market.

Diversified Energy said it has held preliminary discussions about a possible acquisition of Birch Resources, responding to media speculation in a statement issued through GlobeNewswire.

The company described the talks as ongoing and at an early stage. "No agreement has been reached, and there is no certainty that any transaction will occur," Diversified Energy said in the statement.

Acquisitions have been the company's main growth route. Diversified Energy said it has completed 35 acquisitions totaling more than USD 7 billion of value since its initial public offering in 2017.

The statement gave no financial terms for a potential Birch Resources transaction, no timetable, and no indication of how the talks began.

EV Flex, a six-month smart charging trial, starts in mid-August under Irish distribution system operator ESB Networks together with smart charging company Ohme, electrive reported.

Households signed up to the trial stand to collect up to EUR 78, with the payment tied to connecting the car each time it is parked at home, according to electrive.

Ohme has run a comparable programme before. Its participation in the UK flexibility trial CrowdFlex covered the period from May 2024 through September 2025, spanning more than 400 flexibility events, electrive reported.

Under CrowdFlex, the company reached as many as 20,000 customers in a single trial, distributed GBP 750,000 in participant payments and shifted just under 150 MW of electricity, according to electrive.

EV Flex will test that charging model on the distribution system operated by ESB Networks in Ireland over a six-month window.

China's State Council approved construction of eight more reactors on 31 July, according to World Nuclear News, at a meeting chaired by Premier Li Qiang. The package covers three pairs of Hualong One reactors at the Jinqimen, Taipingling and Zhuanghe sites and two Guohe One units at Laiyang.

The approval landed alongside two operating milestones. Unit 3 of the Changjiang nuclear power plant in Hainan province has begun supplying electricity to the grid, World Nuclear News reported.

In Guangdong, Taipingling unit 2 has entered commercial operation. The pressurised water reactor, rated at 1,116 MWe net, was connected to the grid on 4 July, according to World Nuclear News.

Taipingling therefore appears in both records at once: as a site with a unit newly cleared for commercial output, and as a site holding fresh construction approval for a further pair of Hualong One units.

On the Hualong One programme itself, CNNC said 10 units are commercially operational domestically and internationally, with another 37 units approved for construction, per World Nuclear News. The 31 July decision adds six Hualong One units to that approved pipeline across the three named sites.

The Guohe One design, also referred to as CAP1400, accounts for the remaining two units in the approved batch, both at Laiyang.

China Huadian is set to finish a 195-kilometer high-pressure pure hydrogen transmission line this summer, connecting the Bayan Obo wind-solar hydrogen production hub to industrial demand in Baotou, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The line will carry 100,000 metric tons of green hydrogen a year, Hydrogen Fuel News reported. It is engineered for a hydrogen pressure of about 6.3 MPa, per the same report.

On the supply side sits a wind-solar electrolysis base; on the demand side, steel and chemical plants in Baotou, according to Hydrogen Fuel News. That pairing puts electrolytic hydrogen directly into heavy industrial offtake rather than into blending or road transport.

Hydrogen Fuel News describes the project as one of China's first cross-regional pure hydrogen pipelines. Pure hydrogen service, as opposed to hydrogen blended into natural gas infrastructure, requires dedicated metallurgy and pressure management, and the stated 6.3 MPa design point places the line in high-pressure transmission territory.

The Inner Mongolia route matters because it separates the location of cheap wind and solar generation from the location of hydrogen consumption. Electrolysis sited at the renewable resource, with molecules moved 195 kilometers to steel and chemical users, is an alternative to building electrolyzers next to the factories and importing electricity instead.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu told the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) on Thursday that government-owned refineries will return to operation once ongoing reforms are complete, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

The reforms are aimed at making the state-owned plants commercially viable and sustainable, NAN reported.

Tinubu gave the assurance while receiving the union's leadership, according to the same report.

A trade group funded by Amazon, Microsoft and Google is running advertising in North Carolina under the name North Carolina Connects without disclosing its involvement, Inside Climate News reported. The group behind the campaign is the Data Center Coalition, whose membership also includes smaller firms that build, support or operate the facilities.

The coalition's finances have tracked the industry's expansion. Federal tax records cited by Inside Climate News show it launched as a nonprofit in 2019 with total revenues of $304,000, and reported $4.6 million in revenue in 2024.

Public sentiment has moved against new construction in the meantime. An Annenberg Public Policy Center survey of 1,320 U.S. adults, polled from mid-June through mid-July, found 61 percent opposed the construction of new data centers in their area, 12 points higher than the share recorded in a February-March survey.

That opposition is showing up in local rules. Approximately one in seven U.S. counties now has some form of restriction on data centers, according to Jeremy Solomon of Learnewable, who told Inside Climate News that advertising will not win the public's trust.

The coalition's pitch in North Carolina rests on fiscal contribution. Citing public documents, the group says data centers generate $1.3 billion in state and local tax revenue in the state.

The North Carolina Connects ad omits a detail on the tax side of that argument. Until early July, when the state legislature repealed an exemption for data centers, most paid no sales tax on electricity.

Ontario electricity demand reached 145.6 TWh in 2025, a 4.4% rise year over year, according to CleanTechnica.

The same report cites IESO's reference case, which projects Ontario demand climbing to 250 TWh by 2050.

Against the 145.6 TWh figure for 2025 reported by CleanTechnica, the reference case trajectory implies Ontario would need to serve well over a hundred additional terawatt-hours a year by mid-century.

Nebius will power its Vineland AI data center with solid oxide fuel cells supplied by Bloom Energy, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The installation is behind-the-meter and sized at 328 MW at the company's upcoming AI campus in Vineland, New Jersey, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

Behind-the-meter generation sits on the customer side of the utility connection, so the fuel cells serve the campus load directly rather than delivering through the grid.

LANXESS AG has converted the spray dryer at its Krefeld-Uerdingen iron oxide pigment plant to run on hydrogen instead of natural gas, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The switch is expected to cut around 6,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions per year, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

Rather than build its own electrolysis capacity, LANXESS is taking co-product hydrogen from a chlor-alkali electrolysis facility operated by Covestro AG next door, the outlet said, which avoids the cost of adding new electrolyser capacity.

Hydrogen Fuel News describes the converted dryer as one of the first continuous, large-scale applications of hydrogen combustion in industry in Germany.

Spray drying is a heat-intensive step in iron oxide pigment production, and the fuel switch keeps the same process unit while changing what burns in it. Sourcing hydrogen that already exists as a by-product of an adjacent chemical process sidesteps the capital question that has slowed many industrial hydrogen projects: who pays for the electrolysers.

UNIDO has published a financing map setting out national, regional and international instruments, from grants to green bonds, to bankroll Morocco's industrial green hydrogen rollout, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The document carries the title Financing Programmes for Green Hydrogen Application in Moroccan Industry and surveys national, regional and international funding options for green hydrogen production. Hydrogen Fuel News reports it was produced in partnership with the Green Climate Fund and Morocco's Ministry of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development.

The target sectors are named. Per Hydrogen Fuel News, the map is aimed at greening Morocco's fertilizer, steel and cement industries, three of the industrial branches where hydrogen substitution reaches process emissions that electrification alone does not cover.

The emphasis on instruments rather than projects matters for how Moroccan industrial offtakers approach capital structure. Grants and green bonds sit at opposite ends of the cost-of-capital range, and the map places both inside a single reference frame alongside regional and international channels. The involvement of the Green Climate Fund puts a multilateral climate financier next to the ministry responsible for energy transition policy in the same document.

Hydrogen Fuel News describes the survey as comprehensive across the three funding tiers it covers. For fertilizer, steel and cement producers weighing electrolyzer-linked investment, the practical question the map addresses is which of those tiers a given project can access.

Tesla has launched a Powerwall Lease program bundled with its Tesla Electric retail service plan, letting homeowners in areas of the deregulated Texas energy market buy an electricity plan and whole-home backup from a single provider, according to ESS News.

Customers get two Powerwall 3 batteries installed at home and pay a lease fee of $35 per month on top of a fixed electricity rate, with no installation costs, ESS News reported.

That headline figure is a discounted one. Tesla says the $35 reflects an $87 monthly bill credit applied against the standard $122 per month lease for a comparable Powerwall system.

The retail offer sits on top of a battery fleet the company has spent more than a decade assembling. Tesla's total virtual power plant (VPP) capacity is well over 2 GW, per ESS News. Across Australia, California, Puerto Rico, New England and Texas, its VPPs account for 2.38 GW of dispatchable capacity.

Puerto Rico shows what that aggregation does in a tight system. Powerwall customers there deliver 80 MW for four hours, and the VPP has been called on 25 times since June to support dangerously low reserve levels caused by insufficient reliable generation, according to Colby Hastings.

The single largest coordinated dispatch came in California. In summer 2025, Tesla sent more than 500 MW of peak capacity and 1 GWh of energy to the CAISO grid, ESS News reported.

The Texas structure ties the two sides together: residential storage financed through a monthly lease, with the bill credit doing the work that a separate grid-services payment would otherwise do. Homeowners keep backup power; Tesla gains addressable batteries in a market where it already sells electricity at retail.

Neptune Energy is preparing to begin lithium production in Germany's Altmark region in 2030, according to electrive. The company plans to ramp commercial output gradually and reach up to 25,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent per year during the 2030s.

That volume would supply enough lithium for the batteries of around 500,000 electric vehicles annually, according to Neptune Energy.

The resource sits deep underground. Electrive reports the lithium is dissolved in thermal water at depths of 3,000 to 4,000 metres and held in the fine pore spaces of the rock.

Extraction work is at pilot scale. The pilot plant can process up to 1,000 litres of thermal water per day and separates the lithium in an oxygen-free environment.

After assessing several direct lithium extraction technologies, Neptune Energy is working with the Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Infrastructures and Geothermal Systems IEG to refine a suitable adsorption process for the Altmark region.

For the first test phase, the company selected Evonik Catalysts to supply the adsorbent material, which Neptune Energy says showed high performance and stability in preliminary tests, electrive reported.

Researchers at KIT have built a hybrid collector that pairs photovoltaics with passive radiative cooling, producing electricity, heat and cooling from a single surface at the same time, according to pv magazine.

The reported prototype results cover all three outputs. Per pv magazine, it delivered cooling of up to 6.5 C below ambient temperature, an electrical power density of 60.6 W/m², and heat at temperatures of up to 110.8 C.

The optical design splits the job between two elements. A transparent silicon dioxide plate coated with the silicone polymer polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) acts as the cooling layer, while a Fresnel lens concentrates sunlight onto a smaller photovoltaic-thermal collector behind it, pv magazine reported.

That geometry is what allows the same aperture to serve two opposing thermal functions: the PDMS-coated layer radiates heat away, and the concentrated beam raises the working temperature of the collector underneath.

The team set out its results in a study titled "Co-harvesting universe coldness and solar energy for tri-generation of cooling, electricity and heating," published in Cell Reports Physical Science, according to pv magazine.

The tri-generation framing matters for siting economics, because a single surface producing power, process-grade heat and sub-ambient cooling competes for roof or ground area only once rather than three times.

Fresh economic and military pressure on Tehran is coming, Washington indicated, in what Semafor Net Zero described as removing any prospect of near-term relief in the conflict.

New sanctions are pending. The US Treasury secretary promised measures he characterized as restrictions "that have never been seen," according to Semafor Net Zero.

The defense chief, quoted in the same report, said a naval blockade can hold "indefinitely".

An aircraft carrier will be sent to take over from one that logged a record number of consecutive days at sea, the Wall Street Journal reported, as cited by Semafor Net Zero.

New coal mine capacity brought online in 2025 was the lowest in at least 10 years, according to a Global Energy Monitor report cited by Climate Home News, as clean energy displaces coal for electricity generation in East Asia.

The volume of newly commissioned capacity fell by nearly 40% from 2024, the second year running that new mine capacity has hit a decade low, the report found.

Two countries account for the slowdown. New additions dropped 44% in China and 96% in Australia. In Australia, the state of New South Wales recently banned new coal mines on undeveloped greenfield land.

The pipeline moved the other way. Global proposed coal mine capacity rose 11%, almost entirely on the back of a spate of projects in the eastern Indian states of Jharkhand and Odisha. India plans to open more than 20 new coal mines to meet its coal production targets.

Construction is underway on Părău 2, a Romanian hybrid project combining 342 MWp of solar generation with a 150 MW battery energy storage system, according to ESS News.

ESS News reported that commercial operations are slated for late 2027 or early 2028.

The project adds to a Romanian utility-scale battery fleet that recently passed the 1 GW threshold, according to ESS News.

Neom Green Hydrogen Company (NGHC) has begun commissioning its 2.2 GW green hydrogen and ammonia project in Saudi Arabia, according to pv magazine.

The plant is designed to produce up to 600 tonnes per day of green hydrogen, pv magazine reported, drawing power from dedicated solar and wind generation.

That generation base totals 4 GW, and NGHC expects the solar and wind sites to be completed by mid-2026, followed by commissioning of the electrolysers, with product availability expected in 2027. The company said the plant "remains on track".

Ownership sits with a joint venture formed by Acwa, Air Products and Neom, according to pv magazine.

Brookfield and La Caisse have closed their acquisition of renewable power producer Boralex, the buyers said in a GlobeNewswire statement. The purchaser took all issued and outstanding class A common shares at CAD 37.25 per share in cash.

Brookfield led the purchase together with institutional partners including Brookfield Renewable Partners, alongside La Caisse, formerly CDPQ, according to the announcement.

Boralex shares are expected to be delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange on or about August 17, 2026, the statement said.

Boralex put its installed capacity at 3,822 MW, an increase of more than 50% over the past five years.

Engineering design, licensing and safety analysis work for Blue Energy's paired gas and nuclear complex in Victoria, Texas, has moved forward under a new agreement, with the project still awaiting a final investment decision in 2027, Power Engineering Nuclear reported.

The site is designed around two equipment families: GE Vernova 7HA.02 gas turbines and GVH BWRX-300 small modular reactors.

Capacity arrives in two tranches. Two GE Vernova gas turbines would supply roughly 1 GW to a data center next to the site in 2030, followed by an additional 1.5 GW drawn from as many as five GE Vernova Hitachi SMRs starting in 2032, according to Power Engineering Nuclear.

Blue Energy puts time to power at 48 months or less, a figure the company attributes to energizing the turbines on what it calls a natural gas bridge that later converts to nuclear power, per Power Engineering Nuclear.

That ordering required a regulatory sign-off of its own. The NRC approved Blue Energy's method for resequencing the major phases of nuclear plant construction, an approach tied to large module and gas-to-nuclear delivery schedules, Power Engineering Nuclear reported.

No BWRX-300 unit is yet running. The first one is being built at Ontario Power Generation's Darlington site in Canada, and completion is expected by the end of the decade, which would make it potentially the first grid-scale SMR in the Western world, according to Power Engineering Nuclear.

Diversified Energy has confirmed preliminary discussions over a potential acquisition of Birch Resources, according to World Oil, which reported the confirmation followed media speculation about a possible transaction.

The company said the talks are at an early stage and that no agreement has been reached, per World Oil. Diversified cautioned that there is no certainty a transaction will take place or what terms might ultimately be agreed.

World Oil reported that Diversified did not disclose potential terms, valuation or a timeline for the Birch Resources discussions.

Acquisitions have been the company's core growth route. Since its 2017 initial public offering, Diversified has closed 35 acquisitions representing more than USD 7 billion in value, according to World Oil.

An incentive of 337 euros for used electric vehicles is "rather low," Romain Ryon, President of Mobilee, told electrive.

The scheme draws on CEE certificates. Funding comes from energy and fuel suppliers including EDF, Engie and TotalEnergies, which are required to contribute under the polluter-pays principle, according to electrive.

Mobilee specialises in CEE certificates for the transport sector.

Nio has brought its fifth-generation battery swap stations into service for the first time, with the launch taking place in China, electrive reported. The redesigned bays take vehicles with wheelbases stretching to 3.5 metres, a span that runs from compact cars up to large SUVs.

Firefly models gain access to the swap network through these stations, the first time that brand has been able to use it, according to electrive.

Cumulative swaps reached 120 million on 7 August, electrive reported. On that date the company was running 4,006 swap stations in China. Its charging side counted 5,160 stations holding 29,801 individual charging points.

In Europe, Nio has no plans to build additional swap sites or proprietary chargers for now, having pulled back on international expansion, electrive reported. New models built on the company's 900-volt NT3 platform are not expected to reach European buyers before late 2027 or early 2028.

Rystad Energy now expects Russian crude production to average 8.95 million barrels per day in 2026, before slipping to around 8.6 million bpd in 2027, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The revision cuts 90,000 bpd from the consultancy's earlier projection. Rystad Energy attributed the downgrade to renewed disruptions at western Russian export terminals and rising risks to seaborne exports.

Russian crude output has declined further in the second half of 2026 after a year of tighter sanctions and Ukrainian attacks on refineries, ports and tankers, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and National Energy Administration (NEA) published the 15th five-year plan for the development of the coal industry on 10 August, covering the period 2026-2030, according to Carbon Brief.

The document stops short of naming a year for peak coal consumption. Instead it carries a broader goal to peak use of the fuel during the five-year period, Carbon Brief reported.

On the production side, the plan sets a target of raising the share of coal produced by what it calls large-scale, modernised coal mines to 87% by 2030, per Carbon Brief.

The policy lands as coal's weight in the domestic energy system slips. In the first half of 2026, coal supplied less than 50% of China's power generation, while its share of total energy consumption fell to 51.4%, according to Carbon Brief.

Kevin Tu of Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy read the document plainly. "This is clearly neither a coal phase-out nor phase-down plan," Tu told Carbon Brief.

Li Shuo, China climate hub director at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told Carbon Brief that the Middle East conflict will reinforce coal's role in China's energy system, both as a source of energy and as a feedstock for commodities.

Heart Aerospace flew its battery-electric X1 demonstrator for the first time on 12 August 2026 at a test site at Plattsburgh International Airport in the northern part of New York State, according to electrive.

The company describes the X1 as the largest electric aircraft ever flown, electrive reported.

The airframe measures 32.3 metres across the wings and 23.2 metres in length, with a height of 7.3 metres, per electrive. Take-off weight is approximately 11,340 kilogrammes.

Regulatory cover came from a Special Airworthiness Certificate in the Experimental Category issued by the FAA, the US aviation authority, according to electrive.

The demonstrator is intended to supply the technical foundation for the ES-30, a hybrid-electric regional aircraft, electrive reported. Heart Aerospace has scheduled the ES-30 for market introduction in 2031.

Merger talks between Phillips 66 and Marathon would have run into antitrust review because the two companies together control roughly a quarter of US refining capacity, Semafor reported.

Semafor said the scrutiny risk was sharpened by the small number of standalone refiners left in the US market, leaving few comparable buyers or competitive offsets for a combination of that size.

A separate complication sits inside Phillips 66's portfolio. The company holds a chemicals joint venture with Chevron in which each partner has a right of first refusal to acquire the business outright, according to Semafor.

Efforts to sell that chemicals venture have already stalled. Semafor reported that attempts from both the Chevron side and the Phillips 66 side ran into hurdles, citing people it did not name.

UK geophysical company Metatek has won a contract from the Philippines Department of Energy for an initial airborne geophysical survey spanning 40,000 km², according to World Oil. The work is aimed at identifying areas with potential for future energy resource development.

The first stage targets Mindanao's Agusan-Davao basin and the adjacent Davao Gulf, World Oil reported.

That block forms the opening phase of a two-year airborne mapping campaign that is expected to reach roughly 120,000 km² in total, according to World Oil.

Metatek is preparing to move its systems into the Philippines and start operations in the fourth quarter of 2026, World Oil reported.

Seventeen operators have committed to share vessels and coordinate work programmes under a charter signed with the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), aimed at clearing the well decommissioning backlog on the UK Continental Shelf at lower cost, World Oil reported.

Roughly GBP 200 million could be saved on remaining subsea wellhead removal, a cut of about 30%, if operators deploy vessels rather than rigs for the final removal step, according to industry estimates cited by World Oil.

Pauline Innes, NSTA supply chain and decommissioning director, said the plan "has the potential to be a win-win-win for operators, suppliers and taxpayers".

The queue behind the charter is substantial. More than 1,000 wells are expected to require decommissioning over the coming five years, on top of some 500 inactive wells already waiting on final abandonment, World Oil reported.

Work touched 257 wells during 2025, and 114 of those reached final abandonment, according to the NSTA's latest UKCS Decommissioning Cost and Performance Update. Both counts were higher than the previous year, when operators worked 238 wells and completed 103 final abandonments.

Decommissioning spending across the UKCS set a record at GBP 2.6 billion in 2025, against GBP 2.4 billion the year before, per World Oil.

Higher spending has done little to the total bill. The NSTA now puts the cost of remaining UKCS decommissioning at GBP 43.4 billion, down marginally from GBP 43.6 billion.