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.

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.

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.

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.