Wednesday, 2 September 2026

Valeura Energy will begin installing the central processing platform (CPP) at its Wassana field in October 2026, roughly two months ahead of the original schedule, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. The company said it intends to accelerate the redevelopment of the field on block G10/48, in which it holds a 100% operated interest, in the offshore Gulf of Thailand.

Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported that Valeura has finalized all commercial arrangements and contractual amendments needed to bring the installation date forward.

The earlier start-up is expected to add approximately 430,000 barrels of oil production in 2027 compared with the original project plan, the company anticipates. Valeura expects the new CPP to reach a production plateau rate of about 7,500 barrels per day.

Rig logistics have been adjusted to match. Valeura has notified its drilling rig contractor that the charter of the Shelf Enterprise will start on 1 November 2026, with the rig first drilling Nong Yao wells through the additional well slots at the Nong Yao A facility before moving to support earlier development drilling at Wassana.

The redevelopment stems from a final investment decision taken in 2025, when Valeura opted for a new-build CPP to commercialize more oil than the existing production facility allows, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. That facility, the mobile offshore production unit (MOPU) Ingenium, is due for decommissioning at approximately the end of 2027. The replacement schedule leaves the field with a facility gap that the CPP timing is designed to close.

Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. and Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc. have closed their previously announced combination in an all-stock transaction, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The merged business keeps the Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc. name, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported, and starts trading on the New York Stock Exchange on September 2, 2026, under the ticker symbol "HOS".

Todd M. Hornbeck takes the roles of President, Chief Executive Officer and Director at the combined company, per the same report. William L. Transier becomes Chairman of its Board of Directors.

IEEFA reviewed the 47 largest banks in Europe and found their outstanding green bonds averaging under 1% of assets. Combined, those lenders carry more than EUR 35 trillion in assets, with many running diversified retail, corporate and markets arms.

Allocated proceeds and emissions results diverge sharply. Renewable energy takes roughly 20% of what European bank green bonds allocate, yet accounts for 90% of the avoided emissions those bonds report, per IEEFA.

The IEEFA review also examined where the money lands inside the largest diversified universal banks. At some of them, clean energy system investments make up only about a quarter of total allocated green bond proceeds.

Issuance from lenders is not marginal within the wider market: roughly 30% of European green bond issuance comes from financial institutions, IEEFA said.

Kevin Leung of IEEFA said the volumes are too small to shift how European banks allocate assets, pointing to two constraints on their green bond programmes: "business-as-usual lending to high-emitting assets" and a limited pipeline of green projects.

The U.S. energy storage industry installed a record 20.2 GWh of new capacity in Q2, the largest quarter on record, according to CleanTechnica.

CleanTechnica also reported that U.S. battery energy storage capacity nearly doubled in the first 18 months of the Trump administration, as grid operators turned to storage to strengthen grid reliability.

A United Nations Environment Programme report titled Limiting Overshoot projects a breach of the Paris Agreement's 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming threshold in the near term, with deadly climate impacts intensifying as it happens, Inside Climate News reported.

The report frames the question as how far and how long temperatures run above that line rather than whether the line holds.

Emissions on their present trajectory point to warming of 2.7 to 3 degrees Celsius by 2100, according to scientific calculations cited by Inside Climate News.

Full delivery of what governments have already promised under the Paris Agreement changes that arithmetic. Warming under that pathway lands near 1.7 or 1.8 degrees Celsius, an outcome that eases the return below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

"We must make the overshoot as small and short as possible," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, adding that both the height of the temperature rise and its duration above 1.5 degrees Celsius have to be limited.

A new UN report sets out a three-phase route back to 1.5C of warming after an overshoot, pairing near-term emissions cuts with a later period of net-negative emissions, Climate Home News reported.

The authors describe an immediate response of deep and rapid emissions cuts alongside urgent protection for the most vulnerable as warming approaches and passes 1.5C. That is followed by a coping and containment phase centred on reaching net-zero emissions and building resilience while temperatures peak. The final stage is long-term resilience, built on net-negative emissions through carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and lasting adaptation as temperatures eventually decline.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the 1.5C overshoot to be "as small and short as possible", and urged governments to over-deliver on national climate plans and net-zero commitments.

The scale of the gap is set by measures already paid for and operating. Emissions measures that are funded and in force put the world on course for around 2.8C of warming by 2100, according to a previous UNEP finding cited in the reporting.

The report also quantifies physical consequences. Glaciers could lose more than a quarter of their remaining mass by 2100, according to the report. Global food production could fall by as much as 14% by 2050 without effective adaptation, the report warns.

The framing treats overshoot as inevitable rather than avoidable, shifting the policy question from whether temperatures breach 1.5C to how far above it they go and for how long. The dependence of the third phase on carbon dioxide removal makes CDR capacity a condition of the return path, not an optional supplement to it.

Rooftop solar met 99.9% of South Australia's total electricity demand at 1.30pm on 31 August, cutting demand on grid-scale generation to 2 MW, according to pv magazine. The 2 MW reading was a new winter record for the state.

The same half-hour produced a record across the National Electricity Market. AEMO reported minimum operational demand of 11,992 MW at 1.30pm on Monday, below the previous winter low of 12,144 MW set in August 2024, pv magazine reported. Mild temperatures and clear skies across the southeast of the country drove the drop.

At that low point, rooftop solar was contributing close to 54% of underlying demand, according to pv magazine. Renewables, counting rooftop solar together with grid-scale solar and wind, supplied 71% of generation.

The South Australian result rests on a household fleet with few parallels. Solar arrays sit on 57% of the state's rooftops, pv magazine reported, equivalent to 2.92 GW of generation capacity.

Across Australia, rooftop PV systems deliver a combined 28.3 GW of generation capacity, according to pv magazine.

A new world-record power-conversion efficiency has been claimed for a perovskite-CIGS tandem solar cell, according to pv magazine.

The record covers perovskite-CIGS tandem cells with an area of less than 1 cm2. That size class is where certified laboratory device results are compared.

The mark it displaces stood at 26.3%, reported by pv magazine as the previous world record in the same size category. That earlier result came from South Korea's Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in July 2025.

Firefly Aerospace and Zeno Power Systems have signed a commercial payload agreement to carry a radioisotope heating unit designed for the cold of the lunar night on a Blue Ghost mission to the Moon, potentially as soon as 2028, World Nuclear News reported.

The payload is Zeno Power Systems' Survive-the-Night Package, built around a 5 watts thermal americium-241 radioisotope heater unit (RHU), according to World Nuclear News. The Firefly mission carrying it is scheduled to launch no earlier than 2028.

The flight falls under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

The isotope choice marks the departure from prior practice. Traditional RHUs have typically used plutonium-238 to generate about 1 watt, but that isotope is now in short supply, World Nuclear News reported. The americium-241 unit is rated at five times that thermal output.

Heat, not electricity, is the constraint the package addresses. Lunar landers without a thermal source lose function once the sun sets. Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 1 completed more than 14 days of surface operations during daylight and just over 5 hours of operations into the lunar night, according to World Nuclear News.

BP plc has confirmed Ian Tyler as Chair, ending a search that covered internal and external candidates, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Tyler is no newcomer to the board. He joined BP as a non-executive director in April 2025 and took the Interim Chair role on May 26, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported. The permanent appointment converts that temporary mandate into a standing one.

He holds two other board seats. Tyler is Chair of Grafton Group plc and Senior Independent Director of Anglo American plc, per the same report.

A second board change lands alongside the chair decision. Dame Amanda Blanc has told the board she will not stand for re-election at BP's 2027 annual general meeting, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. She will leave the board once a successor as Senior Independent Director is in place, meaning her exit is tied to that appointment rather than to a fixed date.

That sequencing leaves BP with one senior board vacancy still to fill even as the chair question closes.

The UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is seeking views on proposed changes to the Capacity Market for Prequalification 2027, according to the consultation published by the department.

Responses are due by 11:59pm on 27 October 2026, DESNZ said. The consultation applies to England, Scotland and Wales.

Among the proposals is a strengthened delivery assurance framework, which DESNZ describes as intended to build confidence that capacity will deliver when required. The department sets out enhanced testing and more stringent data requirements as the means to that end.

Prequalification is the stage at which prospective capacity providers must satisfy the rules before entering the auction process, and the changes under consultation target that gateway.

EDF has signed two long-term battery optimization agreements with Trinasolar ISBU covering 179.8 MWh of grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity, according to ESS News.

The first asset is the 40 MW / 80 MWh Ruby BESS near Aberdeen, Scotland, which ESS News reported is on track to be fully operational by October 2026.

The second is the Chatterley BESS in Gloucestershire, England, rated at 49.9 MW / 99.8 MWh, with commercial operation expected in March 2027.

EDF will manage both assets through PowerShift, described as the company's algorithmic trading and optimization platform. EDF stated that the long-term arrangement provides revenue certainty for Trinasolar ISBU.

BYD sold 256,230 battery-electric passenger cars in August, its first month above the quarter-million mark and a record for the carmaker, according to electrive. The figure was up 28.4% year-on-year.

Total new energy vehicle sales, covering battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids, came to 440,293 units, a 17.8% gain on the same month a year earlier, electrive reported.

The split behind that headline is where the pressure shows. Domestic sales in China fell 14.3% year-on-year to 250,827 units, while exports climbed 134% to 189,466 units, according to electrive. Shipments abroad accounted for 43% of total sales in August, the same proportion as in July.

The product mix moved toward all-electric models. BEVs made up 59.1% of BYD's NEV sales in the passenger car segment, against 53.7% a year earlier, electrive reported, describing the shift as an indication that the sales mix is moving further toward all-electric models.

The monthly record does not reverse the year-to-date picture. BYD sold 2.67 million NEVs worldwide in the first eight months of 2026, a 6.8% decline against the same period last year, according to electrive.

That gap between a record August and a shrinking eight-month total tracks the weakness electrive described in the Chinese market, where BYD's domestic volumes contracted while overseas shipments carried the monthly gain. With exports now covering more than four in ten units sold, the company's monthly totals depend on demand outside its home market to a degree the year-earlier comparison does not reflect.

A German research project named SHERLOCK is drawing up standardised quality classes for black mass, the intermediate material produced when lithium-ion batteries are shredded, according to electrive. The stated aim is to make battery recycling more efficient.

The consortium intends to route its technical specifications into formal standards work, submitting them to DIN and ISO standardisation committees, electrive reported.

Black mass currently trades without a common quality definition, and the cost of that gap has been quantified elsewhere. A study published as part of the EU Safeloop project puts current battery recycling losses at around EUR 1.90 per kg of battery pack, according to electrive.

Regulatory pressure sits behind the work. From August 2031, minimum proportions of recycled materials in new vehicle batteries will apply under the EU Battery Regulation. Recyclers meeting that threshold need recovered material whose composition and purity can be documented and priced consistently.

The partner list spans metrology institutes, applied research bodies and two companies. electrive lists the MEET Battery Research Centre at the University of Munster, PTB, BAM, Fraunhofer ISC and the Oko-Institut, alongside Pure Devices and phase VISION. The presence of national measurement and materials-testing institutes points to the measurement problem at the centre of the effort: quality classes are only as useful as the test methods that assign them.

Standardisation through DIN and ISO would move black mass grading from bilateral supplier agreements to published specifications, a step that matters for cross-border trade in the material. Recovered cathode metals from spent packs feed back into cell manufacturing, so a common grading language links waste handling directly to the recycled-content accounting that the EU Battery Regulation will require from August 2031.

Nigeria accounts for almost 400 MW of PV in a near-term solar mini-grid market that IRENA puts at 568 MW across Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal, pv magazine reported. Burkina Faso ranks second on 91.7 MW, ahead of Mali on 56.3 MW and Senegal on 20.3 MW.

About 42,700 settlements make up the minimum addressable market behind that figure, with roughly 21 million residents in scope, according to the IRENA work cited by pv magazine.

Counting every site that batteries could make viable, rather than only the near-term slice, IRENA puts the total at approximately 397,270 settlements in the four countries, pv magazine reported.

More than 98% of the sites IRENA identified as suitable for mini-grids are best served by solar, according to pv magazine. Hydropower fits fewer than 2% of those sites and wind under 0.1%.

Supplying all of them at tier 2 demand levels by 2030 would take around 2.25 GWh of batteries across the four countries, IRENA says, as reported by pv magazine.

Africa's installed solar PV mini-grid capacity was 149 MW as of last year on IRENA's count, roughly a quarter of the 568 MW near-term pipeline in the four countries, pv magazine reported.

IRENA also sets out what happens if grid extension stalls: under restricted grid expansion scenarios, mini-grids could reach 60-110 million people, according to pv magazine.

Austria's EVN has bought charging operator BayWa Mobility Charging and will use it as its foothold in Germany's fast-charging business, electrive reported. The purchase runs through EVN Energieservices, which signed for the full 100 percent shareholding in BayWa Mobility Charging GmbH (BMC), with BayWa Mobility Solutions as seller.

BMC's operating footprint covers 30 sites, where 170 high-powered public charging points deliver capacities reaching 400 kW, according to electrive. Most of those sites are in Bavaria, and the remainder are split between Baden-Wuerttemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia.

The build-out plan takes the portfolio to 54 sites and 306 high-power charging (HPC) points by 2027, electrive reported.

EVN Executive Board Spokesperson Stefan Szyszkowitz said the purchase of BayWa's charging operations strengthens EVN's position in what he called "one of the most important European markets for charging infrastructure".

BayWa had signalled the exit earlier. Speaking to The Pioneer in March, the company said its multi-year restructuring involved selling holdings and units, and it named the electric charging station arm among them, electrive reported.

Among the assets moving to EVN is a Deutschlandnetz regional lot of 20 sites, awarded to the company in the 2023 tender, according to electrive.

Terms of the deal were not published by EVN.

Doosan Fuel Cell has signed a KRW 501.4 billion contract with its U.S. subsidiary HyAxiom to supply phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC) systems for artificial intelligence data centers in the United States, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

Hydrogen Fuel News reported the award is worth around USD 360 million.

Under the agreement, HyAxiom will install the PAFC units as behind-the-meter power at AI facilities across the United States, with deliveries staged between the second half of 2026 and the first half of 2028, per Hydrogen Fuel News.

The deal is Doosan Fuel Cell's first major entry into the U.S. data center power market, according to the same report.

Behind-the-meter siting places the fuel cells on the customer side of the utility connection, supplying the load directly rather than through the grid. The staged delivery window described by Hydrogen Fuel News spans four consecutive half-years, from the second half of 2026 through the first half of 2028.

A 199-meter bulk carrier operated by Lomar Shipping completed an 8,500-nautical-mile voyage from Singapore to Ghana running a hydrogen-diesel retrofit supplied by Newlight, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The system cut fuel use by 24% and CO2 emissions by 28% over the run, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

Those reductions came without altering the vessel's size, speed, or cargo capacity, according to the same report. That distinction matters for retrofit economics on existing tonnage: a fuel-saving package that trims deadweight or service speed changes the commercial terms of a charter, while one that leaves the operating envelope intact does not.

The pilot installation was backed by lomarlabs and passed Factory Acceptance Testing supervised by RINA, Hydrogen Fuel News reported. Classification-society oversight of the acceptance testing is the step that separates a bench demonstration from equipment a shipowner can put on a commercial trading route.

The Singapore-to-Ghana leg is a long-haul deep-sea run rather than a short coastal shuttle, which puts the retrofit under sustained load across a full ocean crossing.

California's Victor Valley Transit Authority (VVTA) has begun operating 13 New Flyer Xcelsior CHARGE FC hydrogen fuel cell buses, according to Hydrogen Fuel News, with the vehicles assigned to urban, rural and long-distance High Desert routes.

Each bus runs on a Ballard FCmove-HD+ engine, Hydrogen Fuel News reported. The mix of route types puts the same drivetrain against short urban stop-and-go duty cycles and extended intercity runs, rather than confining the vehicles to a single test corridor.

The deployment is phased and forms part of the agency's plan for a 100% zero-emission fleet by 2035, per Hydrogen Fuel News.

The rollout follows an earlier event where the operator displayed the New Flyer fuel cell models with new branding alongside a mobile fueling unit supplied by Linde, according to Hydrogen Fuel News. Mobile fueling matters for hydrogen bus programs because refueling infrastructure, not vehicle availability, typically sets the pace at which units can enter revenue service.

The world will exceed 1.5 degrees of warming within years, according to a United Nations report covered by RenewEconomy, exposing communities to more extreme heatwaves, cyclones, floods, fires and rising sea levels.

The 141-page study, issued by the United Nations Environment Programme under the title Limiting Overshoot, found that action to cut greenhouse gas emissions had not moved fast enough to keep temperatures below the Paris Agreement's 1.5-degree target.

Under current policies, warming is projected to reach a median of 2.6 degrees by 2100, RenewEconomy reported. The most optimistic pathway, which assumes every nation meets its pledges and long-term net-zero targets, predicted a peak of 1.8 degrees.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for accelerating the phase-out of fossil fuels and the renewables revolution, slashing methane pollution, and protecting land, forest and oceans.

Dr Simon Bradshaw, COP31 lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said the report shows "we are now in bloody dangerous territory".

The gap between the two scenarios sets the terms for the pledge arithmetic ahead: 2.6 degrees on current settings against 1.8 degrees if commitments are delivered in full.

MN8 Energy, Eos Energy Enterprises and Google said they are working together on a solar and storage project in West Virginia that will supply around-the-clock energy to the PJM grid, according to a GlobeNewswire release.

The site pairs 86 MW of utility-scale solar with two distinct storage technologies: 10 MW/100 MWh of Eos zinc-based long-duration storage and 70 MW/280 MWh of lithium-ion storage. The Eos system is designed to deliver 10 hours of storage.

Google will take the energy, the capacity, and the clean energy attributes produced by the project under the agreement.

MN8 estimates the capital investment at up to USD 350 million. Construction is expected to create approximately 200 jobs.

The three phases arrive separately. Solar is expected to reach commercial operation in 2028, followed by the lithium-ion storage in 2029 and the long-duration system in 2030.

Eos is described in the announcement as a U.S. manufacturer of zinc-based long-duration energy storage systems, while MN8 is described as a scaled power platform. The collaboration is aimed at growing demand in the PJM region.

The split between a shorter-duration lithium-ion fleet and a 10-hour zinc system gives the site two different discharge profiles from the same 86 MW solar resource.

Civil society groups want the new Just Transition Mechanism to come to life at COP31 in Antalya and take shape in 2027, according to Climate Home News. The same groups played a central part in securing the agreement in Brazil to set up the mechanism.

The negotiating fault line is procedural. Russia, Arab nations and a group of large emerging nations pushed for the Just Transition Work Programme review and the mechanism to be handled separately, a split they believe would make it easier to limit the scope of the mechanism, Climate Home News reported. The African Group argued for joint work between the two processes.

At the mid-year climate negotiations in Bonn, just transition was one of the few key issues on which governments reached consensus, including on how to review the progress of the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP), according to Climate Home News.

An informal workshop for governments and NGOs to exchange views on the JTWP and the mechanism has been organised from September 30 to October 2 in Sydney.

The JTWP was set up in 2022 and launched a year later, with the aim of discussing how to achieve a green economic and social shift that is fair, from the global down to the local level.

Speaking at the High-Level Political Forum in New York in July, UN Secretary General António Guterres said: "We need to support the countries, communities and workers that depend on fossil fuels throughout the transition".

Owners of Tesla's Model Y L in China are posting complaints on Chinese social media about rear suspension collapse on the three-row version of the Model Y, according to Electrek.

Electrek reported that the complaints formed a pattern from June through August, with the failures appearing on the longer, heavier vehicles.

Tesla's own service guidelines give owners a measurable threshold. Normal wheel arch heights run from 764mm to 804mm off the ground, and a Model Y L measuring below 764mm qualifies for a replacement, according to Electrek.

Tesla China has not made a statement about the issue, and social media users have suggested owners check their suspension monthly, Electrek reported.

The assembly split matters for how far the reports travel. Model Y L cars sold in China are built at Tesla's Shanghai factory, while US models are assembled in Texas, according to Electrek.

Crude rose more than 5% to USD 95 a barrel after Iran struck US military bases in Bahrain, Iraq, and Jordan, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Semafor Net Zero reported the Iranian attacks were retaliation for overnight US strikes. Tehran said those strikes killed at least 18 people.

The exchange roiled global markets, according to the same report. Asian stocks slid on worries that the latest attacks point to protracted hostilities.

A proposed rule would cut the 2031 target average fuel economy to 34.5 mpg from 50.4 mpg, according to Electrek.

NHTSA's own assessment of the change points the other way on cost. The agency says the revision would push fuel costs up by USD 185 billion and lift carbon emissions by 5%, Electrek reported.

The docket drew 68,294 public comments, and the vast majority opposed the plan, according to Electrek.

Separately, an analysis released by the Department of Energy found that gas prices will rise by 76 cents per gallon if Republicans' energy plans take effect, Electrek reported.

Battery testing firm Aviloo analysed data from more than 500,000 used electric vehicles for its new "Aviloo Certified EV Battery Report", according to electrive. The cars were tested worldwide using the company's independent Aviloo Flash Test.

Across the 20 EV models examined, 16 recorded a median State of Health of at least 90% after 150,000 km, electrive reported. The other four models sat in the 85% to 90% band.

Those figures run well ahead of the warranty floor common in the industry. Most manufacturers guarantee that an EV will keep at least 70% of its original battery capacity after eight years or 160,000 km, according to electrive.

The averages conceal a wide spread. "What matters is that battery health varies significantly between models, and even more between individual cars of the same model," said Aviloo CEO Marcus Berger.

That second point carries the practical weight for used-car buyers and fleet operators: a model-level median tells a purchaser little about the specific pack in the vehicle in front of them, which is the gap a per-car test result fills.

Emissions from Sasol's Secunda plant are linked to roughly 1,000 premature deaths each year, according to research reported by Semafor Net Zero.

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a Finland-based nonprofit, put the overall health cost of the plant's emissions at nearly USD 1 billion in a study cited by Semafor Net Zero.

Sasol is widely recognized as the world's largest single-site emitter of greenhouse gases, Semafor Net Zero reported.

The company also faces legal exposure. Regulators said last month they were preparing to reinstate criminal charges against Sasol over alleged unlawful discharges of chemical waste into a river, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Shutting Secunda carries its own price tag. A University of Cape Town study warned that a rushed closure of the plant could wipe USD 550 million off South Africa's USD 400 billion economy, per Semafor Net Zero.

That trade-off sits inside a power system with few near-term substitutes. Coal supplies more than 80% of South Africa's electricity, Semafor Net Zero reported.

NeoVolta and its subsidiary NeoVolta Power have signed a five-year supply and manufacturing agreement with South Korean manufacturer SK On, announced August 31, according to Solar Builder.

The agreement opens with SK On supplying 9 GWh of U.S.-manufactured lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells to NeoVolta Power, Solar Builder reported. Deliveries run from 2027 to 2031.

Cell supply is only one leg of the arrangement. The two companies expect the initial cell contract and a broader pack manufacturing collaboration to support up to 18 GWh of combined activity, per Solar Builder.

On the manufacturing side, NeoVolta expects the partnership to expand its Pendergrass, Georgia facility into a two-line platform, which the company says could target up to 8 GWh of annual battery production by 2028, according to Solar Builder.

The LFP chemistry at the center of the deal has become the default for stationary storage packs, and the cells covered by the contract are to be produced in the United States.

Chevron, ENI and Geopark are among the companies preparing to sign energy agreements in Venezuela as soon as Wednesday, according to three sources close to the preparations cited by Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The signings would come as Venezuela's oil industry runs at about 1.25 million barrels per day, according to the same report, well below the 3 million barrel-per-day peak the country reached in the late 1990s.

Chevron plans to spend more than USD 7 billion to more than double its crude output in the country to about 600,000 barrels per day over the next five years, part of a strategy of expanding joint ventures with PDVSA, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Separately, KEO Capital said in a release last week that one of its subsidiaries had reached an agreement covering the Petrourdaneta oil joint venture with PDVSA, following board approval. The deal makes the company the project's operator and includes a USD 350 million credit facility.

The agreements sit inside a wider push. The U.S. is spearheading a USD 100 billion investment plan that officials say will double Venezuela's oil output in coming years, according to the report.

The arithmetic of that ambition is stark against current volumes. Doubling from 1.25 million barrels per day would still leave production short of the late-1990s high. Chevron's own target of about 600,000 barrels per day would account for a substantial share of the increase officials are projecting.

São Paulo has secured two international loans totalling USD 496.6 million to electrify its public bus fleet, according to electrive.

The Brazilian metropolis formalised two agreements worth USD 248.3 million each, one with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and one with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, electrive reported.

The city estimates the two programmes together could support the electrification of more than 1,100 buses.

On the IDB side, the money covers financial support for the procurement of around 582 electric buses, among other items, according to electrive. Disbursement runs over five years across five tranches and is outcome-based.

The World Bank facility is structured differently. Of its total, USD 243.05 million is earmarked for the decarbonisation and modernisation of the bus fleet, electrive reported. The remainder falls outside that allocation.

The split between the two lenders puts the bulk of the second package behind fleet turnover rather than a fixed vehicle count, while the IDB package ties payment to delivered results across its five tranches.

Project Cayman combines a 2.88-GW gas-fired power plant with a data center complex on the same site, Power Magazine reported.

The development also carries a 700-MW battery energy storage system rated at 2.88 GWh.

Florida-headquartered ONE Nuclear Energy is the company behind the deal, according to Power Magazine.

The McIlvenna Bay copper-zinc mine in Saskatchewan turned out its first copper concentrate in June 2026 and added zinc and pyrite concentrates in July, according to Natural Resources Canada, which said the operation is expected to reach commercial production in the third quarter of 2026.

Power for the site comes from SaskPower's grid. Natural Resources Canada said the project was tied in through a new 85-km transmission line and an accompanying substation, supplying renewable electricity to run operations.

The mine's throughput could rise. Eldorado Gold is evaluating an expansion of processing capacity from 4,900 to roughly 7,000 tonnes per day, along with the addition of a silver-lead circuit, according to Natural Resources Canada.

Federal money underwrote parts of the build. Natural Resources Canada provided up to CAD 20 million in December 2024 through the Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund, since renamed the First and Last Mile Fund, for the hydro transmission connection, the on-site electrical substation and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

A second federal contribution followed the next month. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada put CAD 41 million into the site in January 2025 through the Strategic Innovation Fund to integrate clean technologies at McIlvenna Bay, according to Natural Resources Canada.

The largest single commitment came from the Canada Growth Fund, which agreed in May 2025 to commit approximately CAD 156 million alongside co-investors toward development and construction of the project, Natural Resources Canada said.

Copper and zinc both sit on the demand side of electrification, feeding transmission conductors, transformers, and galvanized steel. The staged federal support at McIlvenna Bay ran through three separate instruments, each attached to a distinct piece of the project: grid connection and charging hardware under the critical minerals infrastructure line, clean technology integration under the industrial innovation line, and equity-style capital for construction through the Canada Growth Fund.

Maine regulators selected Clearway Energy to build an 800 MW wind farm in the north of the state, a project that would lift Maine's onshore wind capacity by about 66%, Electrek reported.

The state counted 1,214 MW of onshore wind-powered generating capacity as of October 2025, according to Electrek, making the Clearway project the largest wind farm in Maine once built.

In the same procurement, the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) picked Avangrid Networks to develop the high-voltage transmission line required to move the output from northern Maine to the New England grid. Avangrid's proposed line would carry 1,200 MW and terminate at Haynesville, where it connects to the regional system.

Maine plans to purchase roughly 600 MW of the wind farm's output, with the remaining 200 MW allocated to other New England states, per Electrek.

Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont are participating in the procurement, which leaves Maine carrying less than 11% of the transmission costs.

The state estimates the wind and transmission projects together will deliver between USD 387 million and USD 425 million in net benefits to Maine electricity customers over their operating life.

The PUC estimates the two projects will create more than 2,500 full-time construction jobs over four years and generate more than USD 2.4 billion in economic output in Maine.

Shell plc has closed its takeover of ARC Resources Ltd., a producer with operations in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, after clearing shareholder, court and regulatory approvals, GlobeNewswire reported.

The purchase brings roughly 370 kboe/d of liquids and gas output into Shell's portfolio immediately.

Counting approximately USD 2.5 billion of net debt and lease obligations that transfer to the buyer, the deal carries an enterprise value of approximately USD 16.5 billion.

Equity in the Canadian producer was valued at USD 13.9 billion. Shell is paying USD 3.3 billion of that in cash, with the remaining USD 10.6 billion issued as new Shell shares.

Each ARC common share converts into CAD 8.20 of cash together with 0.40247 Shell ordinary shares.

Shell projects the transaction will be accretive to free cash flow per share from 2027 onwards.

Shell Chief Executive Officer Wael Sawan said the company welcomes "ARC colleagues to Shell" and pointed to their technical expertise in Canada's Montney basin.

A production target of approximately 600,000 bpd, more than double 2026 levels, sits at the center of Chevron's revised Venezuelan program, the company said. Backing it is a capital commitment of more than USD 7 billion across the next five years, according to World Oil.

A Chevron subsidiary holds 49% of Petroindependencia S.A., and the newly signed agreements hand that venture additional acreage, World Oil reported. Development rights now cover the adjacent Carabobo 1 and Carabobo-2-South-A areas within the Orinoco Belt.

Chevron reported that combined output from its three Venezuelan joint ventures is up 15% year to date.

Chairman and CEO Mike Wirth pointed to "improved terms and additional acreage" as the basis for strengthening the portfolio, according to World Oil.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is expected to announce more than a dozen agreements with energy companies in Venezuela, according to World Oil.

The largest of those agreements involves Chevron Corp., which is significantly expanding its Venezuela operations with two giant oil fields in the Orinoco Belt, World Oil reported.

Wright said deals have also already been signed with GE Vernova Inc. and Eni SpA.

Shell Plc, BP plc and Spain's Repsol SA are also expected to sign deals, Rodríguez said on Venezuelan state television, according to World Oil.

On the question of who holds a claim on the proceeds, Wright said China won't have any debt claims to the revenue from new Venezuelan production.

Uganda has named its export crude blend Pearl Sweet as the Tilenga-Kingfisher-EACOP development moves toward first oil and exports, World Oil reported.

The blend draws on two separate upstream projects. According to World Oil, Pearl Sweet will combine crude from the TotalEnergies-operated Tilenga development with output from the CNOOC-operated Kingfisher development, with the two streams commingled at the Kabaale Shared Facilities in Hoima before entering the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) for export through Tanzania.

Tilenga is designed for peak production of approximately 190,000 bpd, while Kingfisher has a planned peak capacity of about 40,000 bpd, World Oil reported. Combined peak output is put at approximately 230,000 bpd.

Buyers will be handling a medium-light barrel. World Oil describes Pearl Sweet as carrying an API gravity of approximately 28-31 degrees with low sulfur content.

The pipeline is what turns those barrels into exports. The 1,443-km EACOP will carry crude from Kabaale in western Uganda to the marine export terminal near Tanga, Tanzania, giving the landlocked country access to international crude markets, according to World Oil.

Spending across the three components has already passed the USD 12 billion mark. World Oil reported that more than USD 12 billion has been invested to date across Tilenga, Kingfisher and EACOP.

The upstream resource base underpinning the scheme is substantial by East African standards. The projects form part of the Lake Albert Integrated Development, which is based on approximately 1.65 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources, according to World Oil.