Back in 2008, Virgin Atlantic flew a Boeing 747 between London and Amsterdam partly powered by a biofuel made from Brazilian babassu nuts and coconuts, with Sir Richard Branson hailing the event as a “vital breakthrough”. Last year, the airline one-upped the original event by staging the first transatlantic flight using 100% of these fuels, rather than...

Ahead of the OPEC+ Sunday meeting, Reuters has cited three unnamed cartel sources as saying that a rollover to the end of the year of the existing 2.2 million barrel-per-day voluntary oil production cuts is currently being discussed.  Analysts have been expecting OPEC+ to maintain the status quo on Sunday, and Reuters’ Thursday report is in line with...

Uzbekistan’s government appears intent on spending its way out of economic trouble. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s administration is making big bets on infrastructure projects in emerging economic sectors. And to hedge against the considerable risks, Tashkent is looking in all geopolitical directions to open new channels of trade and investment. Mirziyoyev’s...

Spain should support its domestic natural gas-fired power plants to be available to provide electricity when needed, and such regulation is “urgent and necessary,” according to the president of Spanish gas industry association Sedigas.   The so-called capacity mechanism would pay gas power plants to be available for generation when necessary, amid soaring...

Range anxiety with electric vehicles becomes less of a problem when switching to hybrids - a plan almost all of the auto industry is now embracing after finding out the economics of pure BEVs are a prohibitive nightmare.  For example this week Bloomberg reported that BYD had unveiled a new "hybrid powertrain capable of traveling more than 2,000 kilometers...

Germany will abolish from 2025 a controversial levy on natural gas storage which countries in central Europe have had to pay to get gas piped through Germany.    Countries in central Europe, including Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia are being charged by Germany with the so-called gas storage levy on exports of natural gas from Germany....