Germany’s investments under the European recovery programme are below the required minimum share. The government proposed a €130 billion recovery package in 2020 and promised to add another €300 billion to the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility, but green energy spending is still significantly below the 37% benchmark set by the European Commission.
Australia-listed Energy World Corp has received a favourable ruling from the Indonesian regulator that reverses a zoning error, allowing EWC to proceed with its Sengkang LNG plant in South Sulawesia and an adjacent 315 MW power project. The site had been classified as ‘forestry land’ but is now ‘industrial land’.
President Joe Biden has moved swiftly to reconfigure US energy policy, cancelling the Keystone XL oil pipeline and signalling to factor in emissions costs into project reviews. Analysts warn this could put key gas interconnectors at risk, notably the 2.0 Bcf per day Mountain Valley Pipeline meant to alleviate take-away constraints from the Appalachian.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is about to launch the world’s first roadmap to net-zero emissions by 2050. The UK and the Netherlands already set binding CO2 reduction goals and if US President Biden follows through on his pledges, countries accounting for over 60% of global emissions will have net-zero ambitions.
The US Department of Energy’s Office, staffed by the outgoing President Trump, has launched a report on impacts of the so-called “ill-conceived ban on hydraulic fracturing,” proposed by the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden. The ban will allegedly cost millions of jobs and make gas and power prices surge.
Norwegian-German registrar and classification society DNV-GL has decided to suspend works for the Nord Stream 2 project. Vessels, supervising progress on the controversial pipeline project, are deemed “subject to US sanctions,” DNV-GL said, noting it “will no longer provide services that may be incompatible with the PEESA law.”
Electricity Generating Public Company (Egco) of Thailand has applied to the state regulator for a licence to import LNG to fuel gas-fired power plants. Egco said the 256 MW Banpong plant and the 121 MW Klongluang plant “could use additional supplies,” though they already source gas from state-run PTT.