Author: omc_admin

(Bloomberg) – Algeria is close to finalizing a deal with ExxonMobil and Chevron to tap the North African nation’s vast gas reserves, including shale, for the first time, a senior official said.  “The technical aspects have more or less been agreed upon, but the commercial alignment is still under negotiation and will soon be finalized,” Samir Bekhti, the chairman of energy regulator Alnaft, said in an interview. Attracting the two U.S. giants “sends a strong signal,” he said. Algeria is betting big on shale as it looks to shore up state revenue in a country where hydrocarbons account…

A massive cloudburst has triggered flash floods in north-west Pakistan, killing at least 157 people, as rescuers continued to search for people missing after floods in neighbouring India.Mohammad Suhail, a provincial emergency services spokesperson, said 78 bodies were recovered from various parts of Buner district in the north-west province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by noon on Friday, and a further 79 were pulled later from the rubble of collapsed homes and flooded villages.“The death toll may rise as we are still looking for dozens of missing people,” Suhail said.The latest fatalities bring to 556 the total number of rain-related deaths in…

The UK government has decided against bailing out the country’s bioethanol plants, which have warned they would be forced to close without a rescue package as the U.S.-UK trade deal has made them unviable. The trade deal from May removed a previous 19% tariff, which the UK imposed on imports of U.S. bioethanol. As a result, the UK-produced bioethanol has been unable to compete with the zero-tariff imported U.S. bioethanol.   Vivergo Fuels, the UK’s largest bioethanol plant, warned at the end of May that “if there is no government intervention in the next few weeks, our plant will have to close. That…

The AI capex spending race is so massive that it’s lifting up the entire US economy.Researchers at Pantheon Macroeconomics found that AI-related spending accounted for a 0.5 percentage point difference in annualized GDP growth for the first half of the year. Without AI spending, Pantheon estimated the US economy would have grown at less than 1%, a sign that tech companies are propping up a not-so-great economy.”Hidden behind the surge in AI-related spending, however, investment elsewhere in the economy is far softer than headline numbers suggest,” Samuel Tombs, Pantheon’s chief US economist, and Oliver Allen, Pantheon’s senior US economist, wrote…

Empire Petroleum Corp. has reported an adjusted net loss of $5.23 million, or $0.15 per share, for the second quarter, compared to an adjusted net loss of $4.25 million for the prior three-month period and an adjusted net loss of $2.91 million for 2Q 2024. Before adjustment for nonrecurring items, net loss landed at $5.01 million, compared to a net loss of $4.22 million for 1Q 2025 and a net loss of $4.39 million for 2Q 2024. Revenue fell three percent quarter-on-quarter and 32 percent year-on-year to $8.75 million on lower prices. 2Q 2025 net sales totaled nearly 2,400 barrels…

Oil markets have seen thin liquidity and rangebound prices this week, with ICE Brent hovering near $66 a barrel as traders focus almost entirely on the upcoming Trump–Putin meeting in Alaska.Friday, August 15, 2025Thin trading liquidity, rangebound price movements, and almost zero interest in any other topic than the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska have marked this week, with ICE Brent still trading around the $66 per barrel mark. LNG prices have already shed some $0.50/MMBtu this week as gas traders seem to expect some semblance of a deal coming through; however, oil market participants are waiting it out until the…

Centrica Plc signed a 10-year agreement to buy natural gas from Devon Energy Corp. to help expand its activities across the Atlantic.  Centrica Energy, its trading arm, will receive 50,000 million British thermal units per day of natural gas from 2028, or the equivalent of five liquefied natural gas cargoes per year, according to a statement on Friday. The volumes will be indexed to TTF, the European benchmark price.  The deal expands Centrica’s global gas business after the recent announcement of a New York office. The agreement will also help the firm to manage the price risk in its liquefied…

150 financial institutions channeled US$8.9 trillion to companies driving deforestation, with 60% lacking any deforestation policy. Vanguard, BlackRock and JP Morgan Chase collectively provided over US$1.6 trillion to forest-risk companies, yet have limited or no deforestation safeguards. Only BBVA, Deutsche Bank and Lloyds Banking Group screen all high-risk commodities for deforestation risk. A new Forest 500 report by nonprofit Global Canopy reveals that in 2024, the 150 financial institutions with the greatest exposure to deforestation risk collectively financed US$8.9 trillion to companies in the so-called “deforestation economy.” Of this, US$864 billion went to firms without any public commitment to halt…

Supply chain sustainability management solutions provider Assent announced the launch of its new EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) solution, aimed at enabling manufacturers to comply with the due diligence requirements of the EU’s new law ensuring that products no longer contribute to deforestation and forest degradation globally. The EUDR was initially introduced by the EU Commission in November 2021, with measures aimed at effectively banning deforestation-linked products on the EU market, and establishing strong compliance requirements for companies providing or utilizing key commodities and products such as palm oil, beef, timber, coffee, cocoa, rubber and soy, in addition to some of their…

Fund to back companies addressing climate change, biodiversity loss, healthy nutrition, and good health. €225M already committed by Dutch pension funds; fund remains open to new institutional investors. Partnership with Neuberger Berman to focus on co-investments in buy-out and growth private equity. Achmea Investment Management has launched the Achmea IM PE Partnership Fund – Healthy People & Planet 2025, a private equity impact fund aimed at delivering both competitive returns and measurable social and environmental benefits. The closed-end fund, with a target size of €250 million and a 10–12 year term, will invest in companies that intentionally contribute to climate…