Oil settled below $60 a barrel for the first time in three weeks as signs emerged that the Saudi-led OPEC+ alliance may be entering a prolonged period of higher production. West Texas Intermediate fell as much as 4.2% on Wednesday after Reuters reported that Saudi Arabian officials have been telling allies and industry experts that the kingdom can endure a sustained period of depressed prices. The most-active contract capped its biggest monthly decline since November 2021. The report added to existing concerns that Saudi Arabia planned to steer OPEC+ to agree on another supply surge next week. “This confirms the market’s fears that Saudi Arabia’s accelerated unwinds were not temporary, but a long-term strategy shift,” said Rebecca Babin, a senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth Group. It raises the question of whether “Saudi is going to repeat the 2020 playbook to dramatically increase production.” OPEC+ rocked the crude market in early April, with a surprise decision to increase supply in May by 411,000 barrels a day, the equivalent of three monthly tranches from a previous plan. Morgan Stanley has said it expects a “meaningful surplus” to develop over time, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. warned the cartel may accelerate planned production increases at a meeting next week. Beyond OPEC+, non-cartel nations are also expected to add supplies, including drillers in Canada and Guyana, feeding concerns about a global glut. At the same time, hopes are fading that there will be quick breakthroughs in US-led trade negotiations, weighing on the outlook for energy demand. The US economy contracted for the first time since 2022 in the first quarter as a result of a surge in pre-tariff imports and softer consumer spending. In China, factory activity slipped into the worst contraction since December 2023, revealing early damage from the trade war.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith challenged Mark Carney to strike a better deal for her oil-rich province, saying she would not allow the “status quo” to prevail in its relationship with the federal government. While congratulating the Liberal prime minister on his election victory, Smith said a large number of Albertans are deeply frustrated that a government that “overtly attacked” her province’s economy has been returned to power.  “I invite the prime minister to immediately commence working with our government to reset the relationship between Ottawa and Alberta with meaningful action rather than hollow rhetoric,” she said in a statement. “Albertans are proud Canadians that want this nation to be strong, prosperous and united, but we will no longer tolerate having our industries threatened and our resources landlocked by Ottawa.” Alberta has been in conflict with Canada’s Liberal government since Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, was elected in 2015 and began rolling out environmental policies, including an emissions cap, new pipeline regulations and a ban on tankers off the northern British Columbia coast. Smith says those measures encroach on the province’s jurisdiction and hamper oil and gas development.  The growing hostility has prompted some Albertans to call for greater autonomy from the federal government, and even fueled a small but simmering secession movement.  The Alberta government will hold a caucus meeting on Friday to discuss the province’s future within a united Canada, Smith said.  ‘Pivotal Moment’ Carney said in his victory speech early Tuesday that he intends to govern for all Canadians. He has pledged to turn the country into a “superpower” in both clean and conventional energy, and said it needs to produce more oil while reducing the associated emissions. “My optimistic view is a Carney win is status quo for a sector that’s dealt with significant challenges over the past 10 years,” Eric Nuttall,

Dive Brief: A group of nine Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states plans to issue a request for information to gauge the potential for building “no regrets” transmission projects between New England, New York and the PJM Interconnection, according to an action plan released on Monday. No-regrets interregional transmission needs grow to 4 GW between PJM and New York and to 3 GW between New York and New England by 2040 — and could be higher depending on load growth and decarbonization developments, the Brattle Group said in the action plan, which the consulting firm wrote for the Northeast States Collaborative on Interregional Transmission. “We believe that there are likely low-hanging fruit, no-regrets interregional transmission projects that current transmission planning approaches are failing to identify,” Katie Dykes, commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said during a presentation Tuesday on the action plan. Dive Insight: The collaboration intends to break down barriers to interregional transmission development, but the effort may require state and federal legislation, according to Dykes. The states in the collaborative that was formed in 2023 are: Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. “The focus is really on … identifying beneficial transmission that states can collectively pursue in order to reduce costs for our consumers and increase the security of our system, because each region going it alone … is inherently more expensive in terms of the overall build of resources, but also less secure because you do not have the benefit of the increased resource diversity that interregional transmission can help provide,” said John Bernecker, director of the Transmission Center of Excellence at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. The Brattle Group recommended that the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states work with PJM, the New York Independent System Operator

Hannah Bascom is chief growth officer for Uplight As electricity demand soars — driven by AI-powered data centers, the rise of electric vehicles and beyond — the U.S. grid is feeling the strain. Experts estimate that AI alone could drive a 67 GW increase in energy demand over the next five years, a challenge the U.S. grid is not currently equipped to handle. And while new generation is in the works, building supply fast enough to keep up is a near impossibility. Fortunately, there is a massive but largely untapped resource at utilities’ disposal that doesn’t require years of lead time to start producing: customers and their growing number of distributed energy resources (DERs), including everything from residential solar to home and commercial batteries to combined heat and power systems, are at the ready. Utilities currently tap these DERs to deliver load flexibility through a variety of demand response programs, but there is significant room to expand the impact of these assets through the creation of virtual power plants (VPPs). VPPs operate a portfolio of DERs, comprising multiple technology types, as a cohesive resource to accurately predict and deliver grid flexibility. Aggregating DERs and programs into a coordinated portfolio allows VPPs to unlock substantially more flexibility and economic potential from customer-sited DERs compared to single-technology demand response programs.  By now, many are familiar with the promise of VPPs: the Department of Energy estimates that deploying 80 GW to 160 GW of VPP, enough to serve 10% to 20% of peak load, by 2030 could support rapid load growth while also reducing the cost required to serve new load. Unlocking flexibility and economic potential from customer-sited DERs through VPPs will transform a grid challenge into a grid opportunity, create firm, clean capacity, reduce customer and utility spend and support our journey

Aberdeen-headquartered oilfield services firm Wood is facing a temporary suspension from the London stock market after missing a deadline to publish its 2024 financial results. Wood announced in a statement today that it would miss a 30 April deadline to publish its results due to the “extensive work needed” to complete an audit of its accounts. As a result, Wood confirmed the company will be temporarily suspending from listing and trading of its shares from 1 May until it publishes the 2024 results. Wood reported a $983 million half year loss last August amid a slump in revenues. It comes after an independent review commissioned by the firm identified “material weaknesses and failures” in Wood’s financial culture. The review came as further embarrassment for the embattled company after its former chief financial officer Arvind Balan resigned and its share price plummeted. The missed deadline also comes amid a £240 million takeover attempt from Dubai-based rival Sidara, which Wood’s board said it “would be minded to recommend” to shareholders. Sidara walked away from a previous £1.6bn takeover attempt in August last year. In 2023, American private equity group Apollo Global Management also backed away from its own attempts to buy Wood after making five separate offers. Earlier this year, Apollo acquired Aberdeen-based offshore energy services group OEG for $1bn (£770m). Who is Sidara? Formerly known as Dar Group, the company rebranded to Sidara in December 2023 to coincide with the COP28 conference in Dubai. Jordanian businessman Kamal Al-Shair founded the company as Dar Al-Handasah in Lebanon in 1956 alongside three engineering colleagues at the American University of Beirut. The firm gradually expanded operations in the Middle East and North Africa in the 60s and 70s, and made its first acquisition of US firm Perkins & Will in 1986. Sidara expanded in to the UK

Britain’s electricity system is “highly resilient”, energy minister Michael Shanks has said in a bid to reassure MPs following Spain and Portugal’s widespread blackouts. Power has largely been restored across the Iberian Peninsula, but not before the outage grounded flights, paralysed train systems and disrupted mobile communication. Speaking in the Commons, Mr Shanks said the UK had not been affected by the power cuts but the Government continues to prepare for “all eventualities”. In a statement on energy grid resilience, he said: “I would like to reassure the House that Great Britain has a highly resilient energy network, and the incident in Iberia has not impacted Great Britain. “The Secretary of State has been in regular contact with the National Energy System Operator, the Neso, over the past two days, and they have provided reassurance that there is no increase in risk to our energy supplies or system stability from this incident.” Mr Shanks added: “An event similar in impact to this incident in Great Britain would be the equivalent of a national power outage, which is the total loss of power across the whole of GB. This risk is listed on the national risk register as a high-impact but low-likelihood event.” He said the Government is prepared “for all eventualities no matter how unlikely”, adding: “This includes having robust emergency plans, summarised in the national emergency plan for downstream gas and electricity, and regularly exercising emergency plans with the energy industry and Ofgem (Office of Gas and Electricity Markets).” Shadow energy minister Andrew Bowie said: “We cannot get away from the fact that this Government’s plans to rush ahead to build a grid that is entirely dependent on the wind and the sun, in just five years’ time, makes our electricity grid significantly less reliable.” He added: “Data from