Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, owner of the world’s largest fleet of liquefied natural gas carriers, said it is hard to buy Chinese vessels for the time being as the US ramps up scrutiny of the Asian country’s shipbuilding industry. “It is difficult to purchase Chinese vessels under the current circumstances, because of the port entry fees” that the US is proposing for China-built ships calling at its ports, a spokesperson for the Japanese firm said. Earlier on Friday, the Nikkei reported Mitsui O.S.K. was planning to shift new orders from China to South Korea. But the plans have not yet been finalized, the spokesperson told Bloomberg News. The Japanese firm is aiming to reduce risks, according to remarks made by President and Chief Executive Officer Takeshi Hashimoto during an interview.  “We will wait and see about new business with the Chinese,” Hashimoto said in the report, which added that Mitsui O.S.K. will not cancel any existing contracts with Chinese yards. Washington has issued a flurry of measures under President Donald Trump’s administration aimed at curbing China’s maritime dominance and reviving its own flagging shipbuilding industry. The moves have shaken up the global shipping market, prompting shipowners to rethink where they want their vessels to be built in the future. South Korean shipbuilders have sensed an opportunity. Last week, major shipbuilders HD Hyundai Co. and Hanwha Ocean Co. offered to help the US improve its shipbuilding capacity and restore its maritime dominance. South Korean builders have an 18% share of ships under construction worldwide in deadweight tons terms, while the Japanese have 11%, according to data from Clarksons Research. Mitsui O.S.K. owns a fleet of 97 LNG vessels, according to a 2024 corporate presentation. It also maintains the world’s second-largest merchant fleet at 873 vessels.  Chinese shipyards make up two-thirds of the global orderbook. In

President Donald Trump has said there is North Sea oil to last 100 years with the Granite City as its hub. A message posted on his site Truth Social also took aim at “unsightly windmills” – long a bugbear for Trump since he opposed the development of the Aberdeen Bay wind farm which can be seen from his golf course on the Menie Estate. The US president urged Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government to support “modernised drilling” in the North Sea which would cut the cost of energy. Mr Trump said “large amounts of oil lay waiting to be taken” as he promoted the White House’s trade agreement with Britain. “Our negotiated deal with the United Kingdom is working out well for all,” he said. “I strongly recommend to them, however, that in order to get their energy costs down, they stop with the costly and unsightly windmills, and incentivise modernized drilling in the North Sea, where large amounts of oil lay waiting to be taken. He added on his own social media site: “A century of drilling left, with Aberdeen as the hub. “The old fashioned tax system disincentivises drilling, rather than the opposite. “UK’s energy costs would go way down, and fast!” The president’s intervention came as the UK regulator Ofgem announced the first cut in the energy price cap for year which will reduce energy costs from July. However, prices still remain high and cost of energy for households and business has often been cited as major disincentive for investment and growth. It is not the first time he has weighed in on the North Sea since becoming 45th president. In January, he claimed the UK was making a “big mistake” in its energy policies, sharing a story about US oil and gas firm APA – previously

George Dibb has been seconded to the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) as principal policy advisor for industrial strategy as the government prepares to detail its plans for the economic growth. Dibb currently serves as associate director for economic policy and head of the Centre for Economic Justice at IPPR. He is responsible for leading and overseeing IPPR’s work on UK economic policy and is based in the Westminster office. His secondment to DESNZ will last for 12-month. Writing on LinkedIn, Dibb said: “Net zero is the economic opportunity of the 21st century so I’m delighted to be joining the team in DESNZ to ahead of the publication of the government’s industrial strategy white paper.” Margaret Curran, Baroness Curran has also received a position at DESNZ, becoming as minister of state. The move comes as her predecessor Philip Hunt, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, leaves the government. A DESNZ spokesperson said: “Lord Hunt has worked tirelessly on our clean energy superpower mission, steering the Great British Energy legislation through the House of Lords and working closely with the nuclear industry as the government puts Britain back in the global race for nuclear energy. “We thank him for all of his work and wish him the very best in retirement. We are delighted to welcome Baroness Curran to continue to deliver on the department’s priorities.” And writing on Twitter, secretary of state for energy and climate change Ed Miliband said: “Phil has been instrumental in passing the GB Energy Bill and has been a great advocate for our brilliant nuclear industry. He has earned his retirement from the frontline.” He added: “Having worked with Margaret for many years I know she will be a brilliant minister, fighting for energy security, lower bills, good jobs and climate action.” © Supplied by

A legal battle against the Net Zero Teesside (NZT) gas-fired power generation and carbon capture and storage project in the north-east of England was quashed in the appeal courts this week. Environmental consultant Andrew Boswell has lost his climate case against the project and its developers BP and Equinor in the Court of Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice. Prime minister Keir Starmer sent a clear message earlier this year that he wanted to crack down on disruptive legal cases against major energy infrastructure in the UK. The energy secretary is responsible for approving environmental impact assessments for major infrastructure such as the NZT carbon capture projects, which Boswell sought to have repealed on the basis of an emissions calculation that he said was “out of date”. A second legal case against gas plant challenging government funding for the project is unlikely to be heard in court now that environmental campaigner Boswell has lost his appeal case against the project’s climate impact. NZT is a major project in the East Coast Cluster, one of two areas focused on carbon capture and storage (CCS) backed by £21.7 billion of government support. Boswell told Energy Voice that the second case was subject to a stay in court around the subsidy challenge. In that second case, he claimed that the project secured £10bn of subsidies, including a £6bn loan guarantee, only after he had launched his legal challenge. He argued in the High Court last year that the project’s emissions are greater than those that were accounted for in the impact assessment, and that it ignored upstream emissions produced outside the UK. He also said the project will create a sustained market for unabated gas production, which due to declining reserves in the North Sea, will make the country reliant on imports

In a statement posted on its website this week, the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) said it recently crossed a milestone in one of its key instruction programs, “training more than 300 employees in Phase I of the agency’s Boots on the Ground initiative”. The RRC noted in the statement that the goal of the program is to bring more consistency across all the agency’s oil and gas districts in how to apply commission rules and processes, “improving efficiency in the RRC’s day to day operations to protect Texans and the environment”. Phase I of the initiative is named ‘Introduction to Statewide Rules’ and covers the rules that inspectors and technical staff primarily deal with in the field, the RRC highlighted in the statement. “This program brings clarity and understanding to the rules which helps inspectors do their job well,” Dana McClendon, the division trainer with the RRC’s Oil and Gas Division, said in the statement. “Our goal is to make sure everyone leaves more confident to do the inspections the state relies on to ensure operators are complying with safety regulations,” McClendon added. In the statement, the RRC said the training’s in-depth discussion of rules and collaborative classroom environment helps inspectors understand how their field work can have a lasting impact. The organization added that, “through robust training initiatives like Boots on the Ground”, the RRC “supports responsible energy production, helping the state generate billions of dollars in tax revenue”.  In a statement posted on its site back in February 2019, the RRC announced the launch of its “first ever new inspector training school – Boots on the Ground”. That statement noted that this training “will focus on new oil and gas inspectors with less than two years tenure at the RRC” and said the school “will ensure inspectors

The billionaire investor who rescued ailing Wrightbus before the pandemic now has plans to install a distributed hydrogen network across the country. And he wants government to reconsider its policies. Jo Bamford-owned HydraB Power, the consortium that bought Wrightbus out of bankruptcy in 2019, is developing a wide-ranging hydrogen production and distribution network. “HySpeed, which is the new idea we’re talking to government about today, is for another gigawatt of capacity with the consortium of off-takers and manufacturers that can take the cost of hydrogen down – we think [by] over 40%,” operating partner Harry Bowcott said in an interview. “Which, of course, makes the subsidy more productive and gets you in a meaningful way towards having hydrogen at parity cost versus diesel – without subsidy.” The company engaged ministers and lords outside Portcullis House in Westminster on Wednesday, demonstrating a hydrogen fuel cell Wrightbus. Bowcott said the company wants government to consider two planks of policy that could unlock investment in the hydrogen economy at next month’s spending review. HydraB Power is calling for two policy changes: first, it wants multiple projects included as part of HAR funding. It has also asked the government to expedite a consultation on the safety case for injecting hydrogen into the natural gas grid, which Bowcott said it would be ready to do from 2026. The company HydraB Power operates several portfolio companies involved in hydrogen production, distribution and usage. These include green hydrogen producer HyGen Energy Holdings, bus manufacturer Wrightbus, hydrogen refuelling and distribution infrastructure Ryze Power and transport decarbonisation finance solution provider Fuze. HySpeed ahead The consortium wants to unlock £6.5bn of investment in the hydrogen economy and create 24,300 jobs across the UK by 2030 through project HySpeed, a 1 GW green hydrogen project that, it claims, will reduce carbon emissions by