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The Taiwanese Ministry of Economic Affairs has decided to stick to its policy of phasing out nuclear power by May 2025, despite the outcome of the November 2018 referendum that calls for a review of the plan. It also highlighted that continuing to operate the domestic nuclear reactors beyond the 2025 threshold would be impossible. 

As explanation for its decision, the government cites factors such as resistance from local governments of areas where the reactors are located and nuclear waste disposal-related issues. Besides, it also announced that Taiwan will reduce coal-fired power generation by 1%/year in the coming two years and will not build any new coal-fired power plant.

Taiwan currently has four nuclear reactors in operation, two in Maanshan and two in Kuosheng, which are operated by state-run company Taipower. They entered commercial operation between 1981 and 1985 and are currently licensed to operate until 2021-2025. In April 2014, massive anti-nuclear demonstrations in Taipei led the government to reassess its positions over the country’s nuclear policy and to suspend the construction of two 1,300 MW units in Lungmen. The new government (elected in January 2016) had then introduced revisions to the Electricity Act to phase out nuclear power by 2025. A referendum on the phase out was proposed in early 2018 by pro-nuclear activists, which received enough signatures to include the referendum in local elections in November 2018.

Brazilian state-owned oil group Petrobras and its partners of the BM-S-11 Consortium have started production on the P-67 platform FPSO (floating, production, storage and offloading unit) platform in the Lula offshore oil and gas field in the Santos basin of Brazil off Rio de Janeiro’s state.. The new platform has the ability to process up to 150,000 bbl/d of oil and 6 mcm/d of gas,…

Russian state-run oil producer Rosneft has published an update of its SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) proven hydrocarbon reserves. They increased by 202 Mtoe (+4%) in 2018, reaching 5,597 Mtoe. The company’s hydrocarbon reserves replacement ratio stood at 173% in 2018, while the SEC proven reserves life was estimated at more than 20 years.

The Colombian Ministry of Mines and Energy has received bids totalling 1,500 MW from 27 companies intending to participate in the country’s first-ever renewable energy auction, which was launched in January 2019. 15 companies have presented 22 projects in total, of which 17 are solar, 4 wind and one biomass, while 12 are interested in purchasing,…

According to the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Venezuelan government has until the end of April 2019 to sell crude oil to the United States without sanctions. After this deadline, penalties will be imposed on the state-run oil producer PDVSA or on any other company which is more than 50% controlled by the Venezuelan government,….

Global engineering company General Electric (GE) and Japan-based Sumitomo Corporation have signed a 25-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority (SEWA) to build and operate a 1.8 GW independent combined cycle (CCGT) power project in Hamriyah (Sharjah) in the United Arab Emirates.

Russian state-run nuclear corporation Rosatom has completed concrete works for the turbine hall foundation slab of the 1,080 MWe (1,200 MWe gross) Rooppur-1 Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) project, which is currently under construction in Bangladesh. The unit will be a modified version of the NPP-2006 VVER-1200 and will be built on the eastern bank of the river Ganges at Rooppur.

The South Korean Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSCC) has given its consent to state-run power utility KHNP (Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power) to begin operations of the 1,340 MWe (net) Shin Kori-4 Advanced Pressurized Reactor-1400 (APR1400) project.