Blog

The Mexican Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) has unveiled plans to launch a 3-year pilot carbon market in 2019, which will fully operate in 2022, i.e. one year later than the initial plan. Once operational, the emissions trading scheme (ETS) system is expected to regulate approximately 40% of the domestic CO2 emissions. In October 2017, a carbon trading simulation was launched with up to 100 companies representing more than two thirds of GHG emissions.

The ETS project has received support from the local governments of California (United States) and Quebec (Canada). The governments of Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia already apply a carbon tax, while Costa Rica works on the design of this instrument.

The Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) has announced a tender for five blocks of solar PV capacity rated 300 MW each (total capacity of 1.5 GW) to be installed at the Al-Shagaya Renewable Energy Park in Kuwait. Construction is scheduled to start in 2019. The successful bidder will sign a 25-year operations and maintenance contract as part of the deal,…

The Brazilian National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) has approved a BRL877m (roughly US$212m) subsidy to national oil and gas company Petrobras (BRL871m or US$211m), Petro Energia and Dax Oil, to compensate for diesel subsidies set in May 2018. Petrobras will be granted an additional payment of BRL706m (over US$170m).

The Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition (MAPAMA) has announced the suspension of the 7% tax on power generation activities as part of a set of measures implemented to lower wholesale power prices. This announcement comes as electricity prices have been escalating during the last months and are currently standing at a quite high level (above €70/MWh as of September 2018).

According to the state-sponsored German National Platform for Electric Mobility (NPE), Germany is likely to postpone its target of having 1 million electric vehicles (EVs) by 2 years to 2022 even though the growth momentum continues. In 2017,…

US-based interstate gas pipeline operator Williams has achieved mechanical completion of the US$3bn Atlantic Sunrise gas pipeline expansion project in the United States and has requested the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to give its consent to the commissioning of the project.

LNG project company Steelhead LNG and the Huu-ay-aht First Nations have selected the South Korean engineering company Hyundai Heavy Industries to provide front-end engineering and design (FEED) of two onshore hulls for the first phase of the 2 Mt/year Kwispaa LNG project located on the west coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia (Canada).