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By David Gaffen, Editor, Energy Markets

Hello Power Up readers! We’re mostly watching a lot of discord inside meetings. OPEC+ came together for voluntary cuts and announced them all separately, underscoring the feeling that the group is having a harder time pulling together these cuts. The COP28 meeting is going on as well, and there is a lot of talk from the oil and gas companies about reducing emissions from their operations, but that has a lot of others unsatisfied. Once again, with that summit still going on, our Sustainable Switch newsletter is being published daily during COP28 with all the latest updates — you can sign up here. 

Today’s top headlines:

• Oil falls on demand fears and doubts over OPEC+ cuts  
• EXPLAINER: What new OPEC+ oil output cuts are in place after Thursday
• COLUMN: Record US oil output challenges Saudi mastery

The market has basically shaken off the OPEC+ cuts. 

OPEC has once again decided to cut more production, but not without some pain, as the meeting had to be delayed before everyone could get themselves in a position where an agreement could be reached, as Reuters reports here. The eventual agreement includes an extension of previous cuts – and a subdued market reaction as investors are starting to believe OPEC+ does not have much more room to run in terms of clipping supply.

“It is becoming increasingly difficult to coordinate further large-scale supply reductions across the wider OPEC+ group, given the size of the existing cuts and the limited effect on prices,” analysts at JP Morgan wrote last week. 

It also could reflect skepticism that such cuts will offset new supply from the United States, Guyana and Brazil and others – and as a result, Brent crude managed to run up to nearly $85 a barrel before leaking all those gains in a few days and were trading around $79 on Monday. The consensus view among analysts now is that the market is becoming more supply driven, one that RBC says is “often fraught with bull traps.”  

That’s a Russian flag and an oil pump jack miniature. Y’know, it’s an illustration, let’s not get overly excited here. (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic)

The U.S., EU and Britain have been pressuring Liberia, the Marshall Islands and Panama – which many shipping vessels hoist flags of – to step up their oversight of those ships to make sure they do not transport Russian oil sold above the price cap, as Tim Gardner reports here. 

The West has been trying to enforce a $60 price cap on seaborne shipments of Russian oil which was imposed last year after Russia invaded Ukraine. The group is trying to step up enforcement as Moscow has found some ways to evade the sanctions in part by selling much of the oil to India and China. The EU, UK and US have warned those countries in letters of Moscow’s efforts to skirt sanctions – and press them for more intervention. 

He’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere, he’s United Arab Emirates Minister and COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, at COP28 in Dubai. (REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani)

Governments are kicking off brand-spanking new initiatives to boost clean energy and wean themselves off fossil fuels, with a big discussion of this taking place at the UN climate summit in Dubai, as Kate Abnett, Valerie Volcovici and David Stanway report here. More than half the world’s governments pledged to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030 at the U.N.’s COP28 climate summit on Saturday, where lots of handshaking and congratulations are going on.  

Renewables have been ramping up – but they have also been hamstrung by higher costs, limited supply and regulatory issues that have delayed big projects. And more than 20 nations declared their intention to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050.  

That’s crude oil dripping from a valve at an oil well operated by Venezuela’s PDVSA. (REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins)

Indian refiners are once again buying Venezuelan oil through intermediaries, three years after being stopped by sanctions, as Nidhi Verma, Marianna Parraga and Florence Tan report here. The country’s big refining group, Reliance, is expected to meet executives from Venezuelan state firm PDVSA to discuss direct sales after the U.S. eased sanctions on the South American country.  

Some of the vessels are expected to depart in December though Venezuelan ports often present challenges and quality issues. Venezuela’s oil output has been volatile, but it is ramping up slowly. Reliance is a logical buyer – the company was once PDVSA’s second largest customer and a big supplier of fuel to Venezuela.  

“Africa is facing an energy crisis, with limited supply, especially of renewable energy.”  

Anton-Louis Olivier, chairperson of the International Hydropower Association, on the need for more hydropower across the continent.

Colombia has modified the terms for its first-ever offshore wind energy auction, as Oliver Griffin reports here, so that it can get as many bids as possible. The country’s Energy Minister Andres Camacho said in an interview that they needed to shift the rules after complaints from companies and industry groups who said barriers to entry would be too high.  

The bids aren’t due until next year – and the new rules loosen requirements related to company experience and make it easier for bidders to find in-country partners to work with to pull together bids. 

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