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By Clyde Russell, Asia Commodities and Energy Columnist

Hello Power Up readers! The latest round of climate talks will happen at the end of this month, and the focus at the COP 28 meeting in the United Arab Emirates is likely to be on just how far away the world is from meeting the targets necessary to limit global warming.

A report from the U.N. Environment Programme says that global fossil fuel production in 2030 is set to be more than double the level deemed consistent with meeting the climate goals set under the 2015 Paris agreement. The report analysed 20 major fossil fuel producers and found that their planned output is around 110% more in 2030 than what is needed to limit warming to 1.5C. Current global oil production is around 102 million barrels per day, and this needs to drop to around 14% by 2030 to be consistent with the 1.5C target.

Today’s top headlines:

• Global fossil fuel production plans far exceed climate targets, UN says

• Occidental CEO sees potential to license 1,000 carbon capture plants

• US working with allies over sanctions on Russian Arctic LNG project

A view of a gas plant seen from the desert road of Suez outside Cairo, Egypt September 1, 2020. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

The conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza may have had no impact on crude oil supplies from the volatile Middle East, but it does appear that liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments from Egypt to Europe will be affected, as Marwa Rashad and Sarah El safety report here. The prospect of the EU receiving more LNG from Egypt in the short and medium term looks unachievable due to tight gas balances and reduced imports from Israel, the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies said.

Egypt shipped 80% of its LNG to Europe last year as the continent sought to replace Russian pipeline gas in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Israel has shut the Tamar gas field as a result of the conflict with Hamas and suspended exports to Egypt through the subsea EMG pipeline, tightening gas balances in the most populous Arab country.

Experts expect that cold snaps, like this snowstorm in Buffalo, New York, last November, will threaten power reliability again this winter. REUTERS/Lindsay DeDario

More than half of the U.S. and parts of Canada, home to around 180 million people, could fall short of electricity during extreme cold again this winter due to lacking natural gas infrastructure, as Anjana Anil and Deep Vakil report here. The North American Electric Reliability Corp said in its 2023-24 winter outlook that wide-area cold snaps threaten the reliability of bulk power generation and availability of fuel supplies for natural gas-fired generation.

Storage tanks and gas-chilling units are seen at Freeport LNG, the second largest exporter of U.S. liquified natural gas. Reuters/Arathy Somasekhar

Carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. liquefied natural gas facilities have jumped to 18 million tons per year, up 81% since 2019, adding a volume of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere equivalent to that produced by several big coal plants, Tim McLaughlin reports.

They could more than double to 45 million tons per year by the end of the decade as new facilities, encouraged by soaring overseas demand for the super-cooled fuel, come online, according to company projections provided to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission tallied by Reuters.

Mexican state energy company Pemex and U.S. LNG company New Fortress Energy have terminated a deal to develop potentially the country’s first deepwater natural gas project that was signed a year ago, Stefanie Eschenbacher and Ana Isabel Martinez report in this Reuters exclusive.

Now Pemex wants to continue with the development of the Lakach gas field in the Gulf of Mexico and is in talks with other companies, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

“It’s been a smooth transition, a successful transition, and to a large degree pretty much as expected.”

Mike Wittner, head of research at the Intercontinental Exchange, home of the Brent crude oil futures contract, speaking on the addition of the U.S. WTI Midland grade to the five North Sea crudes that help se the global benchmark oil price.

India saved roughly $2.7 billion by importing discounted Russian oil in the first nine months of the year, helping it support economic growth and easing pressure on the trade deficit, Nidhi Verma reports here.

The world’s third-biggest crude importer and consumer replaced Europe as the largest buyer of seaborne Russian crude this year after the West imposed sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. Crude oil accounts for about a third of India’s overall imports by value.

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