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MABUX ARA LNG Bunker Index
Port LNG$/mton MGO LS$/mton Date
ARA
638.50
0.00
622.00
+6.00
Dec 30
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Port	LNG$/mton	MGO LS$/mton	Date
ARA	638.50	0.00	622.00	+6.00	Dec 30

MABUX Global Bunker Index

380HSFO$/mton		VLS FO$/mton		MGO LS$/mton		Date
396.47	+0.51	475.20	+1.10	723.11	+1.32	Jan 2

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MABUX Market Differential Index (MDI)

Correlation between market bunker prices (MBP) and MABUX Digital Bunker Price Benchmark (DBP)

All Indexes in $/mton	380HSFO			VLS FO			MGO LS			Date
All Indexes in $/mton	MBP Index	DBP Index	MDI	MBP Index	DBP Index	MDI	MBP Index	DBP Index	MDI	Date
Rotterdam	362	393	-31	414	437	-23	622	634	-12	Jan 2
Singapore	359	389	-30	429	475	-46	610	627	-17	Jan 2
Fujairah	331	359	-28	423	466	-43	712	690	+22	Jan 2
Houston	342	375	-33	414	425	-11	603	601	+2	Jan 2

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Latest News
- 2026-01-02
  Oil prices ease after biggest annual loss since 2020
  Oil prices dipped on their first trading day of 2026 after registering their biggest annual loss since 2020 as investors weighed oversupply concerns against geopolitical risks, including the war in Ukraine and Venezuela exports. Brent crude futures... Read more Oil prices dipped on their first trading day of 2026 after registering their biggest annual loss since 2020 as investors weighed oversupply concerns against geopolitical risks, including the war in Ukraine and Venezuela exports.
  Brent crude futures lost 55 cents to $60.29 a barrel by 11:16 a.m. ET (1616 GMT) on Friday while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was down 53 cents at $56.89.
  Russia and Ukraine traded allegations of attacks on civilians on New Year’s Day despite talks overseen by U.S. President Donald Trump that are aimed at bringing an end to the nearly four-year-old war.
  Kyiv has been intensifying strikes against Russian energy infrastructure in recent months, aiming to cut off Moscow’s sources of financing for its military campaign in Ukraine.
  The Trump administration’s efforts to increase pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro continued with Wednesday’s imposition of sanctions on four companies and associated oil tankers that it said were operating in Venezuela’s oil sector.
  "Despite all these geopolitical concerns, the oil market seems unmoved. Oil prices are locked in this long-term trading range, and there’s a sense that the market is going to be well supplied no matter what happens," said Phil Flynn, senior analyst with the Price Futures Group.
  In the Middle East, a crisis between OPEC producers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over Yemen has deepened after flights were halted at Aden’s airport on Thursday.
  
  This came ahead of a virtual meeting between the OPEC+ group comprising the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies on January 4.
  Traders widely expect OPEC+ to continue its pause on output increases in the first quarter, said Sparta Commodities analyst June Goh.
  "2026 will be an important year on assessing OPEC+ decisions for balancing supply," she said, adding that China would continue to build crude stockpiles in the first half, providing a floor for oil prices.
  
  The Brent and WTI benchmarks recorded annual losses of nearly 20% in 2025, the steepest since 2020, as concerns about oversupply and trade tariffs outweighed geopolitical risks. It was the third straight year of losses for Brent, the longest such streak on record.
  Phillip Nova analyst Priyanka Sachdeva said the muted price movement reflected a struggle between short-term geopolitical risks and longer-term market fundamentals that point towards oversupply. Source: Reuters/Investing.com
- 2026-01-02
  CMA CGM launches new US East Coast/Oceania service
  CMA CGM’s new KEA service offers full US East Coast coverage on the southbound leg, while northbound, it provides extended port coverage, including calls at Port Chalmers and Charleston. The first vessel to operate on the service is the Spirit of Melbourne. According... Read more
- 2026-01-02
  Funding agreement inked for Namibian green ammonia plant
  SDG Namibia One Fund has signed an agreement with the ‘clean energy’ specialist Zhero Europe to support the development of an ‘industrial-scale’ green ammonia facility near Walvis Bay. In a statement issued last month, Zhero Europe said that the Zhero... Read more
- 2026-01-02
  Michael Cammarata appointed Managing Director of Glander International Bunkering Florida
  Glander International Bunkering has today (2 January) announced that Michael Cammarata has been appointed Managing Director at its Florida office. The son of Louis J. Cammarata, one of the company’s founders, Michael Cammarata, who joined the business... Read more
- 2026-01-02
  First docking of an LNG-fuelled vessel at Port of Mombasa
  The Höegh Australis made its maiden call at the Port of Mombasa last week, marking the first arrival of an LNG–fuelled ship at Kenya’s main seaport. The vessel – one of the Oslo-listed company’s 12-strong Aurora Class series – was piloted into port... Read more
- 2026-01-02
  UK MCA launches port safety code compliance exercise
  The UK’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) has launched a three-month campaign to assess compliance with its Ports and Marine Facilities Safety Code (PMSC). The exercise was launched yesterday (1 December) with an invitation for facilities to demonstrate... Read more
- 2026-01-02
  Oil inches up following biggest annual loss since 2020
  Oil prices edged up on the first day of trade in 2026, after last year posting their biggest annual loss since 2020, as Ukrainian drones targeted Russian oil facilities and a U.S. blockade pressured Venezuela’s exports. Brent crude futures climbed 35... Read more Oil prices edged up on the first day of trade in 2026, after last year posting their biggest annual loss since 2020, as Ukrainian drones targeted Russian oil facilities and a U.S. blockade pressured Venezuela’s exports.
  Brent crude futures climbed 35 cents on Friday to $61.20 a barrel by 0409 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $57.76 a barrel, up 34 cents.
  Russia and Ukraine have traded allegations of attacks on civilians on New Year’s Day despite talks overseen by U.S. President Donald Trump that are aimed at bringing an end to the nearly four-year-old war.
  Kyiv has been intensifying strikes against Russian energy infrastructure in recent months, aiming to cut off Moscow’s sources of financing for its military campaign in Ukraine.
  And in the latest action by Trump’s administration to increase pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Washington on Wednesday imposed sanctions on four companies and associated oil tankers it said were operating in Venezuela’s oil sector.
  The U.S. blockade aims to keep sanctioned tankers from entering or leaving Venezuela and is forcing state energy company PDVSA to resort to extreme solutions to avoid shutting down refining units as residual fuel inventories build up.
  The Brent and WTI benchmarks recorded annual losses of nearly 20% in 2025, the steepest since 2020, as concerns about oversupply and tariffs outweighed geopolitical risks. It was the third straight year of losses for Brent, the longest such streak on record.
  
  The muted movement in oil prices reflected a struggle between short-term geopolitical risks and longer-term market fundamentals that point towards oversupply ahead of next week’s OPEC+ meeting, Priyanka Sachdeva, a senior market analyst at Phillip Nova said in a note, with WTI prices skewed towards the $55 to $65 per barrel range in the first quarter.
  The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies will meet virtually on January 4.
  Traders are widely expecting OPEC+ to continue pausing output hikes in the first quarter, said June Goh, a senior analyst at Sparta Commodities.
  
  "2026 will be an important year on assessing OPEC+ decisions for balancing supply," she said, adding that China would continue to build crude stockpiles in the first half that would provide a floor to oil prices.
  In the United States, oil production hit a record high of 13.87 million barrels per day in October, according to the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday. Crude stocks fell while gasoline and distillate inventories rose last week on robust refining activity, the EIA reported. Source: Reuters/Investing.com
- 2026-01-02
  SMRs Explained: Real-World Economics, Fuel Bottlenecks, and the Race to Scale
  Nuclear power is currently having its "Silicon Valley" moment. After decades of being treated as a dinosaur technology—too slow, too expensive, and too politically toxic—the industry has pivoted toward something it calls the Small Modular Reactor (SMR).... Read more Nuclear power is currently having its "Silicon Valley" moment. After decades of being treated as a dinosaur technology—too slow, too expensive, and too politically toxic—the industry has pivoted toward something it calls the Small Modular Reactor (SMR). The goal is to stop building energy cathedrals and start building energy appliances.
  
  The market fundamentals are finally in place for a new era. Global electricity demand is rising at twice the rate of total energy demand, pushed over the edge by the relentless growth of AI data centers and the slow-motion electrification of the global vehicle fleet. Generation from the world’s fleet of nearly 420 reactors is already on track to reach an all-time high in 2025. This is about a global realization that "intermittent" renewables cannot carry the load of a 24/7 civilization alone.
  
  Baseload power is no longer a luxury; it’s the price of admission for the modern economy.
  
  Why Small Is the Only Way Big Nuclear Survives
  
  If you’ve spent any time reading about energy, you know the term "Small Modular Reactor" is used as a catch-all... it actually refers to three distinct shifts in how we think about the atom.
  
  First, "Small" means anything up to 300 MWe. That is roughly a third of the output of a traditional Gigawatt-scale plant... enough to power about 250,000 homes or a massive industrial complex.
  
  Second, "Modular" is the real economic engine. Instead of custom-designing every pipe and valve on a muddy construction site, components are factory-built and shipped via truck or rail.
  
  Finally, "Reactor" is where the physics get messy. Current designs aren't just "shrunk down" versions of the 1970s light-water tech.
  
  We are seeing a move toward Generation IV concepts: molten salt reactors that can't melt down because the fuel is already liquid, and gas-cooled reactors that can provide the 700°C+ process heat required for making steel or hydrogen.
  
  Why Megaprojects Died in Georgia
  
  Traditional nuclear projects like the Vogtle plant in Georgia or Hinkley Point C in the UK have become legendary for their cost overruns. They aren't just power plants; they are multi-decade civil engineering nightmares that consume capital faster than they produce watts.
  
  Vogtle ended up costing over $30 billion... nearly double the original estimate.
  
  No private investor wants to sit on a $30 billion debt for fifteen years before the first dollar of revenue trickles in. SMRs attempt to bypass this "Valley of Death" by shortening construction timelines to roughly 3–5 years and lowering the initial check to something a mid-sized utility or a tech giant can actually afford.
  
  It’s an attempt to trade "economies of scale" for "economies of unit production."
  
  The East Is Building While the West Files Paperwork
  
  The "Nuclear Renaissance" is already happening; it just hasn’t reached the Atlantic yet. Of the 52 reactors started since 2017, nearly half are Chinese, and the other half are Russian.
  
  (Source: IEA)
  
  And the bottleneck isn’t technology…it’s fuel. Russia currently controls 40% of the world’s uranium enrichment capacity. Energy security is a hollow promise if you have to buy the uranium from your primary adversary.
  
  AI Is the Insatiable Beast That Only Fission Can Feed
  
  The tech giants aren't buying nuclear because they've suddenly developed a passion for carbon-free baseload. They’re doing it because their AI roadmaps are hitting a physical wall... a single ChatGPT query consumes roughly ten times the electricity of a Google search.
  
  Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have realized that wind and solar are essentially "part-time" energy sources.
  
  When the sun goes down and the wind stops, the data centers don't. This creates a massive, expensive problem called "intermittency" that batteries aren't ready to solve at a multi-gigawatt scale. The SMR is the only thing on the menu that offers 24/7 "firm" power with a small enough footprint to sit next to a server farm.
  
  For the first time in history, the primary driver for nuclear power is coming from the private sector, not the state.
  
  Microsoft: Signed a 20-year PPA to resurrect Three Mile Island (Unit 1).
  Google: Ordered 6–7 reactors from Kairos Power for 500 MW of clean energy.
  Amazon: Bought a stake in X-energy and signed an MoU with Dominion for SMR siting.
  Oracle: Announced a massive data campus powered by three modular reactors.
  These companies have the credit ratings and the long-term horizons to do what traditional utilities can't: they can guarantee "offtake."
  
  By signing 20-year Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), they provide the bankability that SMR manufacturers need to start their assembly lines.
  
  Picking Winners in a Graveyard of Energy Startups
  
  The SMR market is a graveyard of good ideas that ran out of money. To win, a company needs three things: a simple design, a licensed site, and a customer with deeper pockets than God.
  
  The market is split between the "Old Guard" shrinking proven tech and "Disruptors" chasing Generation IV designs.
  
  The $2,500/kW Target: Chasing the Chinese Cost Curve
  
  This is where the marketing brochures usually stop being honest. If you build one SMR, it is the most expensive electricity on Earth. The "Modular" promise only works if you build them like airplanes—in a factory, at scale.
  
  The IEA projects SMR investment will hit $25 billion annually by 2030. That sounds like a lot until you realize that building the first factory for these modules could eat half that budget before the first reactor is even shipped. The "learning curve" for SMRs is a steep and expensive climb. Studies suggest that "learning-by-doing" can reduce capital costs by 5% to 10% for every doubling of production. However, a report by Germany’s BASE suggests that an average of 3,000 SMRs would have to be produced before they reach true economies of mass production.
  
  This is the central friction of the industry. No CEO wants to tell their board they are the "guinea pig" for an unproven $1 billion reactor.
  
  Private funding alone won't work. The long timelines for permitting mean the "breakeven point" for a large reactor is 20-30 years after project start. SMRs cut that timeline in half, but it's still a tough sell for commercial lenders.
  
  This is where Green Bonds and Public-Private Partnerships come in.
  
  Over $5 billion in green bonds have been issued for nuclear so far, and the U.S. DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program is throwing billions at prototypes. But the real bridge across the "Financial Valley of Death" is the credit rating of Big Tech. When Google or Amazon signs a 20-year PPA, the debt becomes bankable.
  
  Fukushima-Proofing the Atom With Passive Physics
  
  SMR proponents love to talk about "passive safety"—designs where physics (gravity and convection) cool the reactor even if the power goes out. It’s essentially "Fukushima-proofing" by design. Because these units are smaller, they have a lower radioactive inventory per reactor, allowing them to be placed on the sites of retired coal plants. The need:
  
  Gravity-Driven Cooling: If power is lost, cool water is naturally pulled into the core.
  Smaller Cores: Less radioactive inventory means the "exclusion zone" can be significantly smaller.
  Underground Siting: Placing reactors below grade adds a natural barrier against external threats.
  But the waste issue remains messy. A 2022 Stanford study claimed that SMRs might actually produce more waste per unit of energy because smaller cores "leak" more neutrons, making the surrounding shielding more radioactive over time. The industry’s rebuttal? They claim they can "burn" this waste as fuel in the next generation of breeder reactors. Both sides are technically correct, but the breeder reactors aren't here yet, and the waste is.
  
  If we build thousands of SMRs and ship them to remote mining sites or developing nations, we are "distributing" nuclear material across the globe. That is a security nightmare. The fix is "Battery-Style" SMRs: built, fueled, and welded shut in a factory. They are shipped to a site, run for 20 years, and shipped back. The end-user never touches the fuel.
  
  Teaching the NRC to Move at the Speed of Light
  
  The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was designed to regulate massive, one-off light-water reactors. Applying 1970s regulations to 2025 technology is like trying to get a Tesla licensed using rules written for steam engines.
  
  In July 2024, the ADVANCE Act was signed into law, explicitly directing the NRC to streamline the process for microreactors and SMRs. By December 2025, the NRC had already met 30 of its 36 planned deliverables under the act. It’s an attempt to stop the "licensing-by-exhaustion" strategy that has killed so many designs in the past.
  
  International harmonization is the next frontier. If a design is approved in Canada (like the BWRX-300), why does it need to spend another five years and $100 million being "re-approved" in the U.S. or the UK? Strategic leadership is being built in concrete while the West waits for a policy consensus.
  
  The $1.5 Trillion Industrial Heat Prize
  
  Most people think of nuclear as a way to keep the lights on. But electricity is only about 20% of global primary energy demand. The real monster in the room is Industrial Process Heat. If you want to make steel, cement, or glass, you need temperatures that wind and solar simply cannot provide through a wire without massive efficiency losses. Today, 89% of that high-temperature demand is met by burning fossil fuels.
  
  The SMR—specifically the High-Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR)—is the only zero-carbon technology that can sit "inside-the-fence" with a chemical plant and provide 750°C steam. According to a 2025 study by LucidCatalyst, the potential market for industrial SMRs could hit 700 GW by 2050.
  
  We’re talking about a $1.5 trillion investment opportunity.
  
  The top five markets for this aren't utilities... they are synthetic aviation fuels, coal plant repowering, maritime fuels, data centers, and chemicals.
  
  In October 2025, the European Commission launched its first pilot auction for industrial heat decarbonization. Companies like France’s Blue Capsule are designing reactors specifically for this market.
  
  If SMRs can’t crack the industrial heat market, Net Zero is a mathematical impossibility.
  
  Why Desalination Might Be the Secret Middle East Play
  
  In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), energy security is inseparable from water security. Arab states currently account for more than 50% of global desalination capacity. Desalination is an energy hog. Traditionally, it’s been powered by oil and gas, but the GCC nations have pledged net-zero goals for 2050–2060.
  
  SMRs offer a "dual-purpose" solution: they provide baseload power for the grid and the massive amounts of heat or electricity needed for Reverse Osmosis (RO) or Multi-Effect Distillation (MED).
  
  In Jordan, an IAEA team recently evaluated studies for using SMRs to pull drinking water from the Red Sea to Amman. In Saudi Arabia, the world's largest desalinated water producer, the government is looking at nuclear as the cornerstone of its move away from an oil-based economy.
  
  The economics are starting to pencil out. Using the Desalination Economic Evaluation Program (DEEP) model, 2025 data shows that high-temperature helium-cooled reactors can produce water at an economically viable range of $0.69 to $1.04 per cubic meter.
  
  Microreactors Are the Frontier Batteries for the Arctic and the Mine
  
  While the 300 MWe reactors get the headlines, a subset of the industry is going even smaller. Microreactors (under 10 MWe) are being designed as "nuclear batteries" for the most austere environments on Earth.
  
  The U.S. Department of the Air Force is the lead customer here. In May 2025, they issued a Notice of Intent to Award a contract to Oklo, Inc. for a microreactor pilot at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.
  
  Why Alaska?
  
  Because shipping diesel to remote Arctic bases is expensive, dangerous, and a massive logistical vulnerability.
  
  The Eielson project is a 30-year PPA where the vendor owns and operates the reactor. It is "Mission Assurance" in a 50-below-zero environment. But it’s not just the military.
  
  Remote mining operations in Canada and Australia are looking at microreactors like the eVinci (Westinghouse) or the KRONOS (Nano Nuclear). For a mine that currently spends $50 million a year on diesel fuel, a microreactor that runs for 10 years without refueling isn't just a "green" choice... it’s a massive competitive advantage.
  
  Navigating the Yellowcake Landmine in Kazakhstan and Niger
  
  Now, we have to talk about the fuel. Everything we’ve discussed depends on HALEU (High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium), and right now, the supply chain is a geopolitical landmine. Kazakhstan currently supplies over 43% of the world's uranium. That is a terrifying level of concentration, especially given the civil unrest seen in the region.
  
  Then there is Africa.
  
  The 2023 military coup in Niger effectively knocked out a reliable supplier for Europe. In 2025, no production was reported from the SOMAÏR mine.
  
  The West is finally waking up. In late 2025, Urenco USA produced its first run of enriched uranium above 5% in New Mexico. Centrus Energy launched commercial enrichment activities in Ohio, targeting HALEU production to meet a $2.3 billion backlog. But new mines take 7–10 years to come online. We are currently in a "seller's market," with uranium prices hitting a range of $86 to $90 per pound in new contracts. If the fuel supply isn't diversified, the SMR revolution will be choked in its cradle.
  
  Overcoming the Duck Curve
  
  The modern grid is struggling to handle the "Duck Curve"—the massive fluctuation in supply caused by solar and wind.
  
  Traditionally, nuclear was considered "inflexible" baseload... you turned it on and left it at 100% for two years.
  
  SMRs are being designed with Load-Following capabilities.
  
  TerraPower’s Natrium reactor, for example, includes a molten salt heat storage system. This allows the reactor to run at a constant temperature while the storage system "flexes" the electrical output to the grid. When the sun is shining, the reactor stores heat. When the sun goes down, it releases it to generate power.
  
  It turns the nuclear reactor from a "firm floor" into a "flexible battery." This is the missing piece of the renewable energy transition. Without this flexibility, we are forced to keep gas-fired "peaker" plants on standby, which defeats the purpose of the carbon-free goal.
  
  Resurrecting the Rust Belt With Coal-to-Nuclear Pivots
  
  There are over 300 retired or retiring coal plant sites in the United States alone. These sites are energy goldmines. They already have the grid connections, the cooling water access, and, most importantly, a workforce that knows how to run a thermal power plant.
  
  The SMR is the only technology that can "slot" into these sites without requiring a total overhaul of the local economy.
  
  NuScale is currently working with Dairyland Power in Wisconsin to evaluate VOYGR plants for retiring coal sites. It preserves high-paying jobs in rural communities that would otherwise be hollowed out by the move away from coal. It turns a liability (a dead coal plant) into a 60-year asset.
  
  The 2030 Deadline: A Final Verdict for the Assembly Line Era
  
  We have moved past the era of "paper reactors." By the end of 2025, the industry has shifted its focus to the three pillars of success: Licensing, Supply Chain, and Offtake. The technology is no longer the main question... the factory is.
  
  The IEA’s APS scenario calls for 120 GW of SMR capacity by 2050. Under today’s policy settings, we are only on track for 40 GW. The gap between those two numbers represents the difference between a grid that works and a grid that fails.
  
  The next five years (2025–2030) will be the most important in the history of nuclear power. SMRs are not a "silver bullet," but they are the only "firm" floor that makes a clean grid physically possible. If SMR manufacturers can reach a production rate of just one unit per month, the "learning curve" will finally drive costs toward that $4,500/kW target.
  
  If they remain stuck in "bespoke project" mode, they will join the graveyard of 20th-century energy experiments.
  
  The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.
  
  Between AI’s hunger for power and the world’s desperate need for clean industrial heat, the SMR isn’t just an "option."
  
  For a carbon-free industrial civilization, it might be the only move left on the board. The atomic renaissance is here; the only question is whether the West can build it fast enough to matter.
  
  Source: Oilprice.com
- 2026-01-02
  Europe’s Auto Industry Faces an Existential Test From China’s EV Surge
  Two decades into a successful career manufacturing interiors for the world’s leading auto brands, Tomas, a former senior manager with an Italian multinational company, walked away from the car industry in the autumn of 2025. “I think it's doomed,”... Read more Two decades into a successful career manufacturing interiors for the world’s leading auto brands, Tomas, a former senior manager with an Italian multinational company, walked away from the car industry in the autumn of 2025.
  
  “I think it's doomed,” the Czech man told RFE/RL, explaining the main reason he walked away from the business. “The industry is doomed.” Tomas has asked that his surname not be used in this story.
  
  Europe’s storied car industry is under threat from a flood of high-quality Chinese vehicles with impossibly aggressive price tags -- some as low as 10,290 euros ($12,141) in specific markets -- that began arriving on the continent especially after the COVID pandemic. Experts warn the influx endangers an industry that has served as the foundation of European manufacturing for decades.
  
  Despite tariffs introduced by Brussels in 2024 of up to 35 percent on some Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) on top of a 10 percent import duty, Chinese vehicle sales into Europe nearly doubled between 2024 and 2025, with more than half a million Chinese models sold in the first nine months of this year.
  
  Chinese EV giant BYD reported a year-on-year sales increase of 225 percent to become the top-selling electric vehicle maker in the EU through some months of 2025 despite tariffs. Other manufacturers dodged the EU trade barriers on EVs by shipping combustion engine vehicles and hybrids not subject to the same duties.
  
  Beijing's car industry dates back to the 1950s, but its manufacturers have long been dogged by a reputation for poor quality and clunky style, which kept their international footprint to a minimum. That all changed recently.
  
  Before the world’s economy ground to halt in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic, Tomas said that technical professionals in the European car industry dismissed Chinese brands, saying, “they’re horrible, they can’t build. They’ll need 20, 30, 40 years to come to our level and we will be much further ahead by then.”
  
  “What happened is basically in five years, they exceeded us,” he said. “Now their cars are actually amazing.”
  
  A Perfect Storm
  
  Chinese manufacturers have long enjoyed a cost advantage for the country’s use of cheap, mostly coal-fired energy, and a labor force with minimal bargaining power, but a recent perfect storm of factors has allowed Chinese cars to be priced far below Western competitors.
  
  In response to the Kremlin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the EU banned steel imports from Russia. China, meanwhile, has massively increased its imports of high-quality metals from the country.
  
  Additionally, China’s car industry has been able to leverage unprecedented economies of scale through the past decade.
  
  The country’s car industry was already the world’s largest by 2009, but manufacturers were mostly focused on the country’s oversaturated domestic market. That changed as intense price wars within China pushed manufacturers to look outwards. In 2023, China overtook Japan to become the world’s largest car exporter, producing tens of millions of vehicles each year.
  
  Then, there are alleged subsidies.
  
  China has denied it props up automakers, but an EU investigation in 2024 found that public money was “detected across the entire supply chain,” from mines extracting raw materials to the ships hauling finished electric vehicles to Europe.
  
  The United States imposed a 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles in 2024 after their own investigation concluded that the US auto industry was being "materially injured" by some subsidized Chinese models.
  
  Paul Bennet, a managing partner at the UK-based automotive advisory firm Madox Square, told RFE/RL that the blitzkrieg entry of Chinese vehicles into the European market may be about more than business.
  
  “Overall, while the economic benefits are clear, the geopolitical aspects of this strategy shouldn't be overlooked,” he said. “In my opinion, it's likely part of China's broader efforts to reshape global economic dynamics and enhance its position on the world stage.”
  
  While some insiders say that Europe may still have opportunities to counter, time is running out. Bennet wrote in September that the future of the continent's auto industry, which employs some 13.2 million people, and supports millions more jobs in dependent businesses, now “hangs in the balance.”
  
  Hedging Against Tariffs
  
  Under current market rules, a Chinese vehicle produced inside the EU would not be subject to the same tariffs as those imported from outside the bloc. Chinese manufacturers are moving fast to exploit that condition.
  
  China’s BYD is in the process of establishing a $4.6 billion factory in Hungary, and in
  Barcelona, cars are already being produced by a joint venture between Spain’s Ebro-EV Motors and China’s Chery brand. There are ongoing talks for further manufacturing bases in other EU countries, including in Italy and Poland. Additionally, manufacturing sites have been established by Chinese auto brands in Serbia.
  
  Bennet told RFE/RL that Serbia was likely chosen for a range of factors, including Belgrade's free trade agreements with Russia and the EU, and Serbia's potential future European Union membership, making the country, "an attractive long-term investment potentially offering easier access to EU markets in the future."
  
  Many of Europe's car brands, meanwhile, are facing a shrinking consumer base for their cars in China -- once a key market -- as well as on home soil amid the surge in imported Chinese car sales in Europe.
  
  Bennet has called for carmakers to pressure the European Commission into mandating joint ventures that are majority owned by European brands wherever Chinese companies establish a manufacturing footprint inside the EU.
  
  Others have called for the EU and the United States to open their markets to one another, while blocking out China. Beijing and Brussels have also restarted negotiations over a minimum price floor for Chinese EVs on the European market to limit how severely local automakers can be undercut.
  
  Industry veteran Tomas worries that if current trends continue, Europe’s wider industrial base may be in danger. He fears “much bigger consequences than we can think of now, like the loss of industrial self-sufficiency and know-how, leading to huge security risks in the future.”
  
  The auto sector, he says, remains “the biggest industrial driver and crib for young engineers, with careers in defense, research, and development.”
  
  Tomas says he struggles to imagine a political solution to the economic threat to Europe’s auto makers.
  
  But, he adds, “I hope I am wrong, I really hope I am wrong.”
  
  Source: Oilprice.com
- 2026-01-02
  The Renewable Energy That Trump Has Not Targeted
  Geothermal is one of the few renewable energy sectors that President Donald Trump has not tried to quash in favour of fossil fuels in the United States. There is significant promise for the future of geothermal power in the United States, even though... Read more Geothermal is one of the few renewable energy sectors that President Donald Trump has not tried to quash in favour of fossil fuels in the United States. There is significant promise for the future of geothermal power in the United States, even though most projects are still in the nascent stage of development. Both public and private funding are expected to bolster the sector in the coming years.
  
  According to the European Commission, geothermal energy is a renewable energy source harnessed from the thermal energy stored in rocks and fluids deep within the Earth’s crust. Drilled wells connect the fluid to the earth’s surface, allowing it to be used for a range of purposes such as to generate electricity or provide direct heat for district heating, water heating or industrial processes.
  
  Countries with easily accessible geothermal reserves have been harvesting power from these sources for centuries. Meanwhile, countries with harder-to-reach reserves can now use enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) to access vast, clean power sources. EGS is based on technology used in fracking operations, which emerged over the last century. Unlike solar and wind that depend on the weather, geothermal power can run at all hours of the day, making it a highly attractive renewable energy source.
  
  In May, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced plans to implement emergency permitting procedures to accelerate assessments of geothermal energy projects across the country, in line with President Trump’s energy agenda. Projects selected for fast-tracking included three in Nevada, operated by Ormat, which received funding during President Trump’s first term in office in 2020. The move is expected to reduce approval times from months or even years to a maximum of just 28 days for energy or mining projects on federal lands that are deemed urgent.
  
  “Geothermal energy is a reliable energy source that can power critical infrastructure for national security and help advance energy independence,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said at the time. “We’re fast-tracking reliable energy projects while strengthening national security and supporting American workers.”
  
  In December, U.S. geothermal energy leader Fervo Energy announced it had raised $462 million in its Series E funding round to accelerate growth and support the ongoing construction of Cape Station and early development of several other projects. Cape Station in Utah is expected to deliver 100 MW of geothermal power to the grid starting in 2026, before expanding to 500 MW by 2028.
  
  “Fervo is setting the pace for the next era of clean, affordable, and reliable power in the U.S.,” said Jeff Johnson, General Partner at B Capital. “With surging demand from AI and electrification, the grid urgently needs scalable, always-on solutions, and we believe enhanced geothermal energy is uniquely positioned to deliver.”
  
  In New Haven, Connecticut, works have commenced on a geothermal energy network that will offer clean heating and cooling to the city’s Union Station and a new public housing development. It is the start of a project aimed at decarbonising all municipal buildings and transportation by the end of 2030.
  
  “At the end of the day, you’re going to have the most efficient heating and cooling system available for our historic train station as well as roughly 1,000 units of housing,” said New Haven’s executive director of climate and sustainability, Steven Winter. ?“Anything we can help do to improve health outcomes and reduce climate change–causing emissions is really valuable.”
  
  Nearby, at Yale University, development has started on a geothermal loop serving several science buildings. An energy bill that passed earlier this year and established a grant and loan programme is expected to spur the development of more thermal energy networks in the state.
  
  However, it was in Framingham, Massachusetts, where the first utility-owned geothermal network in the United States came online in June 2024. In December, the Boston-based non-profit, the Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET), announced that it had been awarded an $8.6 million grant by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Geothermal Technologies Office. The funding will contribute to the expansion of an existing networked geothermal system. HEET’s existing project provides clean heating and cooling to around 140 residential and commercial customers.
  
  “This award is an opportunity and a responsibility to clearly demonstrate and quantify the growth potential of geothermal network technology,” said HEET’s Executive Director Zeyneb Magavi, “Which we will do, together with our partners and colleagues on the project team and at GTO. This project also represents the continuation of a collaboration that began when HEET first pitched our idea of geothermal networks to gas utilities in 2017.”
  
  There are high hopes for the United States geothermal energy industry, particularly as it is continuing to garner federal support under the Trump administration. The expansion of geothermal power projects across the country are expected to support decarbonisation aims and help reduce reliance on fossil fuels in the coming years. Source: Oilprice.com

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