‘I would not forfeit the precautionary approach’ to oil production policy, Saudi energy minister says

Published

2 years ago

October 8, 2023

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Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman addresses the opening session of the Middle East and North Africa Climate Week in Riyadh, on Oct. 8, 2023.

Fayez Nureldine | Afp | Getty Images

The influential Saudi and Russia-led oil producers’ alliance is preventively prepared to wait months for guidance from “real numbers” before adjusting policies amid price volatility in the crude market, the Saudi energy minister said Sunday.

“Yes, we may be delayed with a decision on what to do, but I would not forfeit the precautionary approach, even if it goes beyond a month or two, or three or four months, or five months,” Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told CNBC’s Dan Murphy on the sidelines of the MENA Climate Week in Riyadh.

The Riyadh-headed Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their non-OPEC allies, together known as OPEC+, last October agreed and have since upheld a decision to remove 2 million barrels per day of production from the oil market. Since then, some OPEC+ members have implemented additional voluntary declines outside of group decisions, with a roughly 1.66 million-barrels-per-day cut stretching until the end of 2024, and with Saudi Arabia and Russia respectively lowering their supplies by an additional 1 million barrels per day and 300,000 barrels per day until the end of this year.

A technical OPEC+ committee, the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee, convened Oct. 4 to review market fundamentals and individual country compliance with production obligations. It concluded its assembly without calling for an emergency ministerial meeting to adjust output strategy.

Asked whether the group might need to entertain further coordinated production action to maintain market stability at the start of 2024, Prince Abdulaziz said: “We hope we should not,” but stressed, “Don’t you ever discard what OPEC+ can do for the purpose of attending to this market.”

The recent supply crunch and recoveries in demand initially propped up prices near $95 per barrel, but recently once more tumbled on macro-economic concerns spurred by a high interest rate environment. Oil prices have been a key contributor to global inflation since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, especially in Europe and G7 countries, where consumers have lost access to sanctioned Russian barrels.

Further weighing on prices, the Paris-based International Energy Watchdog last month predicted that demand for oil, gas and coal will peak by 2030 — triggering vocal objections from OPEC, whose officials have repeatedly and controversially advocated for simultaneous investment in fossil fuels and renewable supplies in order to avoid short-term energy shortages.

“We want to demonstrate to the world that we are going to be using every source of energy,” Prince Abdulaziz reiterated on Sunday, noting that the kingdom is “dead serious about attending to the issue of climate change. We’re not the naysayer. In fact, we have a conviction that the science is saying that it is there and we have to attend to it.”

The energy transition commitment of OPEC+ countries — including of group member the United Arab Emirates, which will host the COP28 conference that kicks off in late November — has been heavily criticized because of the high carbon emissions generated by the production and consumption of fossil fuels.

Conflict impact

Observers are following the market open to see which way oil futures prices turn, following two days of renewed turbulence in the Middle East, where Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a lethal and decisive attack against Israel that claimed at least 600 Israeli lives at the time of writing, according to official Israeli communications. The hostilities took place a day after the 50^th anniversary of the fourth Arab-Israeli war. Critically for crude markets, the offensive of 1973 led to a global energy crisis, resulting from an embargo of Saudi-led Arab oil producing nations — which back the Palestinian cause — against the U.S. for supporting Israel.

The latest conflict erupts at a high-stakes point in Middle Eastern diplomacy, after months of the U.S. doggedly pushing for a normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia — who earlier this year resumed relations with arch-rival Iran, historically a supporter of Hamas.

Asked on whether OPEC+ has the toolkit to address the latest Israeli-Hamas escalation, Prince Abdulaziz deferred comment to the Saudi foreign ministry, but stressed that the oil producers’ alliance “dealt with the ups and we’ve dealt with the downs” of global challenges, including the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I honestly believe that the best thing I could say is that the cohesion of OPEC+ should not be challenged. We’ve been through the worst, I don’t think we will have to go through any terrible situation at all,” he added.

Environment

US Customs delays force solar giant Qcells to furlough 1,000 workers

Published

5 hours ago

November 7, 2025

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US Customs delays force solar giant Qcells to furlough 1,000 workers

Solar panel giant Qcells announced today that it’s temporarily furloughing 1,000 US workers – 25% of its workforce – and reducing pay and shifts at its factories in northeast Georgia due to supply chain delays caused by US Customs.

Qcells furloughs 1,000 workers

The supply chain delays are hindering the company’s ability to import components to build its solar panels. This has resulted in Qcells’ two factories in Cartersville and Dalton being unable to operate at full capacity for several months.

Qcells spokeswoman Marta Stoepker shared the following statement in an exclusive with Channel 2 Action News in Atlanta:

The company says the furloughed workers, who were notified this afternoon, will retain full benefits and won’t be laid off. However, Qcells will no longer be using staffing agency employees in Georgia “at this time.”

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As Qcells introduced new supply chains to support its growing solar panel manufacturing facilities in Georgia, the company was recently forced to scale back production while our shipments into the US were delayed in the customs clearance process.

Although our supply chain operations are beginning to normalize, today we shared with our employees that HR actions must be taken to improve operational efficiency until production capacity returns to normal levels.

Stoepker said it expects to bring the furloughed workers back “in the coming weeks and months.” She continued:

Our commitment to building the entire solar supply chain in the United States remains. We will soon be back on track with the full force of our Georgia team delivering American-made energy to communities around the country.

Electrek’s Take

In January 2023, the Seoul-headquartered Qcells announced it would invest more than $2.5 billion to build a solar supply chain in Georgia – the largest-ever investment in clean energy manufacturing in the US to date. That included expanding the Dalton solar factory and building a fully integrated solar supply chain factory in Cartersville, Georgia, that will manufacture solar ingots, wafers, cells, and finished panels.

It’s not quite there yet, because that takes time. In the meantime, it’s being penalized by Customs. The US government under Trump says it’s keen on boosting domestic manufacturing. Why would it work against a company that’s onshoring an entire solar supply chain, including recycling?

Dalton and Cartersville employ nearly 4,000 people. Its total output will reach 8.4 GW of solar production capacity per year, which is equivalent to nearly 46,000 panels per day – enough to power approximately 1.3 million homes annually.

It’s ludicrous that it has been forced to furlough a quarter of its workforce due to the ineptness of the Trump administration’s US Customs policies. This is right up there with the ICE arrests at Hyundai’s plant in Georgia. Bravo.

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Environment

Toyota is yet again delaying EV battery plans

Published

6 hours ago

November 7, 2025

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Toyota is yet again delaying EV battery plans

The breakthrough EV batteries Toyota says will double driving range and cut charging times are facing another setback. The company is once again delaying plans for a new battery plant in Japan.

Why is Toyota delaying its EV battery plant this time?

Earlier this year, Toyota bought a 280,000-square-meter plot of land in Fukuoka, Japan, where it planned to build a plant to produce the more advanced EV batteries.

A location agreement was expected to be signed by April, but Toyota pushed back construction by several months, blaming slower-than-expected demand for electric vehicles.

The agreement was expected to be finalized this Fall, but that will no longer be the case. According to Nikkei, Toyota is delaying the EV battery plant for the second time. Toyota will review and adjust plans over the next year.

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Fukuoka governor, Seitaro Hattori, confirmed the news with reporters on Friday following a meeting with Toyota’s president, Koji Sato. Hattori also shut down claims that Toyota was planning to scrap the battery plant altogether.

Toyota again blamed slowing EV demand for the delay. The decision comes despite Keiji Kaita, president of Toyota’s Carbon Neutral Advanced Engineering Development Center, confirming at the Japan Mobility Show just last week that it’s “sticking on the schedule” to introduce its first solid-state battery-powered EV by 2028.

Last month, Toyota said it aimed to “achieve the world’s first practical use of all-solid-state batteries in BEVs” after securing a partnership with Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. to mass-produce them. It’s also working with Japanese oil giant Idemitsu.

Toyota-solid-state-battery-EV — Idemitsu’s value chain for solid electrolytes used in all-solid-state EV batteries (Source: Idemitsu)

The company recently revealed a solid-state battery pack prototype that it claims can deliver 747 miles (1,200 km) range and 10-minute fast charging, but will we ever see it actually in production?

Electrek’s Take

Toyota has been making empty promises about EV batteries for almost a decade now. It initially planned to introduce solid-state EV batteries in 2020, then pushed it to 2023, then 2026, and now it’s saying it will be around 2028.

Mass production is likely closer to the end of the decade, if Toyota doesn’t delay it again. While it’s blaming the slowing demand, global EV sales are still on the rise. According to Rho Motion, global EV sales topped 2 million for the first time in a single month in September 2025. Through the first nine months of the year, EV sales are up 26% compared to the same period in 2024.

Even with the US ending the $7,500 federal tax credit and other policies designed to promote electric vehicles, global adoption will continue building momentum over the next few years.

Is it a demand issue, or is Toyota just looking for another excuse? With rivals like Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, BMW, and Honda advancing next-gen EV batteries, Toyota will only fall further behind if it continues delaying key projects.

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Environment

Podcast: Tesla is now Elon’s, Xpeng goes AI, Rivian earnings, and more

Published

7 hours ago

November 7, 2025

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Podcast: Tesla is now Elon's, Xpeng goes AI, Rivian earnings, and more

In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss how Tesla is now Elon’s after the shareholders’ meeting, Xpeng going all-in on AI, Rivian’s earnings, and more.

The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.

As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

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Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET:

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