22 May As Reported Energy Price, news updates and expert commentary 22/05/26
(Oilandgaspress) A world with uncontrolled climate change would create a cost of living crisis that makes today look like a walk in the park. One study shows that the global economy could take a $38 trillion hit per year by 2050 unless addressed, while another finds that incomes could be up to 40 per cent lower by 2100 than they would be in a world without climate change.
There are two fields in the North Sea which have already been approved for extraction, but that was blocked from last year by a Scottish Court. The judgement argued that the consents had been granted without a full assessment of their climate impacts.
The first of these, Jackdaw, is a gas field some 150 miles east of Aberdeen that is owned by Shell. The second, Rosebank, is an oil and gas field north-west of Shetland that is joint-owned by Shell and Norwegian state oil giant Equinor. Shell has, in recent days, been publicly calling on the government to sign them off.
Ed Miliband is soon due to make a decision on whether to approve these fields for production, with members of his party, including Rachel Reeves, indicating that they would support such a move. Their approval would also not contradict Labour’s election manifesto, which stated that while they would not issue new drilling licenses, they would honour those that already existed.
At the same time, research has shown that the fields would make almost no difference to the UK’s reliance on gas imports, with Jackdaw and Rosebank displacing only around two per cent and one per cent of annual imported UK gas demand respectively. Related News
| Oil and Gas Blends | Units | Oil Price | Notes |
| Crude Oil (WTI) Oilprice | US$/bbl | $98.62 | |
| Crude Oil (Brent) | US$/bbl | $105.60 | |
| Bonny Light 20/05/26 CBN | US$/bbl | $116.92 | |
| Dubai | US$/bbl | $103.31 | |
| Natural Gas | US$/MMBtu | $3.00 | |
| Murban | US$/bbl | $102.20 | |
| OPEC basket 21/05/26 OPEC | US$/bbl | $113.44 | |
| At press time May 21, 2026 |
Oil markets will enter the “red zone” by July and August as stocks dwindle before the summer travel season amid a shortage of fresh oil exports from the Middle East, the executive director of the International Energy Agency warned on Thursday.
Fatih Birol added that the most important solution to the Iran war energy shock was a full and unconditional reopening of the strait of Hormuz. Related News
The German statistical office just confirmed that the economy grew by 0.3% quarter-on-quarter in the first three months of the year, defying the adverse impact of the war in the Middle East, at least for now. According to the statistical office, growth was driven by public consumption and exports. At the same time, private investments and activity in the construction sector disappointed. Private consumption remained unchanged on the quarter.
Inventory reductions weighed significantly on economic activity, shaving off 0.9 percentage points of quarterly GDP growth. Net exports – very often the counterbalance to inventory changes – added 1.3 percentage points to quarterly GDP growth. These big swings normally call for some caution.
Looking ahead, the growth composition combined with the obvious fallout from the war in the Middle East, new uncertainty and higher energy prices, does not bode well for the near-term outlook. It’s hard to see how net exports will be able to repeat the strong first-quarter performance. At the same time, anticipating potential supply chain frictions, companies are likely to hold on to higher inventory levels. With high energy prices, private consumption is also highly unlikely to recover, and higher interest rates will hamper activity in the construction sector. This leaves the public sector as the only possible source of growth in the second quarter. Not a very promising outlook. Related News
Markets are still searching for signs of progress in a potential deal between the US and Iran. While there are signs of optimism, uncertainty reigns. This is not the first time a deal seemed close, only for negotiations to break down. So, there’s a large segment of the market that will be more sceptical about the positive signals we are seeing. While Iran said that the gap between demands has narrowed, there’s still the issue of its uranium enrichment — as well as the uranium stockpile it is sitting on.
The US wants this stockpile transferred out of the country. The other issue is the management of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is pushing for a formal toll system through the strait, a move that will face considerable pushback. Its implementation would set a risky precedent for the free flow of vessels through key chokepoints globally. Uncertainty over a potential deal is reflected in oil prices, with the market being whipsawed by headlines. However, ICE Brent still managed to settle 2.3% lower yesterday and below $103/bbl, its lowest close since early May. Related News
The war in the Middle East has been going on for almost three months and disruptions to oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz have pushed prices sharply higher. While oil traded at around USD 70 per barrel at the end of February, prices have averaged roughly USD 110 since early March.
The oil price shock has quickly filtered through to households. Filling up has become noticeably more expensive across the eurozone, albeit to very different degrees. Compared with the week before the joint US‑Israeli strike on Iran, the price of a 50-litre tank of unleaded petrol has risen by an average of between €5.00 in Spain and €13.50 in Germany. For diesel, the average increase has been even steeper, ranging from €15.65 in Italy to €23.00 in the Netherlands. Related News
British finance minister Rachel Reeves reportedly stated that the UK government would accelerate planned changes to the taxation of oil and gas company profits channelled through foreign branches, reforms expected to raise hundreds of millions of pounds per year.
“Currently, some oil and gas groups that operate overseas through foreign branches have structured their tax affairs in a way which ensures they pay little or no corporation tax on their UK energy trading profits,” Reeves told parliament.
“Today we’re putting an end to that practice,” she said. Related News
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