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US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will be in Riyadh this week and will also touch down in the UAE in what US officials say is her first official trip to the region. Granholm will touch down first on Tuesday in the UAE, where she’ll attend a meeting of the Net-Zero Producers Forum before heading to Riyadh. Her trip is scheduled wrap up on Thursday.
Why it matters: Granholm’s department runs point on civilian uses of nuclear energy in the US, overseeing everything from safety to research. Washington and Riyadh are believed to be negotiating a series of pacts covering defense, artificial intelligence and advanced technologies, and the development of a Saudi nuclear power industry as part of a wider arrangement that could see Saudi normalize ties with Israel.
Also on the agenda: “Climate cooperation” and energy diversification are expected to get top billing.
Not on the agenda: A discussion of oil policy, Reuters reports. Bloomberg also has the story.
What’s the Net-Zero Producers Forum? Launched in 2021, it’s part of a bid to boost cooperation between some of the biggest global oil producers on methane abatement, carbon capture, and use and storage technologies. Saudi is one of the five founders of the NPF including the US, Canada, Norway, and Qatar. The UAE joined the group in 2022. NPF members account for 45% of global oil production and 40% of natural gas production, according to the US Energy Department website.
OIL WATCH-
The International Energy Agency is advising Opec+ against doing anything that would drive up oil prices when the alliance of producers next meets on 1 June meeting in Vienna, Bloomberg reports citing remarks by Fatih Birol, the agency’s executive director.
The concern: Higher oil prices are likely to drive up inflation.
What Biral said: “It’s up to them to decide what they’re going to do, but in this very fragile situation of the global economy, the least that the countries, especially oil-importing developing countries, would need is high oil prices, which in turn would push the inflation numbers up.”
The expectation: Pundits surveyed by the business information service see the oil cartel extending oil output cuts through the end of the year in their next meeting.
