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Oil prices held near this year’s highs on Monday as easing COVID restrictions in China raised expectations for a demand recovery in the world’s top crude importer. Brent crude fell 38 cents, or 0.45 per cent, to $84.90 a barrel by 1012 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was down 26 cents, or 0.33 per cent, at $79.60 a barrel, amid thin trade during Monday’s U.S. public holiday. Both contracts rose more than 8 per cent last week, the biggest weekly gains since October after China abandoned what remained of its zero-COVID policy by reopening its borders on Jan. 8. China’s crude imports rose 4 per cent year on year in December, while an expected resurgence in travel for the Lunar New Year holiday at the end of the week raised the outlook for demand for fuels used in transport. Traffic levels in China are rebounding from record lows after the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, resulting in stronger demand for crude and oil products, ANZ analysts said in a note. But new reports o...

Climate activists block the airport near St Gallen, Altenrhein, Switzerland, on Jan. 16. DEBT FOR CLIMATE SWITZERLAND/Reuters Big oil firms came under pressure at the start of the World Economic Forum (WEF) from activists who accused them of hijacking the climate debate, while a Greta Thunberg-sponsored “cease and desist” campaign gained support on social media. Major energy firms including BP, Chevron and Saudi Aramco are among the 1,500 business leaders gathering for the annual meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos, where global threats including climate change are on the agenda. “We are demanding concrete and real climate action,” said Nicolas Siegrist, the 26-year-old organizer of the protest who also heads the Young Socialists party in Switzerland. The annual meeting of global business and political leaders opens in Davos on Monday. “They will be in the same room with state leaders and they will push for their interests,” Siegrist said of the involvement of energy companies durin...

The logo of the World Economic Forum in the Alpine resort of Davos, Switzerland, on May 25, 2022. ARND WIEGMANN/Reuters Don Tapscott is an author, executive chair of the Blockchain Research Institute , adjunct professor at INSEAD and a member of the Order of Canada. He formerly led the Global Solution Networks research initiative exploring new methods of global co-operation, problem solving and governance. For years, critics have viewed the annual Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum as a cabal of the rich and powerful, conspiring to bend the world to corporate interests. Today, the political right leads the criticism, spinning up conspiracy theories on how the global elites seek to run the world. Plots range from forced vaccinations and mandatory ID cards, to radical limits on property rights and wealth ownership, to chips implanted in people’s brains. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has aligned himself with the some of these theorists – saying he opposes the WEF’s “socia...

A different type of energy transition has taken place at this year’s World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting. Unlike 2021′s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, where oil and gas executives were personae non gratae, fossil fuel chiefs and renewable energy bosses sat cheek by jowl in Davos. Activists like Greta Thunberg don’t like it. But some in the solar, wind and hydro industry are warming to the carbon crowd. Tejpreet Chopra, who heads one of India’s clean energy firms Bharat Light and Power, was surprised to be invited to a side-event with more than 60 top oil and gas executives. “The course of this transition will have to take a more inclusive approach until we all get to the finish line of where we all want to be,” he told Reuters. This shift, partly triggered by the energy crunch after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has been front and centre in Davos, where United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres dedicated his speech to it. As soaring prices drove up inflation, forced indu...