Chevron CEO sees continued ‘choppy economic and price activity’
Chevron said on Monday it would buy oil and gas producer Noble Energy Inc for about $5 billion in stock, the first big energy deal since the coronavirus crisis started
The chief executive of U.S. oil giant Chevron Corp on Monday said the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic has it planning for “choppy” oil prices and economic activity globally.
Chevron said on Monday it would buy oil and gas producer Noble Energy Inc for about $5 billion in stock, the first big energy deal since the coronavirus crisis started.
“The crystal ball is cloudy right now,” Mike Wirth said in an interview. “There’s so much uncertainty on the trajectory of the pandemic, the rate of development of effective vaccines and government policy interventions to try to manage risk between here and there. It’s a fluid environment. We expect choppy economic and price activity.”
But Chevron expects long-term demand growth for natural gas from population growth and needs to lower greenhouse gas emissions, Wirth said.
The EU invests over €2 billion in 140 sustainable mobility projects
The EU is supporting the economic recovery in all of its Member States by injecting almost €2.2 billion into 140 key transport projects. These projects will help build missing transport links across the continent, support sustainable transport and create jobs. The projects will receive funding through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the EU’s grant scheme supporting transport infrastructure.
With this budget, the EU will deliver on its climate objectives, in line with the European Green Deal. A very strong emphasis is put on projects reinforcing railways, including cross-border links and connections to ports and airports. Inland waterway transport is boosted through more capacity and better multimodal connections to the road and rail networks. In the maritime sector, priority is given to short-sea-shipping projects based on alternative fuels and the installation of on-shore power supply for ports to cut emissions from docked ships.
The aid will support the shift to greener fuels for transport (19 projects) with almost €142 million. A number of projects involve converting vessels so they may run on LNG, as well as installing corresponding infrastructure in ports. Road transport will also see the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure, namely through the installation of 17,275 refueling points on the road network and the deployment of 355 new buses.
“The €2.2 billion EU contribution to this crucial transport infrastructure will help kick-start the recovery, and we expect it to generate €5 billion in investments. The type of projects we invest in ranges from inland waterways transport to multimodal connections, alternative fuels to massive railroad infrastructure. The Connecting Europe Facility is one of our key instruments in creating a crisis-proof and resilient transport system – vital now and in the long run,” said EU Commissioner for Transport Adina-Ioana Vălean.
“Thanks to a scrupulous management of the CEF Transport Program by INEA we were able to optimize the administration of EU funds and inject over two billion Euro into the real economy via this call for proposals. EU support comes at a key moment for many of the selected projects as the economies of virtually all EU Member States are hit hard by the COVID-19 induced economic slowdown,” added the Director of the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), Dirk Beckers.
