May 2026 – Week 2

By Anders Lorenzen

As part of an expanded focus on real-time coverage, this live blog tracks developments across global energy markets, including electricity prices, oil and gas benchmarks, and renewable generation trends.

It is updated throughout the week with the most significant developments around energy and related markets with a sustainability lens.

Last week’s live blog can be found here.

This blog has now closed, but this week’s live blog is live and can be found here.

Latest

Friday 15th of May 2026

15:15 GMT

Wind power: The renewable energy trade body, RenewableUK, has commented on the wind power announcement by the UK government, with its CEO, Tara Singh, saying:

This is a milestone moment for the development of offshore wind in the UK. These projects will provide up to 4 gigawatts of new offshore wind capacity, equivalent to a quarter of the UK’s entire current offshore wind fleet. That’s enough to power over four million homes a year.

Earlier updates

15:10 GMT

Wind power: UK’s Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, has given the green light to three major UK offshore wind farms, which combined totals and unprecedented up to four GW of new wind power capacity. 

Two of the offshore wind projects are extensions to the already existing Dogger Bank offshore wind farm, Dogger Bank South East and Dogger Bank South West – each projected to add 1.5 GW of new capacity and developed by RWE and Masdar. The third one, North Falls, is expected to add in the region of 1 GW and is being developed by RWE and SSE Renewables.

11:00 GMT

Geopolitics: In a visit to China and discussions with the country’s president Xi Jinping, Trump and his counterpart released a joint statement calling for the Strait of Hormuz to be opened.

10:55 GMT

Oil price: Oil futures have jumped on Friday morning as the Asian and European markets opened, as Trump said he is losing patience with Iran and they should just agree to a deal.

Both Brent Crude and WTI are up by around 4%.

Thursday 14th of May 2026

17:20 GMT

Oil supply: Cuba has warned that it is in an acute energy crisis, as the poverty-stricken Caribbean country has effectively run out of oil and diesel.

The Trump Administration’s seizure and control of Venezuela‘s oil industry in January, which had been supplying Cuba with heavily discounted crude oil, has stopped oil flowing there, and the US has imposed tariffs on any country who export crude oil to the country, and as a result has the country in an iron grip.

11:15 GMT

Natural gas markets: Our latest tracked data show that the world’s main natural gas benchmarks have risen for a consecutive fifth week, with the Asian market, JKM, remaining the most expensive benchmark, followed by the UK, Europe, US and Canada.

The data as of the 4th of May shows a tightening LNG market with a widening gap between North America and Asia, with JKM as the most expensive priced at $80.20/MWh and Canada’s AECO’s cheapest at $5.80/MWh.

You can view how the global gas benchmarks have developed since the beginning of the energy crisis on our data dashboard below:

Wednesday 13th of May 2026

15:35 GMT

Natural gas: Fuelled by the energy crisis, the EU’s import of Russian gas has hit its highest level since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is despite its core strategy to fully cut Russian gas imports by 2027.

15:25 GMT

Energy wars: Ukraine have claimed that they have yet again been successful in targeting Russian energy infrastructure.

The country’s military says they have hit a Russian oil terminal, ‌a refinery and a gas processing plant

11:05 GMT

Oil supply: The IEA report’s latest estimate is that the world’s oil supply declines by 3.9/mbpd in 2026, on the assumption that the oil flows from the critical oil trade passage for almost 20% of the world’s oil trade, the Strait of Hormuz, will gradually resume from June. This is more than double the 2026 decline in its previous forecast at 1.5 mbpd.

10:50 GMT

Oil demand and supply: A new IEA report warns that oil demand is likely to outstrip supply for the remainder of 2026, meaning the oil futures benchmarks are likely to remain high and volatile.

The latest analysis from the Paris-based agency estimates total global crude oil supply to be around 1.78 million bpd lower than demand through 2026.

10:45 GMT

Politics: EU ministers are reportedly, according to Reuters, considering taxing energy companies that are linked to war profits.

Tuesday 12th of May 2026

15:20 GMT

Oil supply: One of the largest oil and gas producers in the world, Russia, has revised down its oil production and exports for 2026-2029, internal documents seen by Reuters show.

15:15 GMT

Oil supply: As a consequence of the ongoing disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, in the first quarter of 2026, compared to the same period in 2025, China doubled the amount of crude oil they import from Brazil.

Monday 11th of May 2026

17:50 GMT

Renewable energy capacity: Renewable energy and battery hybrid systems are predicted to surge nearly fivefold by 2035 from six gigawatts (GW) in 2025 to 35 GW in 2035, a report by Aurora Energy Research released today says.

17:45 GMT

Oil supply: A survey from Reuters has found that OPEC oil supply has hit a new low in April.

11:10 GMT

Coal demand: Data released by the analytics platform Kpler shows that as the energy crisis starts to bite harder, coal demand and coal imports are increasing, with many countries rethinking their easing on coal reliance.

11:00 GMT

Oil price: After several days with little movement on oil futures, they have jumped on Monday morning as the Asian and European markets opened.

Both Brent Crude and WTI are up around 2% compared to the end of Friday trading. The lack of progress on peace negotiations between the US and Iran, with Trump having rejected Iran’s latest peace proposal as “Totally unacceptable”.

Saturday 9th of May 2026

23:10 GMT

Oil spill: Satellite images on Friday detected an oil spill in the Iranian waters near the critical oil port terminal Kharg Island.

09:20 GMT

Shipping: The world’s largest shipping company, Denmark’s Maersk, yesterday offered a different perspective that the disruption to the Strait of Hormuz is not the key constraint, and the opening of it may not change that much.

The Danish shipping giant argued that cargo traffic is down due to the high oil price and the resulting drastic rise in fuel prices.

The Maersk comments came as the company announced disappointing Q1 earnings with net profit for January to March falling to $100m, which is around 12 times lower than a year earlier.

Friday 8th of May 2026

14:10 GMT

Company updates: The global oil and gas giant, Shell Plc, is the latest oil major to report larger-than-expected profit earnings.

In the first quarter of 2026, the company at $6.9 billion, reached its highest first-quarter profit figures for two years, which has prompted it to increase shareholder dividends to 5%.

14:00 GMT

Jet fuel: In April global jet fuel exports hit a ten-year, seasonal low.

09:50 GMT

Electricity generation: Analysis conducted by Carbon Brief shows that due to strong renewable energy generation in the UK, the country has avoided the need for gas imports worth £1.7bn since the start of the Iran war.

Wind and solar have generated a record 21 terawatt hours (TWh) on the island of Great Britain since the end of February 2026, when the US and Israel first attacked Iran.