The latest bout of political turmoil in Britain, which is set to bring the country its seventh prime minister in a decade, comes as energy security has moved to the forefront following the Gulf conflict, offering the incoming leader a chance to rethink the country’s North Sea oil and gas strategy.

Andy Burnham, poised to succeed Keir Starmer following his resignation, faces the central challenge of balancing the country’s long-term climate ambitions against the urgent need to tackle the high energy bills that have burdened households and businesses, a balance that the conflict has made more difficult and more pressing.

China’s independent oil refiners have slashed their operating rates to a nine-year low, highlighting the lingering impact of the Gulf conflict on the leading importer of Iranian crude and the broader transformation of Chinese oil demand that the conflict has accelerated.

Run rates at the so-called teapot refiners fell to 50.5 percent in the week to June 21, dropping below even the pandemic-era lows to the weakest level since 2017, as high feedstock costs, weak domestic fuel demand, and curbs on product exports squeezed the processors’ margins and prompted them to scale back.

The European Union’s regime for monitoring public finances has passed a significant test, with the European Commission’s decision to grant indebted governments like Italy a bit more budget room for energy-saving measures meeting a sanguine response from investors and sovereign analysts rather than the alarm that such flexibility might have provoked.

The episode, in which the EU allowed limited fiscal leeway under a category originally intended for defense to accommodate the energy crisis the Gulf conflict produced, illustrates the balance the bloc is striking between fiscal discipline and pragmatic flexibility in responding to the economic shock.

The United States, Qatar, and other natural gas exporters are urging the European Union to ease some of its pending methane emissions rules, warning that the regulations could threaten the bloc’s energy security at a moment when Europe is under pressure to lower its high energy prices and boost gas imports against the backdrop of the Gulf conflict.

The letter to European leaders, also signed by Nigeria and Algeria, requests a pragmatic approach to clarifying the rules and adopting changes that would allow importers to continue supplying the oil and gas that the EU requires, illustrating the tension between the bloc’s climate objectives and the energy security imperatives that the conflict has intensified.

Key indicators in the North Sea crude market are showing signs of weakness as a wave of Middle Eastern oil heads to Europe, fueling concerns about a supply glut following the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

The deterioration in the benchmark crude grades, with Forties trading at a two-year low and WTI Midland falling to a three-month low, signals the market’s growing anticipation of the oversupply that the recovery of Middle Eastern exports and the broader supply abundance could produce, a striking reversal from the scarcity concerns that dominated the conflict.

European battery storage installations are set to accelerate sharply by the end of the decade, driven by larger utility-scale projects, though deployment in the European Union remains too slow to meet the bloc’s energy goals, according to SolarPower Europe.

The projection that new annual installations will reach 138 gigawatt hours by 2030, up substantially from current levels, reflects the growing role of battery storage in the European energy transition, even as the industry group warns that the pace falls short of what the bloc’s security, competitiveness, and climate objectives require.

The US Department of Energy has announced 17.5 billion dollars in conditional loans to help utilities and energy companies purchase the parts needed to strengthen the domestic commercial nuclear supply chain, a significant intervention aimed at reviving an industry that has struggled to attract investment and at meeting the surging electricity demand that the AI data center buildout is generating.

The loans, intended to help the United States achieve its goal of having ten new large-scale nuclear reactors under construction by 2030 and potentially accelerating that timeline by three years, reflect the convergence of the energy security imperative, the AI power demand, and the nuclear revival that the current moment has produced.

China’s coal-fired power generation is set to rebound this year from its first decline in a decade, driven by the combined effects of El Niño, the Gulf conflict, and the failure of renewable energy to keep pace with surging demand, illustrating the persistent challenge that China faces in decarbonizing its power sector even as it leads the world in renewable deployment.

The world’s biggest power consumer increased its thermal power usage by 3.4 percent year-on-year in the first five months, and analysts expect coal-fired power to rebound by between 1.5 and 3 percent in 2026, reversing the historic decline that the renewable buildout had produced the previous year.