Continuing North Sea oil and gas extraction will cost the UK more than building a fully decarbonised electricity grid, according to new analysis comparing long-term offshore drilling expenditure with system-wide renewables and grid upgrade investment. RenewableUK chief executive Dan McGrail nonetheless calls for a balanced approach, arguing that offshore wind, grid-scale storage and interconnectors must grow alongside a managed decline in North Sea production. For civil and grid engineers, the findings point to major capital reallocation towards transmission reinforcement, subsea cabling and flexible generation assets rather than new offshore hydrocarbon infrastructure.

Santos has launched the first stage of a “first-of-its-kind” agreement in the Cooper Basin that gives Traditional Owners formal responsibility to manage Country across its oil and gas tenements. The program establishes a Traditional Owner–led land management framework alongside Santos’ existing exploration and production activities, rather than relying solely on company-run heritage surveys. For mining and energy operators, this signals a shift towards co-designed access, monitoring and rehabilitation regimes that may materially affect project approvals, fieldwork scheduling and long-term closure planning in similar onshore basins.

US officials have delayed finalising a proposed $1.5 billion PEPFAR-linked health aid package for Zambia while pushing for broader economic cooperation that includes copper and cobalt mining in the Central African Copperbelt. The move comes as Washington seeks to secure strategic minerals for electric vehicles, grid infrastructure and battery technologies amid intensifying competition with China. Critics, including Representative Gregory Meeks, warn that conditioning HIV and infectious disease funding on opaque mining-related deals risks politicising global health programmes and reshaping how resource agreements are negotiated in Africa.