OPEC+ has just rewired the way it thinks about production quotas, and beneath the technical jargon sits something quite consequential: a built-in incentive system for members to spend heavily on new upstream capacity, especially those who can produce oil cheaply. If it works as intended, this changes the medium-term supply picture and blunts fears of an oil shortage later in the decade. It also tilts the internal balance of power further toward Gulf producers.

The core of the reform is the introduction of a formal Maximum Sustainable Capacity, or MSC, as the anchor for future quotas. Between January and September, an external auditor will go through each member’s fields and infrastructure to determine how much crude it can realistically bring onstream within 90 days and sustain for a year.

Malaysia and Singapore have reached an agreement to jointly develop a special economic zone (SEZ) in the southern Malaysian state of Johor. The SEZ is designed to attract investments and facilitate the smoother movement of goods and people between the two Southeast Asian neighbors…

The chairman of Ganfeng Lithium, a major Chinese supplier of lithium, believes that China’s lithium industry would benefit from a stabilization of lithium prices, as the battery metal is poised for a long-term uptrend. According to Chairman Li Liangbin, lithium demand from producers of power…