As the COP28 climate conference progresses, a draft negotiating text indicates that countries are considering calling for a formal phase-out of fossil fuels as part of the final deal to combat global warming. The draft agreement, published by the U.N. climate body, presents three options…

Freight on the biggest crude carriers has snapped higher because politics just shrank the usable fleet and scrambled China’s intake logistics. Beijing’s new port levies on “U.S.-linked” ships effectively slap an extra seven dollars per barrel on a VLCC call, roughly a fifteen-million-dollar hit per voyage, so charterers are steering clear of any hull that could trip the rule.

Even after China carved out an exemption for U.S.-owned tankers that were built in China, the eligible pool is smaller and owners of “clean” tonnage are charging up. Benchmark TD3C (Middle East–China) jumped from the low W70s a week ago to the mid-W90s, with lump-sum equivalents around $6.2 million, still rich by recent standards and not far from September’s two-year peaks when supply was tight on a burst of Middle East exports and arbitrage runs into Asia.

Prices for the minerals most often labeled “critical” look anything but. Lithium, nickel, cobalt and even copper are trading as if the energy transition were a distant rumor rather than a decade-long industrial project. That disconnect was the undertone at last week’s Bali gathering of miners, traders and policymakers: the narrative still promises a step-change in demand, yet today’s screens flash surplus, soft premia and balance sheets under strain.

Expectations point to a quadrupling of appetite for key battery inputs by 2035, with combined needs for lithium, graphite, nickel, manganese and cobalt rising from roughly three million metric tons this year to around 12 million. Copper, the metal that makes electrification physically possible, is projected to require close to a million tons of additional annual capacity by the mid-2030s to wire cars, motors, grids and renewable plants.