Saudi Arabia has cancelled plans to raise the limit on the amount of oil it aims to produce, fuelling climate campaigners’ hopes the government will accept experts’ predictions of a peak in oil demand.
The energy ministry told state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco not to go ahead with a planned increase of its production cap from 12 to 13 million barrels a day, the company announced on Tuesday.
In a brief and unexpected statement, the world’s biggest oil firm gave no reasons for the move. But some analysts speculated that the Saudi government’s faith in ever-growing oil demand may be declining.
Saudi Arabia currently produces around 9 million barrels. A million barrels is just over 1% of the world’s oil production and equivalent to that pumped out by medium-sized oil producers like Angola or the United Kingdom.
Writing on the wall?
Oil Change International campaigner Romain Ioualalen said the decision shows Saudi Arabia “is starting to realise that the world meant it when it committed to “transition away from fossil fuels” at Cop28″.
Linking it to the US decision last week to pause new gas export terminals, Ioualalen said “the era of unchecked fossil fuel expansion is over and we’re entering the era of renewable energy”.
US government pauses new gas export terminals in ‘historic win’ for climate
Peter Wood, a strategist for oil producer Shell, said on X that “the market doesn’t need more oil production capacity right now” but with oil wells coming to the end of their lives “that can change, even if oil demand [growth] slows”.
But, while climate campaigners celebrated the signal, energy geopolitics researcher Francesco Sassi said Saudi Arabia may just be trying to push up the oil price to balance its budget.
Sassi also pointed out that over the last five years, Saudi Arabia has been burning less of its oil for electricity domestically, as it ramps up gas and invests in renewables. That leaves it more to export.
Carbon Tracker analyst Guy Prince pointed out that the new cap is still three million barrels above its current level so the country still has plenty of space to increase production.
But he added that, if Saudi Arabia is serious about restraining oil production, that would be a good move for the country.
“Considering that they’re looking to diversify their economy away from fossil fuels in the long term, it doesn’t make any sense to expand their existing production capacity,” he said.
Opec vs IEA
For years, the Saudi-led Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) has clashed with the International Energy Agency (IEA) over whether oil demand will decline or not.
The IEA predicts that, over the next five years, oil demand growth is “set to lose momentum…as the energy transition gathers pace, with an overall peak looming on the horizon”.
On the other hand, Opec claims oil demand will keep growing to 2045 and perhaps beyond.
Prince said it was “hard to see” Opec’s forecast panning out when there is “such a rapid rollout of renewable technology” and the possibility of governments stepping up climate action.
The differences in predictions are most acute for road transport. The IEA says oil demand for petrol will fall by 2028 as electric vehicle sales “soar” but Opec predicts it will keep growing strongly, although it accepts there are “high levels of uncertainties” because of the rise of electric vehicles.
Despite most major developing countries having net zero plans, Opec expects the developing world to be using more oil in 2045 than they do now.
It says this growth will be led by the world’s most populous country India, where it claims oil demand will double by 2045 as more gasoline and diesel are used.
Recent reporting from the Centre for Climate Reporting revealed Saudi Arabia has been taking measures to prop up oil demand across Asia and Africa, by investing in oil-guzzling technologies.
In the run-up to Cop28, the OPEC and the IEA clashed publicly. The IEA said that the oil and gas industry faces a “moment of truth” and “must choose between fuelling the climate crisis or embracing the shift to clean energy.
The head of Opec responded with a blog post, accusing the IEA of “unjustly villif[ying] the industry as being behind the crisis”.
At Cop28, Opec warned its members that “pressure against fossil fuels may reach a tipping point with irreversible consequences”.
But after governments agreed to “transitioning away from fossil fuels in enegy systems”, the Saudi energy minister played down the decision.
Two weeks after the summit, he claimed that this was optional. This claim was labelled “incredibly misleading” by E3G analyst Tom Evans.
The post Saudi Arabia cancels plan to raise oil pumping cap appeared first on Climate Home News.
Climate Change
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.
ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.
Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.
“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”
The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]
ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]
Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”
Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.
-ENDS-
Images available in Greenpeace Media Library
Notes:
[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.
[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee
[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.
[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
The Trump administration’s relentless rollback of public health and environmental protections has allowed widespread toxic exposures to flourish, warn experts who helped implement safeguards now under assault.
In a new report that outlines a dozen high-risk pollutants given new life thanks to weakened, delayed or rescinded regulations, the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency staff, warns that the EPA under President Donald Trump has abandoned the agency’s core mission of protecting people and the environment from preventable toxic exposures.
Former EPA Staff Detail Expanding Pollution Risks Under Trump
Climate Change
Cheniere Energy Received $370 Million IRS Windfall for Using LNG as ‘Alternative’ Fuel
The country’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas benefited from what critics say is a questionable IRS interpretation of tax credits.
Cheniere Energy, the largest producer and exporter of U.S. liquefied natural gas, received $370 million from the IRS in the first quarter of 2026, a payout that shipping experts, tax specialists and a U.S. senator say the company never should have received.
Cheniere Energy Received $370 Million IRS Windfall for Using LNG as ‘Alternative’ Fuel
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