BP has reported its biggest quarterly profit since the Covid pandemic began, and will hand investors a $500m (£360m) cash windfall, as the global oil markets recover from the crisis. The oil company reported a profit of $3.3bn for the first quarter, up sharply from a loss of $628m in the same period last year when oil prices began to slide in line with China’s economic slowdown.

The industry group representing oil and gas companies including Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp said on Thursday it supports a carbon price as one measure to mitigate climate change risk.

The world’s biggest 60 banks have provided $3.8tn of financing for fossil fuel companies since the Paris climate deal in 2015, according to a report by a coalition of NGOs. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic cutting energy use, overall funding remains on an upward trend and the finance provided in 2020 was higher than in 2016 or 2017, a fact the report’s authors and others described as “shocking”.

Saudi Aramco had a rough 2020, just like every other oil company. But Aramco isn't any ordinary oil company -- it's the world's biggest, and the pandemic's toll on its business had a decidedly adverse effect on the Saudi-owned business.

The oil industry knew at least 50 years ago that air pollution from burning fossil fuels posed serious risks to human health, only to spend decades aggressively lobbying against clean air regulations, a trove of internal documents seen by the Guardian reveal.

Oil rose to $69 a barrel on Tuesday as investors focused on prospects for tighter supply due to extended OPEC+ output curbs and amid growing hopes of a recovery in demand. Brent crude was up 78 cents, or 1.1%, at $69.02 by 1014 GMT, after trading as low as $67.61. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude added 41 cents to $65.46.

Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) said its oil production and carbon emissions have peaked as it detailed plans to gradually wean itself off fossil fuels. Climate activists said it hadn't gone far enough.

A court in The Hague will hear claims that Royal Dutch Shell has broken Dutch law by knowingly hampering the global phase-out of fossil fuels, in a case that could force the company to reduce its CO2 emissions.

After decades spent extracting fossil fuels from the UK’s North Sea, a consortium of oil companies is preparing to pump Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions back beneath the seabed to help meet the government’s climate ambitions. BP has set out plans to lead an alliance of energy companies in siphoning off the carbon dioxide from factory flues under new plans in which almost half the UK’s industrial emissions will be stored beneath the North Sea from 2026.

Earlier this year, oil giants BP and Royal Dutch Shell assessed the climate lobbying done by trade associations they have been involved with, and publicly quit a handful of high-profile industry groups campaigning to undermine regulations to reduce greenhouse gases. The effort was part of a vow to increase corporate transparency and bring planet-heating emissions to net zero over the next few decades.

Demand for oil may have peaked last year, according to BP, which says the global market for crude might never recover from the coronavirus pandemic. In a new report published on Monday, the company lays out three scenarios for energy demand, all of which forecast a decline in demand for oil over the next 30 years. The scale and pace of the decline will be driven by the increasing efficiency and electrification of road transportation, BP (BP) said.

Laura Leebrick, a manager at Rogue Disposal & Recycling in southern Oregon, is standing on the end of its landfill watching an avalanche of plastic trash pour out of a semitrailer: containers, bags, packaging, strawberry containers, yogurt cups.

Later this year, the Trump administration is expected to fulfill a decadeslong Republican dream. The Department of the Interior will likely sell the first leases for oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opening up to development the last remaining stretch of protected land along the North Slope.

The value of Saudi Arabia’s oil exports plunged by 21.9% year on year in the first quarter to $40 billion, corresponding to a decline of about $11 billion, official data showed on Sunday. Brent crude prices fell more than 60% in the quarter hurt by the coronavirus pandemic and an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia following the collapse in March of talks on further production cuts.

Anticipation that OPEC and allied countries will extend record production cuts through July is sending oil prices higher, with Brent crude futures, the global benchmark, rising above $41 per barrel for the first time since early March. The latest: OPEC will meet on Saturday to discuss extending output cuts by one month, two OPEC sources confirmed to CNN Business.

US fossil fuel companies have taken at least $50m in taxpayer money they probably won’t have to pay back, according to a review of coronavirus aid meant for struggling small businesses by the investigative research group Documented and the Guardian. A total of $28m is going to three coal mining companies, all with ties to Trump officials, bolstering a dying American industry and a fuel that scientists insist world leaders must shift away from to avoid the worst of the climate crisis.

The pandemic-induced global financial meltdown has rocked the fossil fuel industry, leaving American drilling and fracking companies begging for bailouts. Then things slid from crisis to catastrophe as crude prices temporarily plunged into negative territory, leading President Donald Trump to tweet this week that he would "never let the great U.S. Oil & Gas Industry down," signaling his renewed push to use taxpayers' money to throw fossil fuels a federal lifeline.

As the pandemic has shut down much of the global economy—at the same time as a price war on oil—oil prices have cratered. In the U.S., crude oil prices went negative for the first time in history on Monday. Whiting Petroleum, a large shale oil company, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, and hundreds of other oil companies are also now at risk of bankruptcy. Natural gas prices are also falling. At a time when the world needs to transition from fossil fuels to avoid the even bigger catastrophe of climate change, what does the state of the industry mean for the climate?

The front-month WTI crude contract crashed by 37 percent early on Monday as the May contract expires on Tuesday and the market fears there is not much storage left in the United States amid collapsing demand in the coronavirus pandemic. At 8:54 a.m. EDT on Monday, the front-month WTI Crude price was plummeting by 37.22 percent at $11.47. The Brent Crude front-month contract was also under pressure, trading down 6.02 percent at $26.39.

OPEC and allies led by Russia agreed on Sunday to a record cut in output to prop up oil prices amid the coronavirus pandemic in an unprecedented deal with fellow oil nations, including the United States, that could curb global oil supply by 20%.