Today’s Key Takeaways: Returning the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to its intended purpose. Faster Alaska deliveries for excavators and loaders. Fossil fuel financing on the rise.
OIL:
Trump to open over 80% of Alaskan reserve to oil leasing
Ian M. Stevenson, E & E News, June 18, 2025 (subscription required)
The Trump administration advanced a plan Tuesday to allow oil drilling in large swaths of a federal reserve in northern Alaska, reversing Biden-era policies that limited exploration.
The Interior Department released a draft analysis Tuesday that proposes to open up 82 percent of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska for oil and gas leasing. The 23-million-acre area on Alaska’s North Slope has substantial oil resources and is also a critical habitat for a range of wildlife, from polar bears and caribou to walruses and migratory birds.
“This plan is about creating more jobs for Americans, reducing our dependence on foreign oil and tapping into the immense energy resources the National Petroleum Reserve was created to deliver,” Adam Suess, the acting assistant secretary for land and minerals management, said Tuesday in a news release.
MINING:
Alaska mining and construction industries to benefit from faster delivery of excavators and loaders.
Shane Lasley, North of 60 Mining News, June 17, 2025
To better serve its North American customers, Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) is expanding heavy equipment production at its factory in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania.
As part of a larger $261 million strategic investment in expanding production capacity to meet customer demands in South Korea, Sweden, and North America, Volvo CE is adding the capacity to build excavators and large wheel loaders at the Shippensburg plant, which currently manufactures compactors and mid-size wheel loaders.
“This increase in production capacity means that over 50% of our North American machine supply can be built here in Shippensburg, resulting in shorter lead times while also creating opportunities for supplier growth,” said Scott Young, head of Region North America at Volvo CE.
Alongside the expansion, the Swedish equipment manufacturer will be modernizing the Pennsylvania factory. These upgrades include the installation of new assembly lines, integration of automation, and training workers to prepare them for the expanded production.
Volvo CE President Melker Jernberg said the expansion and upgrades provide the company with the capacity and flexibility to meet customer demands in a rapidly evolving market.
“We must respond to growing demand, and we’re excited to expand our facilities to serve our customers better,” said Jernberg. “This investment underscores our commitment to quality and innovation, allowing us to deliver even greater value.”
While Volvo CE did not directly cite tariffs among its reasons for adding excavator and large loader building capacity in the U.S., the company said the Shippensburg factory expansion will allow it “to more nimbly manage any economic or regulatory challenges.”
Jernberg added that fostering collaboration with local suppliers and customers will better position the company for sustained growth and innovation without compromising the high standards that Volvo CE equipment is known for.
Faster Alaska deliveries
For Alaska construction and mining companies, the added capacity to build medium and large excavators and four models of large loaders in Pennsylvania means quicker deliveries of Volvo equipment.
Construction Machinery Industrial (CMI), the dealer of Volvo equipment in Alaska, says the quicker turnaround time on equipment orders is especially advantageous in America’s Last Frontier State, where logistics are often challenging and the construction and placer mining season is short.
“Shorter lead times will help contractors and operators keep projects on schedule, particularly during the tight seasonal work windows unique to the state,” CMI penned in a statement announcing the expanded production.
Volvo CE plans to have the Shippensburg factory expanded, upgraded, and ready to build U.S.-made excavators and loaders early next year.
POLITICS:
Banks Boost Fossil Fuel Financing for The First Time since 2021
Tsvetana Paraskova, OilPrice.Com, June 17m 2025
The world’s biggest banks raised their combined financing for fossil fuels by more than one-fifth last year, bucking a falling trend since 2021 amid a backlash against net-zero policies, especially in the United States.
The world’s top 65 banks increased fossil fuel funding to $869 billion in 2024, up by $162 billion from 2023, according to the 16th annual Banking on Climate Chaos (BOCC) report released by climate campaign organizations on Tuesday.
Last year, loans were the top form of financing, rising to $467 billion from $422 billion in 2023. Bonds saw the largest increase to $401 billion, up from $284 billion, while acquisition financing also increased—to $82.9 billion from $63.7 billion.
Since the Paris Agreement was signed a decade ago, banks have funded fossil fuels with $7.9 trillion, found the report co-published by Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Sierra Club, and Urgewald.
JP Morgan Chase remains the largest fossil fuel financier in the world for yet another year, committing $53.5 billion to fossil fuel companies in 2024. A total of four banks increased their fossil fuel financing by more than $10 billion.
Moreover, the top 4 banks with the largest absolute increase are JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Barclays.
U.S. banks committed a total of $289 billion in fossil fuel financing in 2024, which represents one third of the global financing for the year.
“Even in the face of worsening disasters and increasingly dire warnings of scientists and policy experts, banks actually increased their financing to fossil fuels between 2023 and 2024 and still poured billions into expanded fossil infrastructure,” said Allison Fajans-Turner, Policy Lead at Rainforest Action Network and co-author of the report.
After years of scrutiny and blacklisting from Republican states in the U.S. and lawsuits from Republican attorney generals, North American banks and asset managers began quitting net-zero alliances en masse following President Donald Trump’s election victory.
The top U.S. banks and four of Canada’s largest banks are no longer part of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), a group of leading global banks committed to aligning their lending, investment, and capital markets activities with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.