Growth is expected to pick up to 2.3 percent this year on the strength of a continuing recovery in the oil sector and the regaining of momentum in agriculture following a good harvest.

Enel Finance International N.V. (“EFI”), the Dutch-registered finance subsidiary of Enel SpA (“Enel”[1]), today launched a multi-tranche “sustainable” bond for institutional investors on the European market totalling 2.5 billion euros. The bond is linked to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is the Group’s first “General Purpose SDG Linked Bond” issued on the European market.

"Developed countries have witnessed sluggish growth of nuclear power - except for six units in Finland, France, the US and the UK, no other nuclear power plant had been built in North America and the EU area for about 30 years. Over the same period however about 100 units were built in developing and emerging economies."

U.S. oilfield services firm Halliburton on Wednesday said it was cutting 650 jobs across Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and North Dakota amid slowing oil and gas activity.

Brent was down 9 cents at $58.15 a barrel, West Texas Intermediate was at $52.55, down 8 cents.

EIA forecasts Brent spot prices will average $59/b in the fourth quarter of 2019 and then fall to $57/b by the second quarter of 2020,

Global efforts to tackle climate change are futile as long as opposition to nuclear power persists, delegates heard at the opening session of the International Atomic Energy Agency's International Conference on Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power. It is the Vienna-based agency's first conference on this topic.

"Greater magnitudes of uncertainty lead to volatility," he said, "and for a capital-intensive sector like ours, this means less investment and more risk to security of supply. This is especially true in power markets that are open to competition: their market design must be adaptive, and long-term contracts used for all types of generation."

As much as $71 billion of Japanese coal assets could be at risk as the economic viability of plants is undermined by cheaper renewable energy, research by the University of Tokyo, Carbon Tracker and the Carbon Disclosure Project showed on Sunday.

A contract for Tokamak machine assembly for the ITER International Fusion Energy Organisation signed by a consortium led by China Nuclear Power Engineering Corporation (CNPE) is the biggest nuclear energy project contract that Chinese companies have ever bid for in the European market.