China’s leading offshore oil producer, CNOOC Ltd, has brought a new offshore oil development into production in the South China Sea, adding incremental supply as Beijing steps up efforts to strengthen domestic crude output and reduce reliance on imports.

The company said on Monday that the Xijiang Oilfields 24 Block Development Project, located in the shallow waters of the Pearl River Mouth Basin, has commenced production. At peak levels, the field is expected to produce about 18,000 barrels of light crude oil equivalent per day by 2026.

CNOOC said the project was developed by tying into existing infrastructure at the neighboring Huixi Oilfields, with the installation of a new unmanned wellhead platform. The development plan includes 10 development wells, which will feed into nearby processing facilities. The company holds a 100% interest in the project and is its operator.

The Pearl River Mouth Basin is one of China’s most established offshore producing areas, and projects like Xijiang 24 illustrate how CNOOC is squeezing additional output from mature basins through smaller, faster-to-market developments. By relying on adjacent infrastructure rather than building a standalone production hub, the company is reducing costs and shortening development timelines, an approach it has increasingly adopted across its offshore portfolio.

While the projected output from Xijiang 24 is modest by global standards, the project fits into a much larger strategic picture. China is the world’s largest crude oil importer, and its buying patterns have a major influence on global oil flows and pricing. Any sustained success in boosting domestic production would, over time, reshape demand dynamics in the international oil market.

Beijing has repeatedly called on state-owned oil companies to raise domestic output, citing energy security concerns amid geopolitical tensions and supply disruptions. Offshore developments in the South China Sea and Bohai Bay have therefore become central to this strategy, as onshore production growth has been harder to achieve.

If China were to make meaningful progress toward meeting a larger share of its crude needs locally, the implications would extend well beyond its borders. As one of the biggest buyers of crude oil globally, China has played a critical role in absorbing barrels from sanctioned producers, particularly Russia and Venezuela, at times when access to Western markets has been constrained by U.S. sanctions.

Since the tightening of sanctions on Moscow following the Ukraine war, China has emerged as one of Russia’s most important crude customers, alongside India. Similarly, Chinese refiners have been a key outlet for Venezuelan oil, providing Caracas with a vital export channel after U.S. measures sharply restricted its ability to sell crude openly on global markets.

A sustained reduction in China’s import demand, driven by higher domestic output, would therefore pose a structural risk to these suppliers. Russia and Venezuela, already operating with limited market access, could face greater competition to place their crude, potentially at steeper discounts, if China’s appetite for imported barrels eases.

For now, China remains heavily dependent on imports, and projects like Xijiang 24 will not materially alter that balance on their own. However, taken together with dozens of similar offshore developments, they signal a long-term policy direction. Incremental gains across multiple projects could gradually chip away at import dependence, particularly for light and medium grades that are well suited to China’s refining system.

CNOOC’s focus on unmanned platforms, digital monitoring, and infrastructure-led developments also suggests that future offshore projects could be brought on stream more quickly and with lower operating costs, improving the economics of domestic production.

Gold and silver prices surged to fresh record highs on Monday, extending a rally that has gathered remarkable momentum this year as investors retreat from risk assets and brace for mounting economic and political uncertainty.

Gold futures for February delivery settled 1.9% higher at $4,469.40 per ounce after touching an intraday record of $4,477.70. Spot gold climbed nearly 2% to $4,440.26 per ounce. The precious metal is now up close to 70% since the start of the year, marking one of its strongest annual performances on record.

Silver followed gold’s lead, also breaking into uncharted territory. Futures prices hit $68.96 per ounce, while spot silver traded at $68.98. Silver’s rally has been even more dramatic, with prices up about 128% year-to-date, underscoring the extent to which investors are crowding into precious metals as alternative stores of value.

The surge reflects a broader shift in global markets. Risk assets have struggled to maintain momentum, even after the U.S. Federal Reserve delivered its widely anticipated interest rate cut on December 10, and a brief rebound lifted AI-related stocks in the previous session. Instead of chasing equities, many investors appear to be repositioning portfolios defensively ahead of what they expect to be a more volatile macroeconomic environment in 2026.

Gold’s traditional role as a safe-haven asset has come back into sharp focus amid concerns about slowing growth, geopolitical risks, and, increasingly, the sustainability of government finances. According to Matthew McLennan, head of the global value team at First Eagle Investments, swelling fiscal deficits across major economies have revived gold’s appeal as a monetary hedge.

“Due to outsized fiscal deficits in the U.S., U.K., Europe, and increasingly Japan and China, the monetary value of gold has arguably reemerged,” McLennan said in an interview on CNBC’s The Exchange on December 17.

He added that gold had moved from being undervalued relative to nominal assets used as hedges to a level he considers more rational, pulling other precious metals higher in the process.

“The value of gold as a monetary potential hedge has reemerged,” he said. “Gold went from being depressed relative to the nominal assets that you would want to use as a potential hedge against it, to more rationally valued. And I think the other precious metal complexes followed it higher with some leverage.”

Silver’s sharper gains reflect both its historical tendency to amplify gold’s moves and its growing role in industrial applications, including renewable energy and electronics. That dual demand profile has made silver particularly sensitive to both inflation expectations and long-term structural trends, further fueling investor interest.

The rally has also lifted mining stocks. In premarket trading in the United States, shares of gold and silver miners edged higher, with the iShares MSCI Global Gold Miners ETF rising nearly 2.7%, as investors bet that sustained high prices will boost cash flows and balance sheets across the sector.

Beyond inflation and growth concerns, attention is turning to U.S. monetary leadership. Investors are closely watching the race to nominate the next chair of the Federal Reserve, amid questions about the institution’s independence following repeated public pressure from President Donald Trump on current chair Jerome Powell. Markets are increasingly sensitive to any signal that political considerations could influence future monetary policy.

“What we’re quite focused on here is the long-term fiscal credibility of the United States,” McLennan said. “Because I think that is the condition precept for having an independent Fed and for having a rational chair.”

Labour market dynamics are another key variable. McLennan said wage inflation could shape the outlook for both interest rates and precious metals in the months ahead, particularly if job openings continue to rise alongside corporate earnings. Such a combination could complicate the Fed’s efforts to strike a balance between supporting growth and keeping inflation in check.

For now, gold and silver appear to be benefiting from a convergence of anxieties: ballooning deficits, uncertain monetary leadership, and unease about the durability of the global recovery. With prices already at historic highs and investor sentiment tilting defensive, precious metals are once again asserting themselves as a central pillar of portfolio protection rather than a peripheral hedge.

In the city of Chifeng, in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region, Reuters reports an ultra-modern factory humming to life not on coal or gas, but on wind, solar power, and algorithms.

Owned by green-energy company Envision, the facility produces hydrogen and ammonia using renewable electricity, guided by an artificial intelligence system designed to solve one of the hardest problems in the global energy transition: how to run energy-hungry industrial processes on power sources that are inherently unstable.

The plant operates on a standalone grid that feeds electricity directly from Envision’s wind and solar farms into its production lines. That electricity supply can swing sharply depending on weather conditions, a problem for chemical manufacturing, which traditionally depends on steady, uninterrupted power. To manage this, Envision built an AI-driven operating system that continuously adjusts production levels to match real-time renewable output.

Zhang Jian, Envision’s chief engineer for hydrogen energy, described the system as “a conductor” that synchronizes electricity use with nature. When wind speeds rise, the AI automatically ramps up production to absorb as much green power as possible. When output drops, the system scales back electricity demand almost instantly, Zhang told China Energy News, a state-run publication.

The Chifeng facility is Envision’s blueprint for large-scale renewable hydrogen and ammonia production, fuels that could play a critical role in decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors such as steelmaking, chemicals, and shipping. It is also a glimpse into how China is deploying AI not just as a digital tool, but as infrastructure — a way to make its sprawling renewable energy system work at scale.

“AI can play a hugely important role in China’s climate action and energy transition,” said Zheng Saina, an associate professor specializing in low-carbon transition at Southeast University in Nanjing. Beyond industrial optimization, she noted, AI can help calculate and project carbon emissions, forecast electricity supply and demand, and manage increasingly complex power systems.

This push comes at a critical moment. Energy has become one of the biggest bottlenecks in the evolution of artificial intelligence globally. As AI models grow larger and data centers proliferate, electricity demand is surging at a pace that is straining grids from the United States to Europe. In China, AI data centers alone are projected to consume more than 1,000 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030 — roughly equivalent to Japan’s total yearly power consumption.

That looming demand surge presents a paradox. AI is being positioned as a key enabler of China’s green transition, yet its own energy appetite risks undermining climate goals.

“AI data centers are expected to cause explosive growth in electricity demand,” Zheng warned. “This is a problem that urgently needs addressing.”

Where China believes it has an edge over the United States is in energy diversity and scale. China leads the world in installed wind and solar capacity, and continues to add renewable power at a pace unmatched elsewhere. While the U.S. has focused much of its AI investment on building advanced large-language models and cloud infrastructure, China has placed parallel emphasis on integrating AI into physical systems, particularly energy.

President Donald Trump is opposed to green energy initiatives and has recently ordered the halt of wind energy programs.

“China is developing very specific, tailored AI solutions that support the grid and individual energy sectors like wind, solar and even nuclear,” said Cory Combs, associate director at Beijing-based research firm Trivium China. “That’s different from the U.S. approach, which has largely centered on model performance rather than system-level integration.”

As renewable energy expands, grid flexibility has become essential. Wind and solar power are intermittent, and without smart coordination, excess electricity is often wasted. AI is increasingly seen as the missing link. In September, Beijing launched an “AI+ energy” strategy aimed at deeply integrating artificial intelligence across the power system.

By 2027, the plan calls for more than five large AI models dedicated to energy applications, at least 10 replicable pilot projects, and over 100 real-world use cases. Within three more years, China wants to reach what it describes as a “world-leading level” in combining specialized AI technologies with the energy sector.

One of AI’s most critical roles is demand forecasting. Power grids must balance supply and demand second by second to avoid blackouts. Fang Lurui, an assistant professor of power-system planning at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, said accurate AI-driven forecasts allow grid operators to plan ahead, deciding how much electricity to store in batteries or when to call on backup generation.

“If AI models can accurately predict renewable output and electricity demand throughout the day, the grid can operate more efficiently and safely,” Fang said.

Better forecasting also reduces reliance on coal-fired backup plants and allows more renewable power to be absorbed rather than curtailed.

Some Chinese cities are already experimenting at scale. Shanghai has launched a citywide virtual power plant backed by a digital platform developed by State Grid. The system aggregates electricity generation and load-reduction capacity from 47 operators, including data centers, building heating and cooling systems, and electric vehicle charging networks, allowing them to function as a single flexible resource.

During a trial run in August, the platform successfully flattened a demand spike by shedding 162.7 megawatts of load — roughly the output of a small coal-fired power plant.

Beyond grid management, China is also exploring how AI can strengthen its national carbon market, which covers more than 3,000 companies across power, steel, cement, and aluminum smelting. These sectors account for over 60% of the country’s total carbon emissions. AI could help regulators verify emissions data, improve allocation of free allowances, and allow companies to calculate compliance costs more precisely, according to Chen Zhibin, a senior manager for carbon markets at think tank Adelphi.

Yet challenges remain formidable. Studies suggest the lifecycle carbon emissions of China’s AI industry could double between 2030 and 2038, peaking at nearly 700 million tons — higher than Germany’s total emissions in 2024. China’s grid still relies heavily on coal, complicating efforts to green AI at speed.

To address this, Beijing has mandated that data centers improve energy efficiency and raise renewable power usage by 10% annually. It is also encouraging new data centers to be built in western regions rich in wind and solar resources. On the East Coast, operators are experimenting with unconventional solutions. Near Shanghai, a data center is being built underwater, using cold seawater for cooling and drawing more than 95% of its electricity from a nearby offshore wind farm, according to its developer, Hailanyun.

While AI’s energy footprint is now a central concern, many researchers argue that the technology remains indispensable. Xiong Qiyang, a PhD candidate at Renmin University of China who co-authored one study on AI emissions, said the trade-off is unavoidable but manageable.

“AI’s energy use is a real concern,” he said. “But it does much more good than harm in helping key sectors reduce emissions. That makes AI an essential tool in China’s green transition.”

China’s bet amid intensifying competition in artificial intelligence is that by pairing AI with a vast and diversified renewable energy system, it can stay ahead in both the AI race and the energy transition, even as other economies struggle to keep the lights on.