Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

President Trump issued five Presidential Determinations on 20 April 2026 under Section 303 of the Defense Production Act of 1950 (50 U.S.C. § 4533), invoking the authority granted by Executive Order 14156 (Declaring a National Energy Emergency, signed 20 January 2025). The five determinations cover: (1) domestic petroleum production, refining, and logistics; (2) large-scale energy and energy-related infrastructure development, manufacturing, and deployment; (3) natural gas transmission, processing, storage, and LNG capacity; (4) coal supply chains and baseload power generation; (5) grid infrastructure, equipment, and supply chain. Each determination authorises the relevant Cabinet Secretary (primarily Energy) to use DPA §303 powers — direct loans, loan guarantees, purchase commitments, and equity investments — to expand domestic capacity in the named category.

On 13 February 2026 President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed Executive Order No. 9 of 2026 directing all Production Sharing Contract operators and contractors to remit Royalty Oil, Tax Oil, Profit Oil, and Profit Gas directly to the Federation Account, bypassing prior NNPC Limited intermediated collection. The order simultaneously eliminates NNPC Limited's 30% management fee on profit oil/gas, suspends the 30% Frontier Exploration Fund deduction, and redirects Gas Flare Penalty proceeds to the Federation Account — materially walking back the fiscal architecture established under Petroleum Industry Act 2021 §§ 9 and 53. An Implementation Committee chaired by the Minister of Finance was established to operationalise the order and resolve disputes.

On 10 February 2026 in Baku, US Vice President JD Vance and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a Charter on Strategic Partnership — a foundational bilateral instrument covering five cooperation tracks: economy and trade, energy, connectivity and digital development (including AI), security and defense, and critical-minerals transit. The Charter commits both governments to facilitate the transit of critical minerals via the Trans-Caspian Middle Corridor to global markets, and formally recognises the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) as the multi-modal connectivity link between mainland Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. The instrument builds on the 8 August 2025 MoU signed in Washington during the Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Summit that established the Strategic Working Group tasked with drafting the Charter, and marks the first US Vice-Presidential visit to Azerbaijan since Dick Cheney in 2008.

The Iraqi Council of Representatives adopted Law No. 4 of 2025 on 2 February 2025 (176 deputies present, majority vote), amending Article 12 of the Federal General Budget Law for Fiscal Years 2023-2024-2025 (Law No. 13 of 2023). The amendment mandates that the federal government pay international oil companies (IOCs) operating in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) USD 16 per barrel in advance for crude production and transportation costs — more than doubling the USD 6/bbl rate in the original budget law — with all KRI crude to be delivered to and marketed exclusively through the State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO). An international consulting firm, jointly appointed by Baghdad and Erbil within 60 days, is mandated to audit field-level production and transportation costs, with cost-recovery adjustments applied retroactively from the date pipeline flows resume. The law was published in the Iraqi Official Gazette (Al-Waqai al-Iraqiyya) Issue No. 4814 on 17 February 2025.

Venezuela's Asamblea Nacional sanctioned the Organic Law for the Defense of Guayana Esequiba on 21 March 2024; President Maduro promulgated it on 3 April 2024 (Gaceta Oficial Extraordinaria N° 6.798). The 39-article law asserts Venezuelan domestic legal sovereignty over the ~159,500 km² Essequibo region administered by Guyana, creates the legal framework for a new "Estado Guayana Esequiba" federal entity, and empowers the President to invalidate any concession, licence, or operating agreement granted by Guyana over the disputed territory — directly threatening ExxonMobil, Hess, and CNOOC interests in the Stabroek offshore block (~11 bn bbl recoverable reserves) and the broader 2.5+ mb/d Guyanese production ramp scheduled through 2027.

Guyana's National Assembly passed the Fiscal Enactments (Amendment) Act 2024, which received presidential assent and was published in the Official Gazette on 6 February 2024. The Act amends Section 19 and the First Schedule of the Natural Resource Fund Act 2021, revising the formula governing the annual withdrawal ceiling from the NRF — replacing the prior fixed-tier schedule with a revised sliding scale applicable to the first US$5 billion of deposits paid into the Fund in the immediately preceding fiscal year. The revised withdrawal rules authorised US$1.586 billion in NRF withdrawals for fiscal year 2024, with a subsequent notification published in the Official Gazette on 4 April 2025 authorising US$2.464 billion for fiscal year 2025, reflecting the accelerating Stabroek Block production ramp-up under the ExxonMobil/Hess/CNOOC consortium.

The Significant Investments Review Act 2024 (Act No. 1 of 2024) is Singapore's first horizontal, cross-sector statutory FDI screening regime. The Bill was passed by Parliament on 9 January 2024, assented to by the President on 6 February 2024 and gazetted on 14 February 2024; the Act commenced on 28 March 2024 under the SIRA 2024 (Commencement) Notification (S 228/2024), together with the Significant Investments Review Regulations 2024 (S 229/2024). The Act creates an "ownership-and-control" layer over a limited number of "designated entities" the Minister for Trade and Industry has identified as critical to Singapore's national-security interests, plus an "any entity" call-in power exercisable against firms that have acted against Singapore's national-security interests, regardless of whether they are designated. Acquisitions of ≥5% require post-closing notification within 7 days; acquisitions of ≥12% / ≥25% / ≥50% and cessations of ≥50% / ≥75% controller status require prior ministerial approval. Administered by the Office of Significant Investments Review (OSIR) within MTI. SIRA is the Singaporean structural peer of US CFIUS, EU Regulation 2019/452, the German AWG §§55-62, the French Décret 2014-479, the UK NSI Act 2021, the Netherlands Wet Vifo, and the Canada ICA national-security review.

Guyana's National Assembly passed the Petroleum Activities Act, No. 17 of 2023 (PAA), which received presidential assent and was published in the Extraordinary Official Gazette on 16 August 2023, replacing the Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Act 1986 (Chapter 65:10) in its entirety. The PAA establishes a modern upstream regulatory architecture including a 10% gross royalty, a 65% cost-recovery ceiling under new Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs), a 10% corporate income tax on petroleum activities, and an updated licensing, local-content, decommissioning, and environment-compliance framework. Existing agreements — including the 2016 Stabroek Block PSA (ExxonMobil/Hess/CNOOC consortium, 2% royalty, 75% cost-recovery ceiling) — are grandfathered under their original terms; the PAA governs all new licensing rounds and agreements.

Guyana's National Assembly passed Act No. 18 of 2021 on 29 December 2021; it received presidential assent and was published in the Extraordinary Official Gazette on 31 December 2021. The Act establishes mandatory local-content obligations for all operators, contractors, and subcontractors engaged in petroleum operations in Guyana, defining a "Guyanese company" (≥51% Guyanese-owned, ≥75% Guyanese senior management, ≥90% other staff) and reserving 40 First Schedule categories of goods and services exclusively for Guyanese nationals and companies. All entities in the petroleum value chain must register with the Local Content Secretariat and submit annual local-content plans and compliance reports to the Minister of Natural Resources.

Angola's President João Lourenço signed Decreto Presidencial n.º 271/20 on 20 October 2020, replacing Order n.º 127/03 of 2003 and establishing the Regime Jurídico do Conteúdo Local do Sector dos Petróleos (RJCLSP). The decree divides petroleum-sector contracting into three regimes — exclusivity (reserved for Angolan nationals and companies), preference (Angolan-majority bidders take priority), and open competition with mandatory local-content scoring — covering all goods and services contracts entered into by concessionaires and their full subcontracting chains. The Ministério dos Recursos Minerais, Petróleo e Gás (MIREMPET) supervises compliance, with non-inclusion of mandatory local-content clauses penalised at USD 50,000–200,000 per infraction and escalating to contract cancellation for repeat offenders. The RJCLSP applies to all IOCs operating Angolan offshore blocks, including TotalEnergies (Block 17), ExxonMobil (Block 15), Chevron (Blocks 0, 14, 14K), BP (Block 31), Eni (Blocks 2, 14, 15/06), and Equinor, as well as their oilfield-services subcontractor chains.

On 27 December 2017 President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed Code No. 125-VI ZRK "On Subsoil and Subsoil Use," a wholesale recodification replacing the 2010 Subsoil Use Law that entered into force on 29 June 2018 (with certain provisions deferred to 1 January 2019). The Code establishes the licensing architecture for all mineral extraction in Kazakhstan — the world's leading uranium producer (~40% of global U₃O₈ output, ~22,000 tU/yr) and a top-11 oil exporter (~1.8 mbpd) — covering solid minerals, hydrocarbons, and uranium under a single codified framework. For solid minerals the Code introduces a liberalised "first-come first-served" auction-free licence model for non-strategic deposits and a state-tender model for strategic deposits, alongside subsoil-use rights transfer and pledge provisions governing all M&A in the sector. For uranium the Code codifies the National Atomic Company Kazatomprom's statutory role as state operator over all uranium blocks, with government priority pre-emption rights and mandatory Kazatomprom participation in all production licences. For hydrocarbons the Code establishes the concession and production-sharing framework governing the pre-salt Caspian mega-projects (Tengiz, Karachaganak, Kashagan) and the model contract architecture for petroleum products. Horizontal obligations — local Kazakh-content procurement floors, social-package requirements, and environmental-restoration mine-closure security — apply across all subsoil-use categories. Structurally this Code is the parent statute for every subsequently filed KZ action: the 2023-12-28 REE Comprehensive Plan and the 2025-12-26 Kazatomprom uranium-priority amendments both operate under delegated authority created by this Code.