Reuters World News - Tanker seizure, BP's new CEO and Japan's nuclear restart

Episode Date: December 21, 2025

The U.S. seizes a second vessel off the coast of Venezuela. Big oil’s first female CEO marks a further move away from renewables at BP. Japan prepares to restart the world's biggest nuclear power plant. And how to score FIFA’s affordable World Cup tickets. Plus, U.S.-Russia talks continue in Florida. *This episode has been corrected to remove an incorrect line stating that discounted seats make up 10% of tickets available for fans to attend any game. The correct figure is about 1.6% as our correspondent later says. Listen to Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Christopher Waljasper in Chicago. It's Sunday, December 21st. Today, the U.S. intercepts a second oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast. BP's first female CEO marks a further pivot away from renewables. 15 years after Fukushima, Japan gets ready to flip the switch on the world's biggest nuclear power plant. And just what are your chances of getting a hold of those 60s? $60 World Cup tickets. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes,

seven days a week. We begin in international waters, where the U.S. has intercepted another oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. It comes just days after President Donald Trump announced a blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of the country. and that's the second time in the last few weeks that the U.S. has seized such a vessel. But this time there's a question over whether the ship is, in fact, sanctioned. A White House spokeswoman says it was a falsely flagged vessel

and part of the Venezuelan shadow fleet used to fund narco-terrorism. Caracas has called the interception a serious act of international piracy. For more on this and the growing pressure on Venezuela's, and President Nicholas Maduro, I called up our Pentagon reporter, Idris Ali. It really was interesting because in one way it made good on President Trump's promise to go after sanctioned oil tankers, but in another way it did something very different, which is from our understanding that the tanker that was interdicted and boarded was actually not sanctioned and was a Panama-flagged vessel oneness of centuries.

What legal authority was this carried out under, right? How can you seize a tanker that isn't sanctioned? You may not like the country where it's coming from, but it then sets a precedent where if any country wants to take over a tanker or a vessel from another country, they could potentially point to this. And don't forget, some of these tankers are heading to countries like China. And so I think we're also watching to see how their reaction might be if some of the vessels are carrying oil and other stuff for them.

The Panamanian government has not yet responded. Idris says this latest move gives us clues about the U.S.'s approach. Their strategy is really about putting pressure on Venezuelan President Maduro. We had Homeland Security come out and say that the U.S. are going to continue going after illicit movement of sanctioned oil. They are touting this as a success. We don't know what's going to happen with the oil, but we do know that it's being taken away from Venezuela.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy, Kirol Dmitriev, telling reporters that ongoing talks with U.S. negotiators in Miami on ending the war in Ukraine are constructive. And in Kiev, Ukrainian President Volomir Zelenskyy says he's open to a U.S. proposal calling for Ukrainian national security advisors to join three-sided talks with Washington and Moscow. BP's appointment of Meg O'Neill as its next CEO marks the first external hire of a chief executive for the oil giant in more than a century. O'Neill is also the first woman to lead a top five oil major. To understand why BP thinks she's the answer as it abandons renewables, pivots back to fossil fuels, and faces pressure from activist investors, we called up our senior energy reporter Shadia Nasrallah.

So BP is currently searching for its soul, and the answer that it has come to is to really double down on its core business of oil and gas to increase its profitability, car costs, cut debt. Meg O'Neill, when she became CEO at Woodside Energy, what she did pretty much immediately was do a massive deal, doubling Woodside's on a gas production by buying US assets. So she made an immediate splash. She wasn't afraid of taking a bit of a gamble. O'Neill is an oil and gas person through and through. She is an engineer. Before she joined Woodside, she spent 23 years at ExxonMobil. She, in fact, in 2024, was voted down by shareholders in terms of Woodside's climate strategy

for being basically not green enough. So she will definitely stick to BP's very clearly stated strategy to pivot back to oil and gas and swiftly. And now for a look at the week ahead in markets. We've got Amanda Cooper from our Reuters Morningbid podcast joining us from London. Hey Amanda, are we expecting a quiet week this week? Hi, Chris. Well, as you know, just because it's Christmas doesn't mean market sleep and nothing happens. There's a lot of things to get through next week.

Namely, we've got US GDP for the third quarter of this year. It's been delayed by the government shutdown. This is the first look that markets will get at activity in those three months. We'll also be keeping an eye on geopolitical developments in Ukraine and in Venezuela and seeing how those play out. Most likely, people will be keeping on an eye on the oil price to see what the reaction is looking like there. And finally, it's the last couple of weeks of the year. Trading conditions tend to be thin.

markets can be volatile and we could get some surprises. Thanks, Amanda. To hear more, check out Reuters' morning bid. You can get it wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can also ask your smart speaker for the latest market news from Reuters. On the shores of the Sea of Japan, waves crash just steps away from the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. The world's largest nuclear energy facility has stood silent for 14 years since the Fukushima disaster. Now the Japanese region of Niigata is expected to endorse a decision on Monday to restart it,

and the stakes couldn't be higher. This month, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, staged a drill to show off its readiness as the company pushes to bring nuclear power back online. They say Japan needs it to keep the lights on in an energy-hungry economy. But as our correspondent, Pantherokomia has reported in Tokyo, the opposition runs deep. For the national policy of Japan, which heavily relies on imported energy resources like oil and gas,

to expand the use of nuclear plants have industrial and security benefits, especially with the recent rise of AI data centers. But there's certain safety risks in running nuclear plants in Japan, where lots of earthquake and tsunami disasters happen. The public opinion there is divided, and there remains a high level of worry. This is according to a survey by the local Niigata government in September, and nearly 70% of respondents there are worried about the fact that TEPCO is going to run the plant again.

If they approved the list of Kachachakarua, it will be for the first time for a plant, by Tepko after the Fukushima disasters. Tebko, on the other hand, says they have been working with safety measures, drawing the lessons from the Fukushima disasters, and the government has approved the move. FIFA is introducing a new class of tickets to World Cup matches that'll cost just $60.

Our sports editor, Mitch Phillips, explains what's going on. What prompted them to do it was the worldwide outrage at the prices they announced last week, which were three times higher than the prices at Qatar for three years ago and miles higher than the prices they promised in their original bid document with a £4,000 final ticket. How significant? Well, the answer is not very.

They will announce they will reach a total of about 1.6% of each match tickets will be these new $60 tickets. So, yeah, less than 2% of the tickets for any match are, these new super cheap tickets. And getting your hands on these affordable tickets is also going to be a challenge. You get them in the same way as you buy for any other tickets in the central FIFA application portal. But for most countries, they're only available through the federations of participating country. So if I want to buy one of those tickets for an England match,

I've got to be in the England supporters club and you have to have been in that for a long time. So unless you're coming from one of the smaller viewer countries, you're not getting one of those tickets. That's it for today's show. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. If you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.