RIYADH: Oil prices fell for a second day on Wednesday after a surprise rise in US crude inventories stoked demand concerns on the heels of weaker-than-expected economic data from the US and China, the world’s two biggest oil consumers. Brent crude futures slipped 2 cents, or 0.03 percent, to $74.89 a barrel at 12:20 p.m. Saudi time, while US West Texas Intermediate crude was down 5 cents, or 0.07 percent, to $70.81. Repsol to invest $550m in first Italian renewable projects Spanish oil company Repsol will develop more than 1.7 gigawatts of renewable energy projects in Italy, costing around $550 million, the company’s renewables head told Reuters. Some European oil and gas companies such as Shell and BP have expressed caution about a pivot to renewables in recent months following record profits on bumper oil and gas prices, but Joao Costeira, Repsol’s executive managing director of Low Carbon, said Repsol planned to stick to its renewable goals. “We should never get confused by discontinuities in the market or blips — no matter how important and dramatic such as in the case of the impact of the Ukrainian war — with the long-term trends,” he said in an interview. Repsol has a target to grow its renewable capacity to 6 GW globally by 2025 and 20 GW by 2030, up from around 2 GW today. “We feel comfortable with the targets that we have, both on quantity and on profitability,” Costeira said. The returns available from renewable projects have been under pressure over the past few years due to rising commodity and component costs and supply chain issues. However, Costeira said Repsol’s target of double-digit returns on renewable investments was still achievable. “We have also seen an increase in the price of energy, we have seen an increase in the price of green certificates, and we are already seeing stabilization in the cost of some of the components,” he said. “We believe there may be a transitory year, but in the medium term we feel very comfortable with our target,” he said. (With input from Reuters)