Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a new round of trilateral talks with Moscow and Washington is set for February 4-5 in the United Arab Emirates, with the expected gathering coming after another round of deadly Russian air strikes on civilian sites. In his nightly video address on February 1, Zelenskyy said there is "an arrangement to hold a trilateral meeting at an appropriate level...on Wednesday and Thursday [February 4-5] in the United Arab Emirates, as last time." There had been uncertainty about the talks, which originally were…

Equinor will sell all its assets in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta basin to Vista Energy in a cash and stock deal worth $1.1 billion, the Norwegian energy major said on Monday as it continues to high-grade its international portfolio. The deal includes Equinor’s 30% non-operated interest in the Bandurria Sur asset and its 50% non-operated interest in the Bajo del Toro asset in the premier Argentinian shale basin that has seen oil and gas production surge over the past year.   Equinor retains its acreage offshore Argentina as these assets…

Four OPEC+ producers that have been pumping crude above their respective quotas have filed with the OPEC Secretariat updated compensation plans through June 2026, OPEC said on Monday. OPEC members Iraq and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as well as the non-OPEC producers of the OPEC+ pact, Kazakhstan and Oman, have submitted their updated plans to cut more output between January and June as compensation for previously exceeding their quotas. The UAE will be compensating small volumes of between 10,000 barrels per day (bpd) and 53,000 bpd each month…

Devon Energy and Coterra Energy announced on Monday a definitive agreement to merge and create a premier shale operator in an all-stock transaction, implying a combined enterprise value of about $58 billion.   The deal, announced today after weeks of speculation, would create a company with a significantly increased position in the premier part of the Permian Basin and operations in the Marcellus Shale and Anadarko Basin. The deal will create one of the top shale producers with pro-forma third quarter 2025 production exceeding 1.6 million…

Oil prices slumped by 5% early on Monday from a five-month high at the end of last week, after the most recent tensions between the United States and Iran appeared to have eased.   As of 7:09 a.m. ET on Monday, the Brent Crude international benchmark was back to $65 per barrel, down from $70 it hit last week when U.S. President Donald Trump warned Iran that a “massive armada” of U.S. Navy ships is headed to the Persian Gulf. Brent Crude prices had slipped by 4.83% to $65.99 on Monday morning, while the U.S. benchmark, WTI…

Kuwait exported record volumes of very low sulfur fuel oil (VLSFO) in January after a key refinery restarted full operations following a fire-induced partial outage at the end of last year. One of the Gulf’s top crude oil exporters, which also vies to be a major fuel oil exporter, was able to significantly increase fuel oil exports after the commissioning of the Al-Zour refinery at the end of 2022. Al-Zour Refinery, one of the largest crude processing facilities in the Middle East, is operated by Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company…

Back in June, Air Products said construction of Saudi Arabia’s NEOM Green Hydrogen Project had reached roughly 80% completion across multiple sites. The project includes a large-scale green hydrogen production facility, dedicated solar and wind farms, and a purpose-built transmission network. Once operational, it is expected to become the world’s largest renewable-powered ammonia complex within the next two years. That progress, however, has unfolded against a much weaker oil backdrop than Riyadh anticipated when NEOM was conceived.…

Texas’ environmental regulator this week issued the largest air pollution permit in the country to an enormous planned complex of gas power plants and data centers near the oilfields of the Permian Basin, according to an announcement from the project’s developers.  Pacifico Energy, a global, investor-owned infrastructure company, called its 7.65 gigawatt GW Ranch in Pecos County “the largest power project in the United States” in a press release this week.  It’s among a handful of similarly…

Over a decade since the Arab Spring and the civil war that followed, Libya has opened its doors back up to oil and gas exploration. Despite the ongoing political uncertainty, with Libya divided between two leaderships, the North African country has established a U.S.-Libya partnership and bilateral relations, as well as signed contracts with several oil majors for the redevelopment of its fossil fuel industry.  In November, Libya announced it was offering 22 exploration blocks, with 11 offshore and 11 onshore. As home to Africa’s biggest…

The world is about to gain its first publicly traded ‘pure-play’ fusion company, and it's determined to deliver energy from nuclear fusion with an innovative model that uses neither magnets nor lasers, the most common components of leading fusion experiments. Instead, the model being piloted by the fusion-exclusive startup General Fusion uses mechanical pistons to contain plasma within a liquid lithium shell. Interesting Engineering reports that the technology has been described as a “practical, mechanical approach to fusion,…

Since the Labour government came into power in 2024, the United Kingdom has doubled down on efforts to decarbonise its economy and put itself on track for achieving its net-zero carbon emissions aims for the mid-century. However, in recent months, there has been some division in parliament about the high price tag associated with achieving the country’s climate goals.  The U.K. introduced its 2050 net-zero target in 2021, in a bid to limit global warming in line with international Paris Agreement aims. The government has since adopted…

Europe’s natural gas storage sites are depleting at the fastest pace in years, suggesting stocks would end this winter at their lowest level since 2022. End-of-winter supply in storage at the lowest in four years means that Europe will need very high imports in the shoulder seasons and the summer to replenish the stocks to adequate levels of 80-90% full storage by November 2026, as per the EU regulations. It’s a good thing then for Europe that the global LNG market will tilt into oversupply from this year until late this decade, as…

The European Union needs to diversify its natural gas sources, Brussels’ energy commissioner said this week, expressing a growing unease in European capitals that the EU has become too dependent on liquefied natural gas from the United States. Yet succeeding in that diversification drive will be tricky because of the bloc’s emissions-focused energy policies – and the sanctions on Russia. “We are speaking to countries around the world that are able to deliver LNG to us,” Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen told media…

The 56th World Economic Forum, also known as Davos 2026, was held in Switzerland in January, allowing world leaders and business representatives to meet with the aim of shaping global, regional, and industry agendas, with 60 heads of state, more than 400 political leaders, and 830 CEOs and Chairs in attendance this year. This year’s forum came at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions, particularly between the United States and its NATO allies, including Canada, Greenland, and Europe.  Addressing Global Risks and, to a Lesser Extent,…

This week, the World Bank and the Rockefeller Foundation announced that they will funnel tens of millions of dollars into the budding African solar power sector. The two major global funding bodies are investing in non-profit organizations across the African continent to expand solar power projects with the tandem goal of helping to boost the agricultural sector through solar-powered technologies.  “The initiative will support the rollout of solar-powered cold storage facilities, refrigerators, water pumps and grain mills in Kenya, Nigeria,…

If global heating reaches the 2-degree-Celsius mark, we can expect living conditions to change dramatically, according to the broad scientific consensus. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has repeatedly called for countries to decarbonise and shift to renewable energy to control global warming in the coming decades before it causes irreparable damage. However, with recent forecasts suggesting that several countries are going to fall short of their climate pledges, it is important to understand what that could mean for the world.  The Paris…

Trinidad and Tobago is once again trying to bring its long-idled one-and-only oil refinery back to life, but this time the government is talking to Indian Oil Corp about making it happen. The 165,000-barrel-per-day Guaracara refinery sits in southern Trinidad, near the town of Point-a-Pierre, along the Gulf of Paria and within sight of Venezuela’s coast on a clear day. It has been shuttered for years—since 2018 when the previous government pulled the plug, citing mounting losses, runaway upgrade costs, and a balance sheet that had gone…

Trinidad and Tobago is once again trying to bring its long-idled one-and-only oil refinery back to life, but this time the government is talking to Indian Oil Corp about making it happen. The 165,000-barrel-per-day Guaracara refinery sits in southern Trinidad, near the town of Point-a-Pierre, along the Gulf of Paria and within sight of Venezuela’s coast on a clear day. It has been shuttered for years—since 2018 when the previous government pulled the plug, citing mounting losses, runaway upgrade costs, and a balance sheet that had gone…

After U.S. forces snatched Nicolas Maduro in a daring night raid earlier this month, President Donald Trump began pressing oil companies to invest in Venezuela’s heavily corroded petroleum industry. The U.S. president eagerly urged drillers to invest in Venezuela, which sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves, with Washington’s protection. But those overtures received a lukewarm reception from U.S. and European energy companies. ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods called Venezuela uninvestable provoking Trump’s ire, but some…

The European Union is quietly preparing to take a much bigger swing at Russia’s oil trade. And this time, Brussels is aiming less at price optics and more at enforcement reality. The EU is reportedly weighing whether to scrap its Russian oil price cap altogether and replace it with a blanket ban on maritime services, Bloomberg sources have suggested. This would mean that European firms could no longer provide insurance, shipping, or transport services for Russian oil cargoes at any price. It would close one of the most persistent loopholes…