The war in Iran has choked natural gas supplies across Europe and Asia, leading to fuel rationing and blackouts, but in the heart of US shale country, the market is swimming in supply. Gas in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico is so plentiful that producers are having to pay buyers to get rid of it. Bloomberg reports that there is so much inventory that it exceeds available pipeline capacity. “Prices aren’t merely cheap, they’re negative,” states the April 29 article, noting that Permian gas hit an all-time low…

Chinese state oil giant Sinopec is opening a major ultra-deep shale gas find after obtaining official government approval for proven geological reserves of 235.687 billion cubic meters in the Ziyang Dongfeng field in the Sichuan province. China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, or Sinopec, as it is more commonly known, has announced that the Ministry of Natural Resources of China approved its reserves validation at the shale gas field, marking the creation of China's first ultra-deep, 100-billion-cubic-meter-level shale gas field. Sinopec has…

The West’s international energy watchdog has warned that oil stockpiles were being drained at a record rate last month as the US’s war in Iran continues to choke supply in an “unprecedented” supply shock. The International Energy Agency revealed that around 4m barrels of oil a day were tapped from back-up supplies in April, within a detailed report on the global market. It said: “More than ten weeks after the war in the Middle East began, mounting supply losses from the Strait of Hormuz are depleting global oil inventories…

Despite the easing of the Chinese restrictions on fuel exports, shipments so far in May have been nearly half the volumes from before the Iran war, the Financial Times reports, citing data from Kpler. Significantly lower Chinese gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel exports may not be enough to alleviate the fuel crisis in the rest of Asia, which is reeling from the worst oil supply shock in history. China issues fuel export quotas for both state and independent refiners on a regular basis. State-owned energy companies get the bulk of these quotas. Days…

China moved this week to take tighter control of its rare earths producers amid an escalating tit-for-tat battle with Washington over everything from tariffs and semiconductor warfare to pressure over Iran and Hormuz. At the same time, an ominous Pentagon deadline looms large, with the entire American defense system to be banned from using any Chinese-origin rare earths materials beginning in January 2027. With fewer than eight months on the clock, Washington is sounding the alarms at full blast, and the Department of War is leading the clarion…

Over the past couple of months, physical oil cargo premiums have surged as markets reacted to the threat of physical supply disruption, forcing buyers to pay significantly higher prices for guaranteed, prompt delivery of crude oil. As the conflict escalated and Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz, buyers scrambled to secure immediate, non-Middle Eastern "prompt barrels", driving up the spot price premiums for available cargoes. North Sea Forties crude spiked to nearly $150 a barrel by mid-April, exceeding the 2008 peak. Many commodity experts predicted…

The Middle Eastern crisis has prompted a reprioritization among international oil companies. Previously unattractive drilling destinations are suddenly looking quite attractive—even Alaska. The oldest oil and gas producing part of the United States has for years been out of the spotlight as the industry moves to cheaper and faster-growing locations. The only news of any substance about Alaska recently was the Biden administration’s approval of the Willow project, led by ConocoPhillips, which was set to boost the state’s oil output…

Researchers are increasingly employing artificial intelligence to help them solve some of the biggest challenges facing the energy sector – including, ironically enough, the massive spike in energy demand caused by large language models themselves. The current and projected rise in energy demand from AI data centers is driving a wave of investment into next-gen energy alternatives that can create huge amounts of baseload power without emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases. One of these potential ‘silver bullet’ technologies…

Two and a half months after the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran began, the Islamic Republic is moving closer to selectively controlling tanker flows through the Strait of Hormuz in a sign that access to the critical chokepoint may never be as unconditionally free as it was before February 28. The suggestion that Iran has a large degree of operational control over vessels attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz is being reinforced by reports that two of Iran’s neighbors most severely affected by the de facto closure of the oil and LNG…

For two decades, OPEC ministers, Wall Street analysts, and oil traders have been speaking about the global crude market as if traditional rules still apply. OPEC’s kingpin, Saudi Arabia, is still seen as the swing producer, while OPEC+ is viewed as the balancing mechanism. US shale remains the marginal barrel, while global oil prices are supposedly driven by visible fundamentals such as inventories, demand growth, geopolitical disruptions, and refinery margins. At present, however, that world does not exist anymore. Behind the fog of geopolitical…

War in the Middle East has reshaped near-term energy market expectations, with direct implications for hydrocarbon supply affecting power sectors across liquified natural gas (LNG) imports, oil imports, and spot gas-dependent economies, mainly in Europe and Asia. While Middle Eastern countries retain access to abundant domestic fossil fuels, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the crisis extends disruption beyond hydrocarbons. The combination of conflict proximity, supply chain vulnerability, capital diversion, and institutional resilience…

Electric company annual reports describe technological risk in the vaguest of terms, asserting that firms face numerous, generalized risks— boiler plate to provide legal cover just in case something happens, such as an ET invasion. What specific risks do the companies face? You’ll never know from reading their reports. Anyway, it often takes years for something to happen in the utility industry, so why bother worrying now? Brokerage reports, generally optimistic, focus on a utility’s rate base growth (mostly their assets), AI…

Saudi Arabia's oil giant Aramco expects to raise at least $10 billion from a potential sale and leaseback deal for its real estate assets, including its Dhahran Camp residential community in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing sources with knowledge of the plans. Through a potential deal with real estate and infrastructure funds, Aramco, the world's top crude exporter and biggest international oil company, continues to look to capitalize on its assets and raise billions of U.S. dollars despite the ongoing…

Saudi Arabia's oil giant Aramco expects to raise at least $10 billion from a potential sale and leaseback deal for its real estate assets, including its Dhahran Camp residential community in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing sources with knowledge of the plans. Through a potential deal with real estate and infrastructure funds, Aramco, the world's top crude exporter and biggest international oil company, continues to look to capitalize on its assets and raise billions of U.S. dollars despite the ongoing…

Saudi Arabia's oil giant Aramco expects to raise at least $10 billion from a potential sale and leaseback deal for its real estate assets, including its Dhahran Camp residential community in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing sources with knowledge of the plans. Through a potential deal with real estate and infrastructure funds, Aramco, the world's top crude exporter and biggest international oil company, continues to look to capitalize on its assets and raise billions of U.S. dollars despite the ongoing…

The war with Iran is not going well. It is difficult to supply US troops with adequate food and other necessities. With summer arriving soon, the region will soon be an even more inhospitable place for ground troops to fight. An underlying problem is that the world economy was reaching resource limits even before the Iran War began, adding to the difficulties. The most pressing resource limit is distillate fuel oil–an industry term for what we think of as diesel and jet fuel. This fuel is heavily used in transportation. It is also used extensively…

Russia’s oil export revenues have continued to rise despite lower production thanks to high oil prices. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) monthly market report for May, Russia’s oil export revenues clocked in at $19.18 billion in April, good for a modest $180 million increase from March but a massive jump of $6.28 billion compared to April 2025. The increase in oil revenues came despite total output falling by 460,000 bpd to 8.8 million bpd, while total exports declined by 90,000 bpd to an average of 7.03 million bpd.…

Russia’s oil export revenues have continued to rise despite lower production thanks to high oil prices. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) monthly market report for May, Russia’s oil export revenues clocked in at $19.18 billion in April, good for a modest $180 million increase from March but a massive jump of $6.28 billion compared to April 2025. The increase in oil revenues came despite total output falling by 460,000 bpd to 8.8 million bpd, while total exports declined by 90,000 bpd to an average of 7.03 million bpd.…

Russia’s oil export revenues have continued to rise despite lower production thanks to high oil prices. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) monthly market report for May, Russia’s oil export revenues clocked in at $19.18 billion in April, good for a modest $180 million increase from March but a massive jump of $6.28 billion compared to April 2025. The increase in oil revenues came despite total output falling by 460,000 bpd to 8.8 million bpd, while total exports declined by 90,000 bpd to an average of 7.03 million bpd.…

Crude oil inventories in the United States decreased by 4.3 million barrels during the week ending May 8, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Wednesday. The decrease brings commercial stockpiles to 452.9 million barrels, according to government data, which is 0.3% below the five-year average for this time of year. According to weekly EIA data, crude oil inventories in the United States have decreased by a total 3.3 million barrels over the last 7 weeks. The EIA’s data release follows API’s…