Greg Jackson’s Octopus Energy has announced the spin-off of its technology arm Kraken to become a standalone business. The group said the move is aimed at “speeding up the platform’s expansion across the globe” and allowing Kraken to “fast-track investments into its technology, expand into new energy markets and regions, and drive innovation”. Kraken has $500m in committed annual revenue through licensing deals with the likes of EDF, E.ON Next, National Grid US, Origin Energy, Plenitude and Tokyo Gas. Its AI-powered…

Monday saw a brief global outage of Elon Musk's satellite internet service Starlink impact tens of thousands of people, including Ukrainian military forces across the entire frontline. Despite such occasional hiccups, Ukraine has long successfully relied on Starlink throughout the conflict, especially to run its fleet of attack drones. Russia is working on its own domestically made 'answer' to Ukraine's frontline Starlink advantage, at a moment it is seeking to modernize its space program. A Russian aerospace company, known as Bureau 1440, is currently…

For decades, most major US tech companies and investors steered clear of the Pentagon. Some were turned off by the labyrinth of contracting rules that left most business in the hands of giants like Lockheed Martin and RTX. Others balked at the ethical questions of building weapons and surveillance systems. But Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and China’s rapid military rise have changed that calculus. Gone is the resistance that Google faced in 2018 when it let the Pentagon use its emerging…

ExxonMobil doesn’t plan a return to the Russian oil industry, the U.S. supermajor’s chief executive Darren Woods told the Financial Times on Thursday, noting that talks with Russia are being held on recouping billions of U.S. dollars of expropriated assets.  The U.S. and Russian administration have pushed for energy cooperation and the U.S. has reportedly pitched Exxon’s return to the Sakhalin 1 oil and gas project as an incentive for Vladimir Putin to sit down for negotiations for peace in Ukraine.  Executives from…

ExxonMobil doesn’t plan a return to the Russian oil industry, the U.S. supermajor’s chief executive Darren Woods told the Financial Times on Thursday, noting that talks with Russia are being held on recouping billions of U.S. dollars of expropriated assets.  The U.S. and Russian administration have pushed for energy cooperation and the U.S. has reportedly pitched Exxon’s return to the Sakhalin 1 oil and gas project as an incentive for Vladimir Putin to sit down for negotiations for peace in Ukraine.  Executives from…

Russia’s revenues from oil and gas are expected to plunge in September by 23% from a year earlier, as international crude prices have declined and the Russian currency has strengthened, calculations by Reuters showed on Thursday.  The decline is not good news for Russia, which is currently planning its 2026 budget and continues to spend heavily on the war in Ukraine.  Russia’s oil and gas sales are expected to bring the Kremlin $7.11 billion (592 billion rubles) this month, per the Reuters estimates based on production, refining,…

Ukraine launched fresh drone attacks on Russian energy assets Thursday, hitting two refineries including Gazprom’s giant Neftekhim Salavat complex in Bashkortostan, more than 1,300 kilometers from Ukrainian-held territory. The strikes set fire to storage facilities and marked one of Kyiv’s deepest penetrations into Russian industrial infrastructure since the war began, as it continues to target the Kremlin’s oil revenues that feed its war coffer.  The new assaults came just hours after trade data published by Reuters showed…

Ukraine launched fresh drone attacks on Russian energy assets Thursday, hitting two refineries including Gazprom’s giant Neftekhim Salavat complex in Bashkortostan, more than 1,300 kilometers from Ukrainian-held territory. The strikes set fire to storage facilities and marked one of Kyiv’s deepest penetrations into Russian industrial infrastructure since the war began, as it continues to target the Kremlin’s oil revenues that feed its war coffer.  The new assaults came just hours after trade data published by Reuters showed…

For the third time in as many months, the Russian natural gas supplier Gazprom is turning off the tap to Armenia, claiming a need to repair infrastructure. Some observers believe the Kremlin is instigating the repeated cut-offs as a means of pressuring Yerevan to moderate its geopolitical turn away from Russia towards the West. In a statement on the latest shut-off, Gazprom Armenia, a Gazprom subsidiary, announced “planned repair work” would take place in Russia on the North Caucasus-Transcaucasia gas pipeline, causing supplies to Armenia…

The penalties proposed in the European Union’s climate and social responsibility legislation would be bone-crushing to any company, ExxonMobil’s chief executive Darren Woods told Bloomberg.  The EU’s planned Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, which is designed to prevent adverse human rights and environmental impacts across a company’s value chains, has been severely criticized by U.S. officials and industry leaders, including U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright.  These rules and the EU’s “crusade”…

United Nations investigators on Tuesday unveiled rampant and systemic corruption by South Sudan’s ruling class, compounding the country’s security challenges and putting the pivotal oil-driven economy at severe risk. The global agency has accused South Sudanese authorities of plundering the country’s wealth, including bogus payments totaling $1.7 billion in the 2021-2024 period to companies linked with Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel for road construction contracts that were never delivered. The 101-page report uncovers how South…

The rates for chartering supertankers have surged to a nearly three-year high this month as more crude is moving out of the Middle East and the U.S. to Asia, Reuters reports, citing sources in the shipping industry and data from LSEG.  As OPEC+ continues to raise production, shipments out of the world’s key exporting region, the Middle East, are on the rise. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has slashed the prices of its crude loading for Asia next month, further incentivizing crude flows to the top oil-importing region.  The tanker fleet…

Energy security and affordability have trumped fears of stranded assets in recent years, prompting the world’s biggest international oil and gas firms to shift focus back to exploration after years of trying to develop clean energy solutions. Big Oil has scaled back investments in renewables, at least those majors that tried to become key green energy providers, as poor returns from clean energy and demand, cost, and regulatory challenges further diminished the appeal of returns on investments in solar and wind. Back to the Basics European…

Colombia’s oil and gas reserves could be revised up this year compared to 2024, but oil output continues to drop amid a hostile climate to oil and gas, social and security issues, and international majors bailing on Colombia. Colombia’s oil production could suffer another major blow as the investment climate will further sour after the United States this week stripped Colombia of its so-called U.S. Drug Certification. This means that the Trump Administration no longer believes Colombia is fully cooperating with the U.S. counter-narcotics…

The fate of Citgo, the jewel in the crown of Venezuela’s PDVSA, may be decided by the end of this week. The Venezuelan state-owned oil company may lose its prized asset. The creditors that fueled the process that led to the auction for Citgo may be left with empty hands, as well. The U.S.-based refining company used to have a total processing capacity of over 800,000 barrels daily, the biggest U.S. outlet for Venezuelan heavy crude. Yet in 2019, amid tightening U.S. sanctions on the government in Caracas, Citgo cut its ties with the parent…

US President Donald Trump has said NATO countries should stop buying Russian oil if they want Washington to tighten sanctions on Moscow -- but achieving this could be time consuming and challenging. Only three NATO nations currently import Russian crude: Hungary, Slovakia, and Turkey. Of the three, Turkey is the big one. "According to our data, (Turkey) is the third largest Russian oil importer globally," Petras Kanitas, a Vilnius-based analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), told RFE/RL on September 15. "Turkey buys…

Shale oil wells are gushers in their first year, then deplete rapidly. Shale companies therefore, have to keep ploughing more money into production just to keep output flat, a phenomenon known as the “Red Queen Syndrome,” named after Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’. Shale wells typically bleed off 70 to 90% in their first three years and drop by 20 to 40% a year without new drilling. A recent IEA Report confirms this, stating that the world’s oil and gas fields are declining at a faster…

When we see prices rise and fall at the gas pump, we generally have an idea of what is driving the changes. Typically, it’s movements in the underlying price of oil, or sometimes there are refinery issues that can impact gasoline prices even when oil prices are stable. And people generally blame the oil companies in any case. The electricity markets are far more opaque. Electricity bills have skyrocketed in many places this summer, but the reasons you hear depend on who you ask.  Politicians blame climate mandates, utilities point to…

Oil prices declined in Wednesday’s intraday trading after the U.S. Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points, marking the first cut since December 2024, and signaled more cuts could be coming this year.   All but one Fed official voted for the cut, with Governor Stephen Miran the lone dissenter. Miran served as President Donald Trump’s Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers before his Tuesday swearing-in as Fed Governor. Brent crude for October delivery slipped 0.85% to trade at $67.92 per barrel…

Oil prices declined in Wednesday’s intraday trading after the U.S. Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points, marking the first cut since December 2024, and signaled more cuts could be coming this year.   All but one Fed official voted for the cut, with Governor Stephen Miran the lone dissenter. Miran served as President Donald Trump’s Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers before his Tuesday swearing-in as Fed Governor. Brent crude for October delivery slipped 0.85% to trade at $67.92 per barrel…