Big Tech plans to spend hundreds of billions on AI this year, the industry leaders said this earnings season. In response, a stock sell-off followed as traders grew wary of the whole AI story. Looking for something safer, they went into energy stocks. Big Oil stocks, to be precise. Last week saw a sharp drop in Big Tech stocks as traders sold off their holdings on fears that artificial intelligence was about to replace software. NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang dismissed those fears, saying, “There's this notion that the tool industry is in…

Trading volume and open interest on China’s metals exchanges soared to record highs in January, fueled by retail investors flocking to what they believe are the next market winners—precious and industrial metals. So many bullish positions were open at the start of the year that the first negative signals sent global metals markets crashing from record highs and whipsawing in violent swings. At the end of 2025 and the start of 2026, speculators held record-high open interest in the base metals copper, zinc, nickel, tin, lead, and aluminum…

At first glance, Denmark’s flagship carbon capture and storage tender looks like a disappointment. A €4 billion subsidy scheme designed to catalyse a competitive CCS market ended with just one remaining bidder. Nine out of ten pre-qualified applicants walked away. Targets will not be fully met. Headlines quickly followed, framing the outcome as a failure. That interpretation is understandable. It is also incomplete. What happened in Denmark is less a policy collapse than a reality check. The tender exposed the gap between political ambition…

We are starting to see the beginnings of deglobalization: Countries are increasingly at odds with each other. There is wider disparity among political parties. Trump is making what look to many people like unreasonable demands, both within the US and around the world. I believe that there is an underlying problem that most people are missing. A worldwide shortage of diesel and jet fuel is forcing international trade to begin moving into a new downward phase, relative to the recent share of GDP shown on Figure 1. Figure 1. Trade as a share of GDP,…

British Oil and Gas giant Shell Plc. (NYSE:SHEL) needs an exploration breakthrough or a big merger after its oil reserves fell to the lowest levels since 2013, exposing the company to a production shortfall in less than a decade. Shell's so-called 'reserve life'--denoting how long its proven reserves can sustain production at current levels– has dropped to less than 8 years, significantly lower compared with Exxon (NYSE:XOM) and TotalEnergies (NYSE:TTE), each with reserve lives exceeding 12 years. Shell is now facing a production shortfall…

British Oil and Gas giant Shell Plc. (NYSE:SHEL) needs an exploration breakthrough or a big merger after its oil reserves fell to the lowest levels since 2013, exposing the company to a production shortfall in less than a decade. Shell's so-called 'reserve life'--denoting how long its proven reserves can sustain production at current levels– has dropped to less than 8 years, significantly lower compared with Exxon (NYSE:XOM) and TotalEnergies (NYSE:TTE), each with reserve lives exceeding 12 years. Shell is now facing a production shortfall…

The average margin on a US Gulf coast (USGC) cargo destined to Europe, including regasification costs, was $4.56 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) between 2023 and 2025, or $17.5 million per one LNG vessel, compared to negative margins prior and during the pandemic in 2019 and 2020. These attractive profits have spurred national oil companies and majors, sovereign wealth funds, private equity, Asian utilities and other energy buyers to flock to the USGC with their checkbooks to get in on the action. As a result, a flurry of LNG final investment…

Oilfield services firm Transocean (NYSE:RIG) will acquire offshore rig contractor Valaris (NYSE:VAL) in an all-stock deal valued at ~$5.8B, where Valaris shareholders will receive 15.235 shares of Transocean stock for each VAL share owned, representing a 31.6% premium based on the previous closing price. Transocean will own a 53% stake in the combined firm and Valaris will hold the remaining 47%. The transaction implies a combined enterprise value of ~$17B based on the stock’s most recent closing prices.  The new entity is set to become…

On 29 January 2026, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Ankara for the fourth meeting of the Türkiye–Uzbekistan High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council. The two leaders have met frequently over the past decade, including Erdogan’s working visit to Samarkand in 2016; Mirziyoyev’s state visit to Ankara in 2017; their March 2022 meeting in Tashkent, where they announced the upgrading of bilateral ties to a “comprehensive strategic partnership”; the June…

Money managers have increased bullish wagers on crude oil to the highest levels in months, with renewed geopolitical risk tied to Iran pushing energy markets back toward supply-focused trading, according to Bloomberg. Hedge funds increased net-long Brent crude positions by more than 31,000 contracts in the week ending February 3, lifting total long positions to nearly 278,000 lots, the highest level in roughly ten months. Data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission shows that money managers also raised net-long positions in WTI crude to…

Money managers have increased bullish wagers on crude oil to the highest levels in months, with renewed geopolitical risk tied to Iran pushing energy markets back toward supply-focused trading, according to Bloomberg. Hedge funds increased net-long Brent crude positions by more than 31,000 contracts in the week ending February 3, lifting total long positions to nearly 278,000 lots, the highest level in roughly ten months. Data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission shows that money managers also raised net-long positions in WTI crude to…

Affordability has become a big issue. Drivers see oil affordability increasing to the dismay of the drillers and electricity consumers see the opposite picture as prices rise. Politicians tell us not to worry because stock portfolios have risen in value and, therefore, people are richer and can afford more, but there is a good chance that the people with the affordability problem do not have a rising portfolio of stocks or gold to buffer the higher household bills. The following chart shows the percentage change in value of various measures of…

Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries cost Russia’s oil and gas sector as much as $12.9 billion (1 trillion Russian rubles) last year, according to a local insurance broker.    Direct losses for the sector topped $1.3 billion (100 billion rubles) in 2025. If these are added to the indirect losses and missed sales and profits, the total losses for Russia’s oil and gas industry amounted to $13 billion, Yevgeny Borovikov, deputy CEO at insurance broker Mains, told Russian daily Kommersant.  Last year, Russian insurers…

A US-Central Asia business forum that concluded February 5 in Kyrgyzstan highlighted the significant inroads Washington has made into the region’s mining sector. But it also has shown that much remains to be done if the United States is to gain a larger share of the region’s abundance of critical minerals and rare earths.  A central focus of the second B5+1 forum -- which promotes public-private collaborations by bringing together policymakers and business leaders from across Central Asia and the US -- was on critical minerals.…

The giant Tengiz oilfield in Kazakhstan has returned 60% of its peak production and was pumping at a rate of 550,000 barrels per day as of Sunday, following a forced shutdown for half of January due to a fire, anonymous sources told Reuters on Monday.  Tengiz, which is operated by a consortium led by U.S. supermajor Chevron, is expected to reach peak levels of oil output of about 950,000 bpd by February 23, according to the sources familiar with the production data.   The Tengiz oilfield was forced into a temporary shutdown on…

Abu Dhabi’s main gas company, ADNOC Gas, has presented its financials. Again, the gas giant is being sold to investors as the perfect Gulf utility, based on its scale, stability, and domestic demand, and especially on its dividend stream, engineered to feel more like a sovereign coupon than an equity risk. The numbers definitely support the story, as the company’s record full-year net income in 2025 is $5.2bn, which is an increase of 3% in comparison to FY2024. These impressive figures are even more positive when you consider that its…

Vitol expects global oil demand to peak around the middle of the 2030s, due to forecasts of slower uptake of electric vehicles, the world’s biggest independent oil trader said in an updated oil outlook on Monday.   Peak oil demand is pushed back to the mid-2030s, mostly due to demand from the road transport sector, other sectors remain broadly unchanged, Vitol said, noting a marked contrast with its report from a year ago, in which the trading giant had expected demand to peak in the early 2030s and then decline.  Significant…

Vitol expects global oil demand to peak around the middle of the 2030s, due to forecasts of slower uptake of electric vehicles, the world’s biggest independent oil trader said in an updated oil outlook on Monday.   Peak oil demand is pushed back to the mid-2030s, mostly due to demand from the road transport sector, other sectors remain broadly unchanged, Vitol said, noting a marked contrast with its report from a year ago, in which the trading giant had expected demand to peak in the early 2030s and then decline.  Significant…

Vitol expects global oil demand to peak around the middle of the 2030s, due to forecasts of slower uptake of electric vehicles, the world’s biggest independent oil trader said in an updated oil outlook on Monday.   Peak oil demand is pushed back to the mid-2030s, mostly due to demand from the road transport sector, other sectors remain broadly unchanged, Vitol said, noting a marked contrast with its report from a year ago, in which the trading giant had expected demand to peak in the early 2030s and then decline.  Significant…

India’s decision to halt Russian oil purchases as part of a wider trade deal with the U.S. announced last week would mark the most dramatic rupture in Moscow–New Delhi energy ties in half a century if the commitment holds. And it comes at the precise moment Washington has been trying to force this break since the first weeks of the Ukraine war. For years, India has been one of the single biggest financial pressure?valves keeping Russia’s wartime economy alive — buying millions of barrels a day at steep discounts, refining…