After years of prioritizing returning cash to shareholders, oil supermajors are about to do something few expected: turning to growth as a top priority. The reason: contrary to dominant expectations, oil and gas will continue to be needed for decades. For years, analysts from some of the most reputable organizations have been predicting a pending decline in oil demand specifically, but also gas demand. The predictions, notably from the International Energy Agency, were based on projections about a widespread adoption of electric vehicles that would…

One of the biggest winners from the new oil order in Venezuela is its neighbor to the east, Guyana, the country that turned into the newest oil producer in the world thanks to ExxonMobil’s massive oil discoveries.  Since Exxon first found oil in Guyana’s offshore Stabroek block a decade ago, one of the poorest South American countries with fewer than 1 million citizens has turned into an economic powerhouse with double-digit growth since 2019, driven by the oil exports and royalties.   Yet, a century-old territorial dispute…

The U.S. Departments of Energy (DOE) and Defense (DoD) have transported a small nuclear reactor from California to Utah on a cargo plane in a bid to demonstrate the potential to rapidly deploy small and micronuclear reactors (SMRs) for both military and civilian use. The Pentagon partnered with California-based Valar Atomics to transport one of its microreactors on a C-17 aircraft to Hill Air Force Base in Utah. The SMR was, however, moved without nuclear fuel. “This gets us closer to deploying nuclear power when and where it is needed to…

The renewable energy revolution is running out of land. Building out utility-scale solar and wind farms requires massive tracts of land that are often in competition with other needs – like agricultural operations – and which frequently face major legal and political pushback from communities in the areas targeted for development. All of this is majorly slowing down clean energy buildout at a critical moment for energy security and climate action.  There are a lot of creative solutions under development for solving this issue,…

Central to Iraq’s medium-term target to raise its crude oil production capacity to over 6 million barrels per day (bpd), up from around 4.1 million bpd this year, is the supergiant Rumaila field. One of the very largest oil fields in the world, it began production in the 1950s and, together with the Kirkuk field, has produced around 80% of the country’s cumulative oil production since then. Over the years, it remained a microcosm of the positives and negatives that characterise Iraq’s oil industry: blessed with an early abundance…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 609,000 barrels in the week ending February 13, after increasing by 13.4 million barrels in the week prior. Inventories in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) keep climbing week after week. The Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories rose by 200,000 barrels to 415.4 million barrels in the week ending February 13. This is 310.1 million barrels shy of maximum capacity. US production stopped its fifth week in a row losing…

Some of you may remember devouring those paperbacks with lurid, futuristic covers, imagining the worlds conjured up by Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury: the planetary entrepreneurs, the galactic empires, and the firemen who burned books. Back in 1941, Asimov wrote a story about solar power space stations that beamed the energy to Earth.  Arthur C. Clarke later (1951) laid out how to use satellites for communications in The Exploration of Space, but he also noted a German idea, from decades earlier, to put mirrors…

When Winter Storm Fern swept across much of the United States in mid-January 2026—bringing snow, ice, and sustained sub-zero temperatures from Texas to New England—millions of Americans braced for power outages. In some areas, those fears were realized. Tennessee alone reported more than 245,000 customer outages at peak conditions. At the same time, natural gas prices spiked dramatically, exceeding $30 per MMBtu at certain constrained delivery points within the PJM Interconnection. Yet despite the severity and duration of the storm,…

Giant oil and commodity traders, including Vitol and Trafigura, alongside French Oil & Gas multinational TotalEnergies (NYSE:TTE), have won tenders to supply Libya with diesel and gasoline in a clear effort to cut imports of Russian fuel, Reuters reported on Wednesday.  Libya is moving to reboot its oil sector, 15 years after the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi fractured the country’s energy infrastructure and investment climate. Authorities are targeting an increase in crude production from around 1.4 million barrels…

Giant oil and commodity traders, including Vitol and Trafigura, alongside French Oil & Gas multinational TotalEnergies (NYSE:TTE), have won tenders to supply Libya with diesel and gasoline in a clear effort to cut imports of Russian fuel, Reuters reported on Wednesday.  Libya is moving to reboot its oil sector, 15 years after the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi fractured the country’s energy infrastructure and investment climate. Authorities are targeting an increase in crude production from around 1.4 million barrels…

Global investment in the energy transition hit a record $2.3 trillion in 2025, good for a 8% increase from 2024, driven by massive spending on electric transport, renewable energy, and grid infrastructure, BloombergNEF has reported. Clean energy spending exceeded total fossil fuel supply investment for the second consecutive year, highlighting accelerated efforts to decarbonize, despite slowing growth rates in some sectors like solar. Electrified Transport was the largest investment category after attracting $893 billion, up 21% from 2024, driven…

Canada-based energy firm, Ovintiv Inc. (NYSE: OVV), has entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Oil & Gas assets in the Anadarko Basin in Oklahoma to an undisclosed buyer for $3 billion in cash. The assets include ~360,000 net acres, representing nearly all of the company's holdings in the Anadarko region.  Ovintiv currently produces roughly 90,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) from these assets, consisting of 27,000 bbl/d of oil and condensate, 240 MMcf/d of natural gas and 23,000 bbl/d of natural gas liquids. The…

A European Commission spokeswoman on February 17 confirmed that Brussels was in touch with Ukraine regarding the Druzhba pipeline that has been damaged since late January, preventing Russian oil from flowing to Hungary and Slovakia. "We are in contact with Ukraine on the timeline for reparation of the Druzhba oil pipeline and how quickly this might be up and running," Anna-Kaisa Itkonen told journalists in Brussels, adding the EU executive was ready to call an emergency coordination group with relevant parties to discuss alternative routes to fuel…

The United States military has attacked three alleged drug boats in the Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean as the U.S. continues its crackdown on narcotics trade and enforces a blockade on illicit oil shipments from Venezuela.   Earlier this week, the Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted three lethal kinetic strikes on three vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations, the U.S. Southern Command said late on Tuesday.  “Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and…

The United States military has attacked three alleged drug boats in the Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean as the U.S. continues its crackdown on narcotics trade and enforces a blockade on illicit oil shipments from Venezuela.   Earlier this week, the Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted three lethal kinetic strikes on three vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations, the U.S. Southern Command said late on Tuesday.  “Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and…

The United States military has attacked three alleged drug boats in the Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean as the U.S. continues its crackdown on narcotics trade and enforces a blockade on illicit oil shipments from Venezuela.   Earlier this week, the Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted three lethal kinetic strikes on three vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations, the U.S. Southern Command said late on Tuesday.  “Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and…

Oil prices surged nearly 3% on Wednesday after peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Geneva ended abruptly after only two hours. The failure to reach a breakthrough heightened market fears that sanctions and supply restrictions on Russian oil will persist longer than previously anticipated. Brent crude for April delivery was up 2.74% to trade at $69.15 per barrel at 8.20 am ET in Wednesday’s morning session while WTI crude for March delivery gained 2.79% to change hands at $64.05 per barrel. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called…

Nigeria’s struggles to pump to its OPEC+ quota over the past year have resulted in a loss of $1.31 billion gross revenue for the biggest African oil producer, according to data calculated by Business Insider Africa.  The cumulative underproduction for Nigeria between January 2025 and January 2026 is estimated at about 18.12 million barrels. Multiplied by the official average price of the country’s flagship Bonny Light crude, $72.08 per barrel, the lost revenues for OPEC’s top African producer amount to $1.31 billion, Business…

Nigeria’s struggles to pump to its OPEC+ quota over the past year have resulted in a loss of $1.31 billion gross revenue for the biggest African oil producer, according to data calculated by Business Insider Africa.  The cumulative underproduction for Nigeria between January 2025 and January 2026 is estimated at about 18.12 million barrels. Multiplied by the official average price of the country’s flagship Bonny Light crude, $72.08 per barrel, the lost revenues for OPEC’s top African producer amount to $1.31 billion, Business…

Nigeria’s struggles to pump to its OPEC+ quota over the past year have resulted in a loss of $1.31 billion gross revenue for the biggest African oil producer, according to data calculated by Business Insider Africa.  The cumulative underproduction for Nigeria between January 2025 and January 2026 is estimated at about 18.12 million barrels. Multiplied by the official average price of the country’s flagship Bonny Light crude, $72.08 per barrel, the lost revenues for OPEC’s top African producer amount to $1.31 billion, Business…