After the Henry Hub natural gas price for February doubled, oil-and-gas producers aggressively locked in hedges. Cold weather caused the largest one-week rally since at least 1990. Oil and gas producers leaned into the historic rally in Nymex Henry Hub prices driven by Winter Storm Fern. The storm brought sub-freezing temperatures across much of the Lower 48, tightening balances and sending natural gas prices sharply higher in a ten-day period from January 19 to January 28. AEGIS client hedging activity for natural gas reached the most active levels…

Washington is starting to ask the quiet part out loud: who, exactly, is making money off Venezuela’s oil? This week, U.S. Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on a House investigative committee, sent letters to Vitol and Trafigura demanding records of any communications they’ve had with the Trump administration since January of last year. The timing is not subtle. U.S. forces captured Venezuela’s longtime strongman Nicolás Maduro earlier this month, and Washington has since taken control of Venezuelan oil sales…

Washington is starting to ask the quiet part out loud: who, exactly, is making money off Venezuela’s oil? This week, U.S. Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on a House investigative committee, sent letters to Vitol and Trafigura demanding records of any communications they’ve had with the Trump administration since January of last year. The timing is not subtle. U.S. forces captured Venezuela’s longtime strongman Nicolás Maduro earlier this month, and Washington has since taken control of Venezuelan oil sales…

The upstream sector is set to carry strong momentum into 2026, with high-impact wildcat drilling activity expected to remain elevated following a solid 2025. Last year, the success rate for high-impact wildcat wells rose to 38% from 23% in 2024, while total discovered volumes increased by 53% year on year to around 2.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), according to Rystad Energy’s research and analysis. Wells are designated as high-impact based on a variety of factors: the size of the potential resources, whether they could open new…

The finances of Latin America’s fourth-largest economy, Colombia, are in total disarray. Nearly four years of fiscal mismanagement by Colombia’s first elected leftist leader, President Gustavo Petro, sparked fears of a financial crisis engulfing the strife-torn Andean nation. A combination of dwindling tax revenue and excessive spending is rapidly depleting Bogota’s coffers. Even Petro’s tax hikes, which took on a worrying sense of regularity, did little to salvage government finances while sharply impacting economically…

Gold prices surged sharply on Thursday morning as energy markets jolted higher following fresh Iran-related rhetoric from U.S. President Donald Trump, briefly sending oil prices up by as much as 5% intraday and reigniting demand for hard-asset hedges. The move in gold came as Brent crude punched back above the $70 a barrel level earlier in the session, after Trump warned that military action against Iran remained on the table if tensions escalate further.  The remarks brought geopolitical risk back into oil markets that had recently been driven…

Gold prices surged sharply on Thursday morning as energy markets jolted higher following fresh Iran-related rhetoric from U.S. President Donald Trump, briefly sending oil prices up by as much as 5% intraday and reigniting demand for hard-asset hedges. The move in gold came as Brent crude punched back above the $70 a barrel level earlier in the session, after Trump warned that military action against Iran remained on the table if tensions escalate further.  The remarks brought geopolitical risk back into oil markets that had recently been driven…

China’s secret weapon in the global race to lead AI innovation is its enormous electricity resources. While China quietly plugs away at ramping up its development and integration of large language models, Western countries are facing increasing energy security tradeoffs to keep data centers running. The increased energy demand and grid capacity required to run AI’s ever-expanding computational load are putting enormous strain on power grids in Western countries. Power grids were already in a precarious position in the United States…

Stronger refining margins and higher throughput volumes helped U.S. refining giant Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO) beat analyst estimates of fourth-quarter earnings. Valero on Thursday kicked off the earnings season for the U.S. refiners by reporting an adjusted net income attributable to Valero stockholders of $1.2 billion, or $3.82 per share, for the fourth quarter. This easily beat the analyst consensus estimate of $3.27 earnings per share in The Wall Street Journal. Strong refining margins boosted the net income, as the refining margin…

India’s largest private refiner, Reliance Industries, will import about 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) of non-sanctioned Russian crude from February, as it limits intake from Russia and complies with the U.S. sanctions, a source with knowledge of the procurement plans told Bloomberg on Thursday.   Before the U.S. sanctions on Russia’s top producers Rosneft and Lukoil, Reliance Industries of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani was the biggest buyer of Russian crude oil, importing more than 500,000 bpd thanks to a long-term deal…

India’s largest private refiner, Reliance Industries, will import about 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) of non-sanctioned Russian crude from February, as it limits intake from Russia and complies with the U.S. sanctions, a source with knowledge of the procurement plans told Bloomberg on Thursday.   Before the U.S. sanctions on Russia’s top producers Rosneft and Lukoil, Reliance Industries of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani was the biggest buyer of Russian crude oil, importing more than 500,000 bpd thanks to a long-term deal…

Citgo Petroleum, the U.S.-based refiner formerly owned by Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA, has bought its first Venezuelan crude under U.S. control, anonymous sources with knowledge of the situation have told Reuters. Citgo, which is the seventh-largest refiner in the United States with a total capacity topping 800,000 barrels per day (bpd), is in the process of being acquired by an affiliate of Elliott Investment Management in a court-ordered auction to pay off PDVSA’s debt to creditors.   Citgo was one of Venezuela’s top…

Citgo Petroleum, the U.S.-based refiner formerly owned by Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA, has bought its first Venezuelan crude under U.S. control, anonymous sources with knowledge of the situation have told Reuters. Citgo, which is the seventh-largest refiner in the United States with a total capacity topping 800,000 barrels per day (bpd), is in the process of being acquired by an affiliate of Elliott Investment Management in a court-ordered auction to pay off PDVSA’s debt to creditors.   Citgo was one of Venezuela’s top…

Brent Crude prices topped $70 per barrel early on Thursday for the first time since August, as U.S. President Donald Trump warned Iran that a “massive armada” of U.S. Navy ships is headed to the Persian Gulf.  At the time of writing, Brent Crude prices had jumped by 4.71% at $71.62. This was the highest in more than five months and the first time the international benchmark has topped $70 per barrel since early August. The U.S. benchmark, WTI Crude, was also trading higher, up by 4.79% to $66.24. WTI topped $65 per barrel for the…

Venezuela is edging toward what could become the most consequential energy shift in a generation. Interim President Delcy Rodriguez reportedly met with senior international oil executives this week at a PDVSA facility, as the government opens consultations on a partial reform of the country’s Organic Hydrocarbons Law. The proposed changes, now moving through Venezuela’s National Assembly, would fundamentally reshape the fiscal and contractual rules governing the country’s oil and gas sectors.  While the state would retain…

Last year, the energy sector emerged as one of the notable laggards in an otherwise red-hot U.S. stock market. The sector notched a respectable, but below-market, return of 7.9%, falling to match the 16.4% gain by the S&P 500 in large part due to a big pullback in oil prices in the second half of 2025. Thankfully, oil and gas stocks are looking to flip the script in the early innings of the new year, with the energy sector up 11.2% in the year-to-date, the best sector performance so far in the year and incomparable to a 1.9% gain by the broad-market…

Following the U.S. sanctions on Russia’s Lukoil, which operated one of Iraq’s largest oilfields, Baghdad temporarily took control over the West Qurna 2 project, which accounts for 10% of all Iraqi oil production and 0.5% of global crude supply. Lukoil had a 75% equity stake in West Qurna 2, which produces more than 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil. The U.S. sanctions made it impossible for Lukoil to continue operating the huge field. Following the U.S. sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft, “as a result of Russia’s…

Europe has been trying to reduce its reliance on imported energy for four years now. It has had partial success, notably through demand destruction resulting from excessive prices. This month, part of Europe doubled down on that plan just as the United States grid presented an object lesson in the importance of reliable energy from all the sources that Europe wants to get rid of, and soon. Earlier this week, nine European countries announced they would build 100 GW of offshore wind power capacity as they seek to source more of their electricity…

Iran is bracing for a potential attack as the United States deploys key military assets, including an air carrier and additional bombers, to the Middle East. US President Donald Trump has threatened to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters. If Trump authorizes military action, Tehran would be virtually powerless to stop an aerial attack, experts say. But that does not mean Iran cannot retaliate against US military and commercial assets in the region, experts say, citing Tehran's formidable arsenal of…

Kuwait is preparing to move forward with a major midstream expansion as it opens a $7-billion pipeline project to foreign capital, part of a broader push to fund critical oil infrastructure outside the state budget. State-owned Kuwait Oil Company is readying a pipeline deal valued at roughly $7 billion that would involve international partners, according to Reuters. The project is part of a broader effort by Kuwait to upgrade transport capacity linking upstream production to export and processing hubs, while easing the financial burden on the state.…