Oil and gas supermajor ExxonMobil will buy a 40% stake in the new Bahia natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline from Enterprise Products Partners as producers and pipeline operators expand gas takeaway capacity in the Permian basin.  Enterprise Products Partners on Thursday said it had entered into an agreement with ExxonMobil, which will acquire a 40% undivided joint interest in Enterprise’s Bahia NGL pipeline that is currently being commissioned.   The closing of the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected…

Latin America has all the necessary ingredients for a successful clean energy transition, but can it pull it off? The region has enormous clean energy production potential, and already sources an impressive 70% of its electricity from renewables. However, the necessary infrastructural and policy supports to ensure a secure, sustainable, and just transition are lagging far behind.  A new white paper from the World Economic Forum, Energy Transition Readiness: Latin America and the Caribbean, finds that “while the region has some of the…

A massive fire has erupted at a crude oil upgrader project in Venezuela after an explosion was heard near the distillation tower, workers on site and sources at state oil firm PDVSA told Reuters.  The Petrocedeno project in Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt, operational since 2000, was one of the four original projects in the heavy crude oil belt in the world’s biggest holder of crude resources.   Petrocedeno, operated by PDVSA, extracts extra-heavy oil and upgrades it into a lighter synthetic crude for export. Petrocedeno produces…

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to meet top US Defense Department officials in Kyiv on November 20 amid reports that Moscow and Washington have drawn up a peace plan that calls for Ukraine to make major concessions. The new US-drafted proposal to halt the war in Ukraine sees Kyiv giving up some of its territory and some of its weaponry, news reports late on November 19 said. The US proposals also reportedly include cutting the size of Ukraine's armed forces and accepting a rollback of US military assistance that has been essential to Ukraine's…

The $5-billion East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), which is planned to export crude oil from Uganda via a port in Tanzania, is now 75% complete, moving landlocked Uganda a step closer to becoming an oil exporter.  EACOP, a controversial pipeline project that has seen a lot of environmental opposition and planning and construction delays, is now about three-quarters completed, according to the Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU) as quoted by Reuters. With pipeline construction progressing, Uganda now aims to begin oil production from its…

Refining margins in the U.S, northwest Europe, and Asia have jumped to two-year highs as diesel and gasoline markets tighten with no sign of immediate relief.   Refinery closures in recent years, planned maintenance after the summer, unplanned repairs due to outages, and Ukrainian attacks crippling Russia’s oil product exports have tightened the refined petroleum markets everywhere. Forecasters and traders expect a glut on the crude market to depress further benchmark crude futures going into 2026, but the strength in gasoline and middle…

Previously, we reported that the pivot by Indian refiners away from Russian oil has triggered a spike in oil product prices even as crude prices remain largely unchanged. To wit, ICE Brent-Gasoil crack spreads doubled from the $15-17/bbl range held in the first half of the year, to a 21-month high above $32/bbl, good for a nearly 70% increase in the year-to-date. Gasoil is a middle distillate mainly used in commercial and agricultural sectors for off-road vehicles, machinery, and generators. And now reports have emerged that the distillates market…

Three years ago, Germany led an EU-wide offensive against Russian pipeline gas imports. These imports were no longer wanted in Europe because of the war in Ukraine. They would be replaced with LNG—for a short while—because the EU, and Germany, were firmly on their way to net zero. Now, Germany is in the LNG game for the long haul, building import terminals with a target of over 70 million tons annually—including from Russia. Reuters this week published an overview of Germany’s efforts to boost imports of liquefied natural…

E-waste is a massive and rapidly growing issue as more and more of our electronic devices reach the end of their life and end up in landfills. Today, e-waste is the fastest growing solid waste stream on the planet.  Finding new ways to breathe life into old electronics or to harvest their valuable components for upcycling, such as costly metals and rare earth minerals, is not only critical to closing this wasteful loop, but could also be an enormous economic advantage for the tech manufacturing sector. One of these newest innovations tackles…

MP Materials shares surged on Wednesday after the company announced a joint venture with Saudi Arabia’s Ma’aden to build a rare-earths processing and magnet manufacturing hub in the kingdom, a move that positions the U.S. producer inside one of the world’s fastest-growing critical-minerals investment programs. The partnership will give MP a new downstream base in the Gulf as Saudi Arabia accelerates its bid to become a major player in the global rare earth supply chain.The companies will establish a refinery and separation plant…

MP Materials shares surged on Wednesday after the company announced a joint venture with Saudi Arabia’s Ma’aden to build a rare-earths processing and magnet manufacturing hub in the kingdom, a move that positions the U.S. producer inside one of the world’s fastest-growing critical-minerals investment programs. The partnership will give MP a new downstream base in the Gulf as Saudi Arabia accelerates its bid to become a major player in the global rare earth supply chain.The companies will establish a refinery and separation plant…

Iraqis voted in a parliamentary election on 11 November and, though pre-election surveys predicted a record-low turnout, the final total turnout was 56.11% according to the Independent High Electoral Commission.  (Turnout for the 2021 parliamentary election was 43.3%.) Incumbent prime minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani’s Construction and Development Coalition, won 46 seats in the 329-seat Council of Representatives of Iraq. Now the election is over and Sudani faces the task of building a governing coalition. (After the 2021 election,…

Is AI in a bubble? When will the bubble burst? Are there signs? Well, we don’t have a crystal ball, but there are signs. On the markets, several prominent investors have spoken. Peter Thiel, one of the best-known tech investors, has sold his entire position in Nvidia. SoftBank, a huge Japanese tech investor is unloading its shares, too. Meanwhile, Michael Burry, of Big Short fame, warns of an impending bubble burst. And the head of Swedish fintech Klarna, a man with major AI holdings, said that he’s thinking of hedging his positions…

One week ago we said that "hundreds of billions" of dollars are about to be loaned out to nuclear projects by the US government. Well, the first billion is about to be wired.  The Wall Street Journal reports Constellation Energy has secured a $1 billion federal loan from the Energy Department's Loan Programs Office (LPO) to restart the Unit 1 reactor at the Three Mile Island reactor plant in Pennsylvania, recently renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center. Constellation has said it would pay about $1.6 billion to restart the plant in 2027. …

Alaska’s production outlook is shifting for the first time in nearly a decade, with the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday projecting that North Slope crude output will rise by some 13% next year as two large fields move into high-volume phases.  This would mark the strongest annual increase since the 1980s and a rare break from the long decline that has steadily reduced throughput on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline (TAPS). The agency ties the anticipated jump to new wells and extended-reach drilling tied to major North…

Alaska’s production outlook is shifting for the first time in nearly a decade, with the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday projecting that North Slope crude output will rise by some 13% next year as two large fields move into high-volume phases.  This would mark the strongest annual increase since the 1980s and a rare break from the long decline that has steadily reduced throughput on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline (TAPS). The agency ties the anticipated jump to new wells and extended-reach drilling tied to major North…

Alaska’s production outlook is shifting for the first time in nearly a decade, with the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday projecting that North Slope crude output will rise by some 13% next year as two large fields move into high-volume phases.  This would mark the strongest annual increase since the 1980s and a rare break from the long decline that has steadily reduced throughput on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline (TAPS). The agency ties the anticipated jump to new wells and extended-reach drilling tied to major North…

Renewable energies are exploding in emerging economies as the economics of wind and solar make it the obvious choice in most national and regional contexts. What’s more, the rapidly changing economics of renewables are not just saving money for developing countries, they could soon be making money in considerable sums in many emerging economies. A recent study from Oxford University finds that low- and middle-income countries stand to benefit the most from adopting renewable energies, with potential GDP gains of around 10 percent in the next…

Poland suspects Russian intelligence services were behind an explosion on a major Polish railway line used to transport military goods and aid to Ukraine, an act Prime Minister Donald Tusk called an "unprecedented act of sabotage." In the first comments where a Polish official suggested Moscow was behind the attack over the weekend, Jacek Dobrzynski, a spokesperson for Poland's special services minister, said the blast was an attempt "to destabilize" and "spread fear." In a speech to Polish lawmakers after the extraordinary meeting, Tusk said that…

Saudi Arabia’s crude oil exports hit a seven-month high in September as its production jumped to a 29-month high, the latest data by the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI) showed on Wednesday.  Even as Saudi refinery runs rose by 38,000 barrels per day (bpd) in September from August, crude oil shipments from the world’s top crude exporter increased by 53,000 bpd, according to the data.    The increase may not seem much but it was the highest level since February and above the 2020-2024 five-year average for…