Central Asian states are cultivating growing connections to Pakistan, as decades of suspicion and hostility give way to a mutual desire to expand trade and strengthen regional security. A trip by Kyrgyzstan’s president, Sadyr Japarov, to Islamabad on December 3-4 highlights the rapid expansion of engagement. The visit, the first such visit by a Kyrgyz leader in over two decades, yielded a variety of agreements covering such areas as trade, education, tourism, energy, and agriculture.   A business forum held in conjunction with…

China has accelerated purchases of Saudi crude oil for January to the highest volumes in five months, after the world’s top crude exporter slashed its official selling prices for Asia to the lowest premium over benchmarks in five years. Chinese refiners have nominated almost 50 million barrels in total of Saudi crude volumes for January loading, anonymous traders with knowledge of the purchases told Bloomberg on Tuesday. The nominations for January are about 10 million barrels higher compared to the December volumes and the highest level…

Qatar's Energy Minister Al-Kaabi has told a forum in Doha that insufficient investment in energy infrastructure, coupled with surging demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom will lead to a global LNG and natural gas shortage after 2035. The energy minister has projected that global LNG demand will surge to 700 million tons per year over the next decade, from 400 million tons currently, noting that oil prices remain below the $70-80 per barrel range required to finance the necessary infrastructure investments. "In every country we…

The collapse of longtime Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last year was felt across the Middle East, and nowhere more than in Iran, his closest ally. Assad’s fall was a major blow to Iran, which had used Syria to expand its regional influence and funnel weapons to armed groups fighting Israel, Tehran’s archrival. One year on from Assad’s overthrow on December 8, 2024, Iran is still grappling with the consequences of its strategic defeat in Syria. The Islamic Republic has attempted to rebuild its influence in Syria, but experts…

India has added as much as 7.2 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power capacity in the current fiscal year ending March 2026, which is about 60% above the previous fiscal year’s capacity expansion with four months to go, government data showed on Tuesday.   The newly-commissioned capacity in the 2025/2026 fiscal year so far has hit the highest in a decade as India looks to bolster its energy security with flexible baseload power capacity, according to the data shared in Parliament by India’s Deputy Power Minister Shripad Naik and…

India has added as much as 7.2 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power capacity in the current fiscal year ending March 2026, which is about 60% above the previous fiscal year’s capacity expansion with four months to go, government data showed on Tuesday.   The newly-commissioned capacity in the 2025/2026 fiscal year so far has hit the highest in a decade as India looks to bolster its energy security with flexible baseload power capacity, according to the data shared in Parliament by India’s Deputy Power Minister Shripad Naik and…

India has added as much as 7.2 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power capacity in the current fiscal year ending March 2026, which is about 60% above the previous fiscal year’s capacity expansion with four months to go, government data showed on Tuesday.   The newly-commissioned capacity in the 2025/2026 fiscal year so far has hit the highest in a decade as India looks to bolster its energy security with flexible baseload power capacity, according to the data shared in Parliament by India’s Deputy Power Minister Shripad Naik and…

India has added as much as 7.2 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power capacity in the current fiscal year ending March 2026, which is about 60% above the previous fiscal year’s capacity expansion with four months to go, government data showed on Tuesday.   The newly-commissioned capacity in the 2025/2026 fiscal year so far has hit the highest in a decade as India looks to bolster its energy security with flexible baseload power capacity, according to the data shared in Parliament by India’s Deputy Power Minister Shripad Naik and…

  Is Now the Right Time to Finally Go Short on Oil Futures? - Behind the façade of calm oil markets, a gradual build-up in speculative positions could be undermining future prices of Brent or WTI as both benchmarks remain on their longest runs below their 100-day moving average in more than a year.- Open interest held in ICE Brent is now the highest in history – 5.5 million contracts as of this week – however investors hold more Dec 2026 contracts than any other month except for the prompt two, February and March, suggesting…

A cargo of crude oil from sanctioned Russian giant Rosneft has made an 11-week-long meandering trip around Europe and Asia in search of buyers and although it has anchored off a sanctioned Chinese import port, it’s not certain it has reached its final destination yet. The Fortis tanker with about 700,000 barrels of now sanctioned Russian oil dropped anchor near the Chinese port of Rizhao on the east coast on Tuesday, tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg showed. The Fortis did not make the entire trip from Russia’s western port…

REAlloys, which is in the process of merging with Blackboxstocks Inc. (NASDAQ: BLBX), has moved to the front of the rare earth sector with a new agreement that gives it control over the lion’s share of North America’s upcoming heavy rare earth production. Its partnership with the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) brings commercial volumes of dysprosium, terbium, and high-purity NdPr into the region for the first time, directly targeting the largest bottleneck in Western magnet manufacturing. Reuters described the transaction as a…

The U.S. solar market saw a significant jump in capacity installations in the third quarter as developers ramp up activity and construction to qualify for the last investment tax credits that are being phased out by the Trump Administration. The industry added 11.7 gigawatts direct current (GWdc) of solar power capacity in the third quarter of 2025, up by 20% from a year earlier and a massive 49% surge compared to the second quarter. That was the third-largest quarter for deployment in the industry’s history, the Solar Energy Industries Association…

Oil prices are set to average below $60 per barrel next year, investment banks have said in their latest forecasts in recent weeks.  In 2026, both Brent Crude and WTI Crude are expected to slip from current levels of $63 per barrel and $60 a barrel, respectively, as the emerging oversupply will overwhelm the market, analysts say.  Geopolitical factors will certainly play into the price of oil next year, and these will be centered on Venezuela, Russia, and Iran.  Despite the many geopolitical uncertainties, the U.S. Energy Information…

Iraq’s Oil Ministry has revealed that it has sent out exclusive invitations to several major U.S. energy firms to develop the country’s huge West Qurna 2 oilfield following the withdrawal of Russian oil number two Lukoil after Washington ratcheted up sanctions on Moscow. “It’s a huge turnaround in the trajectory it [Iraq] had been headed with Russia and China, marking a massive win for us [the U.S.] and Europe,” a senior legal source who works closely with the U.S. Treasury Department exclusively told OilPrice.com…

On January 1 next year, a new tax will come into effect in the European Union. Dubbed the carbon border adjustment mechanism, the tax will be imposed on imports from non-EU countries with less strict emission reduction standards. Those countries are already speaking out against the tax—and the EU is about to face some unforeseen consequences. Last week, Reuters reported that Indian steel exporters were looking for new markets to replace the European Union, which currently absorbs as much as two-thirds of Indian steel exports. India’s…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with European leaders seeking to ensure a US-led effort to end Russia's war on Ukraine does not result in a lopsided deal that would reward Moscow for its aggression against its neighbor and leave Kyiv vulnerable to future attacks. In a media briefing after the meeting Zelenskyy said that Ukraine has no right to cede territories "neither under Ukrainian law, nor under international law, nor from the moral standpoint." He added that Russia was exerting pressure to make Kyiv give up its territories, but…

The European Union has drawn a line in the sand. By 2027, the bloc intends to phase out Russian natural gas imports completely.  But as the policy ink dries in Brussels, a new challenge is emerging in the real economy… We might not have enough hands to build the infrastructure that replaces it. International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol stood alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week and called it the "end of an era." But he also delivered a warning.  The transition away from Russian…

The national average price of gasoline has continued on a downward trend after dropping below $3 a gallon a week ago, sinking to their lowest level since 2021. The median U.S. gas price is now $2.79 per gallon, with the national average 4 cents lower from a week ago. However, prices vary widely by state, with motorists in Oklahoma paying $2.366 per gallon compared to $4.469 in California. Diesel prices have seen an even steeper decline, with the national average price of diesel currently standing at $3.671 per gallon, 5.1 cents lower than a week…

The national average price of gasoline has continued on a downward trend after dropping below $3 a gallon a week ago, sinking to their lowest level since 2021. The median U.S. gas price is now $2.79 per gallon, with the national average 4 cents lower from a week ago. However, prices vary widely by state, with motorists in Oklahoma paying $2.366 per gallon compared to $4.469 in California. Diesel prices have seen an even steeper decline, with the national average price of diesel currently standing at $3.671 per gallon, 5.1 cents lower than a week…

Tesla shares slipped more than 4% on Monday after Morgan Stanley cut its rating on the stock to Equal-weight from Overweight, even as the firm raised its price target to $425 from $410. With Tesla changing hands around $455 into the move, the new target implies modest downside and a more balanced risk-reward profile in the eyes of the bank’s analysts. The downgrade also coincides with a notable change in coverage leadership. Longtime Tesla watcher Adam Jonas is no longer the primary analyst on the name. Coverage is now being assumed by a…