Wintertime in the Northern hemisphere is usually a cold affair spanning at least a couple of months. The winters of 2022-23 and 2023-24 were extra-mild. That, coupled with a massive boost in LNG supply from the United States, lulled many playing the gas market into a false sense of security: there was so much gas around; no amount of demand could lead to a price spike. Except it could, and it just did. This winter was off to a pretty cold start in Europe as early as October. Gas buyers in the EU had stocked up on gas in the storage caverns across…

Until U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent comments pushed it into public view, Greenland was widely regarded as a geopolitical footnote: immense, frozen, sparsely inhabited, and far from the centre of global power politics. Yet in strategic terms it sits at the hinge of the 21st?century Arctic contest. As climate change opens northern sea routes and unlocks previously inaccessible energy reserves, the region is shifting from a frozen buffer zone to a theatre of competition between Washington, Moscow, and Beijing. Russia already views the…

The world’s biggest international trading houses, which couldn’t trade Venezuelan oil for years due to the sanctions of the first Trump Administration, are back in the business, with the backing and blessing of the U.S. Following the capture of Nicolas Maduro and the U.S. takeover of Venezuelan oil sales, Vitol Group and Trafigura were authorized by the Trump Administration to help market the oil from the world’s biggest crude resource holder. The trade could be potentially very lucrative for the trading houses, which would reap…

It seemed like a good idea at the time… After protests against economic mismanagement broke out in Iran in December 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump encouraged the protestors: “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” and “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”  He threatened to attack Iran if the government executed any of the protestors. Tehran relented, and Trump replied, “I greatly respect the fact that they canceled [the executions].” Iran’s top prosecutor then rebutted Trump…

The global onshore wind sector entered 2026 with overall stability in capacity growth, but beneath the surface, the industry is undergoing a profound shift in priorities. As markets mature and renewable energy penetration rises, the focus is moving from sheer scale and turbine costs to system-level value, integration, and revenue resilience. Original equipment manufacturers, developers, and policymakers alike are adapting to evolving economics, advanced technologies, and geopolitical pressures, setting the stage for a year in which strategic decisions…

Petrobras and its logistics arm Transpetro have signed new contracts worth about 2.8 billion reais (roughly $520 million) to build a fleet of gas carriers, barges and pushboats, advancing a major domestic shipbuilding push under Brazil’s Mar Aberto (Open Sea) Program. The deal was formalized at a ceremony in Rio Grande do Sul attended by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, underscoring his wider priority of revitalizing Brazil’s maritime industrial base. Under the contracts, the Rio Grande shipyard will build five…

Petrobras and its logistics arm Transpetro have signed new contracts worth about 2.8 billion reais (roughly $520 million) to build a fleet of gas carriers, barges and pushboats, advancing a major domestic shipbuilding push under Brazil’s Mar Aberto (Open Sea) Program. The deal was formalized at a ceremony in Rio Grande do Sul attended by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, underscoring his wider priority of revitalizing Brazil’s maritime industrial base. Under the contracts, the Rio Grande shipyard will build five…

Petrobras and its logistics arm Transpetro have signed new contracts worth about 2.8 billion reais (roughly $520 million) to build a fleet of gas carriers, barges and pushboats, advancing a major domestic shipbuilding push under Brazil’s Mar Aberto (Open Sea) Program. The deal was formalized at a ceremony in Rio Grande do Sul attended by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, underscoring his wider priority of revitalizing Brazil’s maritime industrial base. Under the contracts, the Rio Grande shipyard will build five…

After years of volatility and struggles, Egypt’s oil and gas sector has entered 2026 with a rare piece of good economic news. It has made a decisive dent in the mountain of debts owed to international energy companies, as reported by Egypt’s Prime Minister Madbouli. Cairo has been facing years of crippling foreign-currency shortages and mounting overdue payments, both of which have negatively affected investment and slowed domestic gas production. Egypt is starting to turn the page. Still, optimism should be tempered, as the broader…

U.S. President Donald Trump has taken the first formal step toward reopening offshore oil and gas leasing off California, after the federal government launched a process that could lead to the first new offshore lease sales in the state in decades. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said Monday it has issued two Calls for Information and Nominations covering offshore areas in Southern and Central California. The move initiates the early stages of offshore leasing under Trump’s proposed 11th National Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas…

Herbert Stein was an American economist who served in both the Nixon and Ford administrations. He is probably most famous for formulating Stein's Law, namely, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." This is, of course, an obvious statement. But I think it cannot be stated too often in a global society that believes in infinite economic growth. I propose to take a subset of that growth to demonstrate Stein's point. The subset is world oil and natural gas consumption versus discoveries. It turns out that Rystad Energy, a major consulting…

In the global race to decarbonize energy systems, attention tends to focus on the headline technologies like hydrogen, carbon capture, electric vehicles, and massive lithium-ion batteries. Yet behind the scenes, a quieter revolution is taking shape. Across Europe and beyond, heat batteries, or thermal energy storage systems, are emerging as one of the most efficient, scalable, and cost-effective ways to balance renewable energy and decarbonize heat. They may not look futuristic. They have no moving parts, produce no dramatic chemical reactions,…

Lukoil has approached the Russian government seeking changes to the oil tax formula as discounts on Russian crude exceed $20 per barrel, a level that would force producers to make net payments into the budget rather than receive compensation, according to The Moscow Times, citing Izvestia. The request comes as Russia’s largest private oil producers face falling realized prices from exports sold well below global benchmarks. Urals crude has been trading at deep discounts as higher freight costs, restricted access to Western insurance, and…

Lukoil has approached the Russian government seeking changes to the oil tax formula as discounts on Russian crude exceed $20 per barrel, a level that would force producers to make net payments into the budget rather than receive compensation, according to The Moscow Times, citing Izvestia. The request comes as Russia’s largest private oil producers face falling realized prices from exports sold well below global benchmarks. Urals crude has been trading at deep discounts as higher freight costs, restricted access to Western insurance, and…

Officials are in damage-control mode in Georgia after the supposed unauthorized publication of a late 2025 state decree showing that the government’s reliance on Russian natural gas imports is growing and Tbilisi is now paying more for Russian imports than it has in the past. Earlier in January, Russia’s state-owned Gazprom announced it supplied 40.4 percent more gas to Georgia in 2025 than in the previous year. This surge can be seen within a broader Russian strategy to increase energy exports southward to partially offset…

A joint venture operated by U.S. supermajor Chevron has made an oil and gas discovery offshore Nigeria as international majors bolster exploration amid the top African producer’s efforts to boost hydrocarbon output and offer more favorable terms for investments.   The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) on Monday commended Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL), operator of the NNPC Ltd/CNL joint venture, on the successful completion of the Awodi-07 appraisal and exploration well located in the shallow offshore western Niger…

At present, Europe is still telling itself a very comforting story. The main theme is that the Russian gas shock has been absorbed, storage is full, and prices are manageable. At the same time, politicians keep stating that diversification has delivered “energy independence.” While repeating this with confidence doesn’t, however, make it true. Behind all these political slogans, Europe’s gas strategy is increasingly showing that it has been built on a fallacy. The latter is clear and steadily unravelling. At present, a new,…

A joint venture operated by U.S. supermajor Chevron has made an oil and gas discovery offshore Nigeria as international majors bolster exploration amid the top African producer’s efforts to boost hydrocarbon output and offer more favorable terms for investments.   The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) on Monday commended Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL), operator of the NNPC Ltd/CNL joint venture, on the successful completion of the Awodi-07 appraisal and exploration well located in the shallow offshore western Niger…

OPEC+ is expected to hold oil production flat in March and reiterate the first-quarter pause in supply hikes when the group meets on February 1 to discuss output levels, four delegates from the alliance told Bloomberg on Monday.   The group has not yet held discussions ahead of next Sunday’s online meeting, but it does not see any need of changing the policy despite the expected oversupply and the geopolitical developments that could influence supply from OPEC members Iran and Venezuela. Early this month, the eight OPEC+ members…

Russia and China seem unfazed by the U.S. and European sanctions on Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project as deliveries continue into the new year. The Chinese Beihai LNG terminal has welcomed the first cargo of 2026 from the Russian project, Reuters reported on Monday, citing data from LSEG. The Buran LNG carrier loaded LNG from a floating storage unit near Murmansk on December 25 and has traveled via the Suez Canal route to China, according to the LSEG data. The Arctic LNG 2 operator, Russia’s Novatek, has started using the Suez Canal route…