The energy demand boom being driven by the artificial intelligence era is placing unprecedented strain on global energy infrastructure. Not only are the world’s energy production capacities – and especially clean energy production capacities – dwarfed by projected data center energy demand curves in coming years, the physical infrastructure needed to build and sustain never-before-seen rates of electrification and energy consumption growth is woefully underdeveloped. At present, the world’s energy grids and transmission…

French historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz has offered energy-transition skeptics an appealing historical argument. In More and More and More, he argues that humanity has never really moved from one energy source to another. Wood was joined by coal, coal by oil, oil by gas and all of them by renewables. Energy sources accumulate rather than replace one another. Global primary-energy charts make the argument look convincing. Fossil use remains near record levels after trillions in clean-energy investment. Biomass did not disappear when coal arrived,…

Asia will need as much as $1 trillion annually in energy investment over the next 15 years to meet rising demand and reduce its exposure to supply disruptions, according to a McKinsey report released Thursday. That amounts to $15 trillion through 2040, with the Iran war exposing just how vulnerable the region remains to disruptions in oil and gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. McKinsey now expects Asian energy demand to reach 370 million terajoules by 2040, a 15% increase over its forecast from just a year ago. The region is expected to…

Canadian oil producer Strathcona Resources wants to export up to 250,000 barrels per day of crude from British Columbia’s northern coast using rail shipments and a new marine terminal to reach Asian markets. But first, it needs Ottawa to make an exception to its oil tanker ban. Strathcona Chairman Adam Waterous told Bloomberg that the company plans to approach Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government as early as next week with a proposal to move crude by rail to a new export terminal in Prince Rupert. Waterous believes exports could…

Europe’s carbon market could soon start paying shipowners to switch fuels, but the support on offer is far from equal. In July, the European Commission proposed a revision of the European Union’s Emissions Trading System that would reserve up to 110 million allowances between 2028 and 2040 for a new Sustainable Maritime Alternative Propulsion (SMAP) mechanism, which is meant to cover part of the price gap between fossil marine fuels and sustainable alternatives. Rystad Energy’s analysis shows that, combined with the EU ETS…

Citi sees more upside risk for oil prices despite recovering Middle Eastern crude exports, a considerably less bearish assessment from the bank that predicted $60-to-$65 Brent by year-end just three months ago. Brent December futures traded at $111.70 on Thursday, up $2.88, or 2.65%, after touching $112.68 earlier in the session. The problem, Citi says, is that getting crude out of the Gulf and getting it to buyers at a reasonable cost are two different things. More than 1 million barrels per day of Gulf crude was transferred between vessels in…

Citi sees more upside risk for oil prices despite recovering Middle Eastern crude exports, a considerably less bearish assessment from the bank that predicted $60-to-$65 Brent by year-end just three months ago. Brent December futures traded at $111.70 on Thursday, up $2.88, or 2.65%, after touching $112.68 earlier in the session. The problem, Citi says, is that getting crude out of the Gulf and getting it to buyers at a reasonable cost are two different things. More than 1 million barrels per day of Gulf crude was transferred between vessels in…

Iran is making a push to expand connectivity with Central Asian states, with high-level Iranian officials engaging their counterparts from four of the five regional states over the past week alone. On the sidelines of the October 19 Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in Dushanbe, Tajik leader Emomali Rahmon talked trade with Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref. Without providing specific numbers, Aref claimed that bilateral volume had increased 50 percent since the start Tehran’s low-boil conflict with the United States.…

The world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, Norway’s $2.3-trillion Government Pension Fund Global, booked a loss of $30 billion for the third quarter as higher interest rates and market turbulence hit both its fixed-term and equity investments. Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), which is commonly referred to as 'Norway's oil fund' because it was created with oil and gas revenues, is a shareholder in many large companies in the world, with more than half of the value of its equity investments in the U.S. market. The…

The United Kingdom has finally established an oil-backed investment fund, decades after neighboring Norway began transforming its North Sea petroleum revenues into one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds. The British government's new £2 billion Energy Wealth Fund, announced Wednesday alongside approval of the Jackdaw gas field, will channel North Sea oil and gas tax revenues into renewable energy and low-carbon infrastructure. But the announcement has revived an uncomfortable question: What if Britain had started saving its oil…

The UK’s energy market regulator, Ofgem, is looking to keep Britain’s gas import capacity from mainland European connectors to preserve flexibility to import gas in case of strong demand. Ofgem on Thursday approved Interconnector Limited entering into an agreement, under its license, with National Gas Transmission plc to reinforce gas import capability through the Great Britain-Belgium interconnector. The UK is connected to mainland Europe with several interconnectors, through which gas can flow in both directions depending on where…

The UK’s energy market regulator, Ofgem, is looking to keep Britain’s gas import capacity from mainland European connectors to preserve flexibility to import gas in case of strong demand. Ofgem on Thursday approved Interconnector Limited entering into an agreement, under its license, with National Gas Transmission plc to reinforce gas import capability through the Great Britain-Belgium interconnector. The UK is connected to mainland Europe with several interconnectors, through which gas can flow in both directions depending on where…

The UK’s energy market regulator, Ofgem, is looking to keep Britain’s gas import capacity from mainland European connectors to preserve flexibility to import gas in case of strong demand. Ofgem on Thursday approved Interconnector Limited entering into an agreement, under its license, with National Gas Transmission plc to reinforce gas import capability through the Great Britain-Belgium interconnector. The UK is connected to mainland Europe with several interconnectors, through which gas can flow in both directions depending on where…

It was once taboo in Iran to publicly speak about developing nuclear weapons. The authorities would often point to former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's religious edict barring the development of weapons of mass destruction. Iranian officials have long insisted the country's nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes. Open calls for a bomb from sitting lawmakers and senior security officials would have been unthinkable a few years ago. But with the war with the United States in limbo, that's no longer the case. After almost eight…

Europe’s benchmark natural gas prices rose on Thursday to nearly 90 euros per megawatt-hour, or the equivalent of $29.50 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), as the escalation in the Middle East raised concerns about European winter gas supply amid historically low inventories at the start of the heating season.    The front-month price at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF), the benchmark for Europe’s gas trading, had jumped by 2.7% at 9 a.m. Amsterdam time on Thursday, tracking a 3% surge in oil prices as…

A lot has happened since 1 June 2022, the date when ministers first granted permission to tap the Jackdaw gas field. The Conservatives were halfway through their ill-fated final term of three. Kwasi Kwarteng was the business secretary, with equally ill-fated aspirations for higher office. And the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero – now responsible for overseeing all major energy policy decisions – did not even exist. In the more than four years since then, Britain has been treated to five new energy secretaries and six Chancellors.…

LME Week 2026 kicked off in London on Monday, with industry leaders focused on the macroeconomic outlook for base metals, AI and energy transition demand, as well as critical mineral supply chain resilience. This year's discussions have come at a time when the London Metal Exchange is robustly healthy, recording a 16% year-on-year increase in average daily turnover from January through September.  Standard Chartered's commodity analysts expect mixed results for base metals in the coming months. Prices will follow macroeconomic conditions (risk…

Oil supermajors have been raking it in since the war in the Middle East began. They are now set to report another robust quarter, even as some jurisdictions where they operate plan to slap windfall taxes on them. The question now is what Big Oil will do with these profits. The answer: it probably won’t be a spending spree. They sure have the money for a spree. If the second quarter is any indication—and it is—oil and gas majors are having a really strong year. Out of all S&P 500 sectors, Energy booked annual growth of 128.2%…

Congress needs to pass the bipartisan bill on permitting reform to accelerate energy infrastructure buildout so that the United States can compete economically and industrially with China, say former economic policy and national security officials who have served six U.S. presidents. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 was introduced in the Senate at the end of September and is expected to be debated after the mid-term elections when Congress returns from the recess on November 9. The bill would reinforce statutory deadlines…

The world’s ongoing energy crisis is quickly turning into a global food security crisis. Ongoing conflict between some of the world’s most prominent economies on two major fronts – Russia’s war in Ukraine and the United States’ and Israel’s war in Iran – is creating geopolitical shockwaves through critical global trade routes and threatening some of humanity’s most essential commodities, from oil and gas to grain and fertilizer.  A "multidirectional squeeze on world agriculture" is taking form,…