Roughly 40 years ago, the United States made a decision that seemed perfectly rational at the time: it stopped processing rare earths. The economics didn’t make sense when China could do it cheaper, so U.S. facilities closed…the expertise scattered…and an entire layer of industrial capability mostly disappeared from North American soil. REalloys (Nasdaq: ALOY) is the company now working to undo the four decades of neglect that have followed…and the reason it matters is that the expertise it holds may be the single hardest…

After a series of failed and costly attempts to revamp its aging refineries, Nigeria’s national oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), has signed a new agreement with Chinese firms to revive its moribund facilities. The NNPC has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sanjiang Chemical Company Limited and Xinganchen (Fuzhou) Industrial Park Operation and Management Co. Ltd for the completion, operation and maintenance of the Port Harcourt (210,000 bpd) and Warri (125,000 bpd) refineries under a Technical…

The oil market will take months to normalize even if flows through the Strait of Hormuz resumed today, as 1 billion barrels of oil have been wiped off the supply balance over the past two and a half months. That’s the verdict on the global oil markets of Amin Nasser, chief executive officer of Saudi Arabia’s state oil giant and the world’s single largest crude oil exporter, Saudi Aramco. “Reopening routes is not the same as normalizing a market that has been deprived of about one billion barrels of oil,” Nasser told…

As in all poker games, the player with the deepest pockets will ultimately win if he is prepared to stay at the table, and so with the high-stakes game of the U.S.-Iran War. The contents of a confidential CIA report relayed last week assessed that Iran can endure the current U.S. naval blockade in and around the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf for at least 90 to 120 days, but after that it would face economic collapse. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to benefit from dramatically increased oil production and prices on the higher historical side,…

Small Modular Reactors still won’t shift the Energy Transition, but for a different reason Last year, I argued that small modular reactors will not save the energy transition. The core reasoning was simple: timelines were too long, costs too uncertain, and grid issues too persistent for SMRs to meaningfully scale in the critical decade ahead. Today, as the UK’s flagship SMR programme unfolds and European policymakers cast fresh doubt on offshore wind targets by pointing to Rolls-Royce’s design, one thing is clear: SMRs remain…

Portugal just got a thorough energy policy review from the IEA, and the short version is this: the power sector has done its job. Everything else needs to get moving. The Portugal 2026 Energy Policy Review, released in Lisbon this week, covers the full picture, electricity, gas, transport, buildings, industry, and grid infrastructure, and lays out 10 recommendations for what the country needs to do next. It is more candid than these reports usually are. The Part That Worked Solar PV, hydropower, and wind have transformed Portugal's electricity…

I'm shocked, shocked, to find out that the Chinese are stealing America's agricultural technology! It can hardly come as a surprise that the Chinese government actively encourages and organizes the theft of intellectual property from other nations and their companies, in this case, agricultural technology in the United States. College students are some of the most active players in these thefts, as between 250,000 and 300,000 routinely attend U.S. colleges and universities in any given year, most of them studying in scientific and engineering fields.…

OPEC oil output has declined to its lowest level since 2000, with production falling by 830,000 barrels per day (bpd) to an average of 20.04 million bpd in April, according to a Reuters survey published Monday. Kuwait recorded the largest production drop, with reports indicating it exported zero crude in April thanks to its total reliance on the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia and Iraq also saw significant output decreases as they were forced to shut-in production. Saudi production dropped towards 7 million barrels per day (bpd) following attacks…

OPEC oil output has declined to its lowest level since 2000, with production falling by 830,000 barrels per day (bpd) to an average of 20.04 million bpd in April, according to a Reuters survey published Monday. Kuwait recorded the largest production drop, with reports indicating it exported zero crude in April thanks to its total reliance on the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia and Iraq also saw significant output decreases as they were forced to shut-in production. Saudi production dropped towards 7 million barrels per day (bpd) following attacks…

OPEC oil output has declined to its lowest level since 2000, with production falling by 830,000 barrels per day (bpd) to an average of 20.04 million bpd in April, according to a Reuters survey published Monday. Kuwait recorded the largest production drop, with reports indicating it exported zero crude in April thanks to its total reliance on the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia and Iraq also saw significant output decreases as they were forced to shut-in production. Saudi production dropped towards 7 million barrels per day (bpd) following attacks…

Donald Trump arrives in Beijing on Wednesday for his first state visit to China since 2017, heading into a two-day summit with President Xi Jinping that carries more energy-market weight than any bilateral meeting in recent memory. The talks, scheduled for Thursday and Friday, come as the world grapples with what the International Energy Agency has called the “largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market” — the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February.…

India has officially declined Russia's offer to sell liquefied natural gas (LNG) from projects currently under U.S. sanctions, following April reports of an LPG-laden tanker en route to western India, according to Indian media reports on Monday. Last month, Reuters reported that the 138,200-cubic-metre tanker Kunpeng was heading from Russia's Baltic Portovaya plant to the Dahej LNG terminal in western India. This shipment involved U.S.-sanctioned Russian LNG, signaling a potential first such delivery to India, with Energy Intelligence reporting…

India has officially declined Russia's offer to sell liquefied natural gas (LNG) from projects currently under U.S. sanctions, following April reports of an LPG-laden tanker en route to western India, according to Indian media reports on Monday. Last month, Reuters reported that the 138,200-cubic-metre tanker Kunpeng was heading from Russia's Baltic Portovaya plant to the Dahej LNG terminal in western India. This shipment involved U.S.-sanctioned Russian LNG, signaling a potential first such delivery to India, with Energy Intelligence reporting…

Oil prices rallied on Monday morning after U.S. President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s response to a U.S. peace proposal, “I don’t like it – totally unacceptable,” Trump said in a Truth Social post, quashing hopes for an imminent resolution to the Middle East conflict that kicked off in late February. Brent crude for July delivery was up 1.% to trade at $103.3 per barrel at 9.48 am ET while WTI crude for June delivery gained 1.04% to trade at $96.41/bbl. Last week, the White House offered a one-page, 14-point memorandum…

Oil prices rallied on Monday morning after U.S. President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s response to a U.S. peace proposal, “I don’t like it – totally unacceptable,” Trump said in a Truth Social post, quashing hopes for an imminent resolution to the Middle East conflict that kicked off in late February. Brent crude for July delivery was up 1.% to trade at $103.3 per barrel at 9.48 am ET while WTI crude for June delivery gained 1.04% to trade at $96.41/bbl. Last week, the White House offered a one-page, 14-point memorandum…

Oil prices rallied on Monday morning after U.S. President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s response to a U.S. peace proposal, “I don’t like it – totally unacceptable,” Trump said in a Truth Social post, quashing hopes for an imminent resolution to the Middle East conflict that kicked off in late February. Brent crude for July delivery was up 1.% to trade at $103.3 per barrel at 9.48 am ET while WTI crude for June delivery gained 1.04% to trade at $96.41/bbl. Last week, the White House offered a one-page, 14-point memorandum…

Fewer passengers were heading to Heathrow Airport in April as the war in the Middle East keeps travellers grounded. Passenger numbers at Europe’s biggest airport fell by five per cent in April to 6.7m with the blame being attributed to the “ongoing impact of the Middle East conflict”. For those heading to that particular region, Heathrow saw a whopping 50 per cent drop in volumes. Still, in the year-to-date (Jan–Apr) traffic maintained modest growth at 1.2 per cent. Transfer demand grew ten per cent in April, as travellers…

The European oil majors with the biggest trading desks raised their trading profits by up to $4.75 billion in the first quarter from the end of last year, amid extreme market volatility driven by the war in Iran. The biggest European majors, BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies, likely earned between $3.3 billion and $4.75 billion more in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, the Financial Times reports, citing estimates from analysts. Big Oil companies do not disclose their trading profits separately from the overall results, but usually…

Capacity installations of renewable energy co-located with batteries for storage are expected to surge in Europe from 6 gigawatts in 2025 to as much as 35 GW by 2030, a new report by Aurora Energy Research showed on Monday. The research examined developments in 20 European markets in terms of attractiveness for co-location, and identified Germany, Great Britain, and Bulgaria as Europe's most attractive co-location investment markets. Germany is the most attractive co-location market, thanks to its sheer size and significant upside potential for…

Capacity installations of renewable energy co-located with batteries for storage are expected to surge in Europe from 6 gigawatts in 2025 to as much as 35 GW by 2030, a new report by Aurora Energy Research showed on Monday. The research examined developments in 20 European markets in terms of attractiveness for co-location, and identified Germany, Great Britain, and Bulgaria as Europe's most attractive co-location investment markets. Germany is the most attractive co-location market, thanks to its sheer size and significant upside potential for…