The nuclear energy fever has reached Southeast Asia, a region heavily dependent on coal and gas for electricity generation, with no operational nuclear reactors.  As nuclear power has seen a renaissance in many countries, except Germany, in recent years, Southeast Asia’s fast-growing economies have started to draft plans to use nuclear reactors to meet rising power demand while reducing carbon emissions.  While Asia, thanks to China and India, is leading global nuclear development and reactor buildout, the Southeast Asian region…

Globally, demand for food, water, and energy is sharply on the rise. The World Economic Forum says that by 2050, food demand could increase by over 50%, energy by up to 19% and water by up to 30%. The increasing scarcity of these resources – and potential solutions to their sustainable management – are deeply interconnected, calling for integrated solutions. “Disruption in one amplifies vulnerabilities and trade-offs in others,” wrote the World Economic Forum in a July report. “Such disruptions also create opportunities…

Russian gas producer Novatek has rerouted approximately 70,000 metric tons of gas condensate to the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk due to a shutdown at its Ust-Luga gas condensate complex, sources told Reuters. The disruption traces back to a drone attack on August 24 that ignited a fire at the Ust-Luga facility, incapacitating all operations, including export loadings. Though partial operations resumed later in August, two of the facility’s three processing units remain offline, restricting its ability to refine condensate into key derivative…

Greg Jackson’s Octopus Energy has announced the spin-off of its technology arm Kraken to become a standalone business. The group said the move is aimed at “speeding up the platform’s expansion across the globe” and allowing Kraken to “fast-track investments into its technology, expand into new energy markets and regions, and drive innovation”. Kraken has $500m in committed annual revenue through licensing deals with the likes of EDF, E.ON Next, National Grid US, Origin Energy, Plenitude and Tokyo Gas. Its AI-powered…

Monday saw a brief global outage of Elon Musk's satellite internet service Starlink impact tens of thousands of people, including Ukrainian military forces across the entire frontline. Despite such occasional hiccups, Ukraine has long successfully relied on Starlink throughout the conflict, especially to run its fleet of attack drones. Russia is working on its own domestically made 'answer' to Ukraine's frontline Starlink advantage, at a moment it is seeking to modernize its space program. A Russian aerospace company, known as Bureau 1440, is currently…

A U.S. federal judge has ruled that defaulted bonds issued by Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA in 2016 remain valid, strengthening creditors’ claims on Citgo, the company’s prized U.S. refining subsidiary, Reuters reported.  U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan said Thursday that PDVSA’s 2020 bonds were properly issued under Venezuelan law, rejecting the company’s argument that they had been unauthorized. The bonds are secured by a majority stake in Citgo Holding Inc., which operates refineries…

For decades, most major US tech companies and investors steered clear of the Pentagon. Some were turned off by the labyrinth of contracting rules that left most business in the hands of giants like Lockheed Martin and RTX. Others balked at the ethical questions of building weapons and surveillance systems. But Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and China’s rapid military rise have changed that calculus. Gone is the resistance that Google faced in 2018 when it let the Pentagon use its emerging…

ExxonMobil doesn’t plan a return to the Russian oil industry, the U.S. supermajor’s chief executive Darren Woods told the Financial Times on Thursday, noting that talks with Russia are being held on recouping billions of U.S. dollars of expropriated assets.  The U.S. and Russian administration have pushed for energy cooperation and the U.S. has reportedly pitched Exxon’s return to the Sakhalin 1 oil and gas project as an incentive for Vladimir Putin to sit down for negotiations for peace in Ukraine.  Executives from…

ExxonMobil doesn’t plan a return to the Russian oil industry, the U.S. supermajor’s chief executive Darren Woods told the Financial Times on Thursday, noting that talks with Russia are being held on recouping billions of U.S. dollars of expropriated assets.  The U.S. and Russian administration have pushed for energy cooperation and the U.S. has reportedly pitched Exxon’s return to the Sakhalin 1 oil and gas project as an incentive for Vladimir Putin to sit down for negotiations for peace in Ukraine.  Executives from…

ExxonMobil doesn’t plan a return to the Russian oil industry, the U.S. supermajor’s chief executive Darren Woods told the Financial Times on Thursday, noting that talks with Russia are being held on recouping billions of U.S. dollars of expropriated assets.  The U.S. and Russian administration have pushed for energy cooperation and the U.S. has reportedly pitched Exxon’s return to the Sakhalin 1 oil and gas project as an incentive for Vladimir Putin to sit down for negotiations for peace in Ukraine.  Executives from…

Russia’s revenues from oil and gas are expected to plunge in September by 23% from a year earlier, as international crude prices have declined and the Russian currency has strengthened, calculations by Reuters showed on Thursday.  The decline is not good news for Russia, which is currently planning its 2026 budget and continues to spend heavily on the war in Ukraine.  Russia’s oil and gas sales are expected to bring the Kremlin $7.11 billion (592 billion rubles) this month, per the Reuters estimates based on production, refining,…

Ukraine launched fresh drone attacks on Russian energy assets Thursday, hitting two refineries including Gazprom’s giant Neftekhim Salavat complex in Bashkortostan, more than 1,300 kilometers from Ukrainian-held territory. The strikes set fire to storage facilities and marked one of Kyiv’s deepest penetrations into Russian industrial infrastructure since the war began, as it continues to target the Kremlin’s oil revenues that feed its war coffer.  The new assaults came just hours after trade data published by Reuters showed…

Ukraine launched fresh drone attacks on Russian energy assets Thursday, hitting two refineries including Gazprom’s giant Neftekhim Salavat complex in Bashkortostan, more than 1,300 kilometers from Ukrainian-held territory. The strikes set fire to storage facilities and marked one of Kyiv’s deepest penetrations into Russian industrial infrastructure since the war began, as it continues to target the Kremlin’s oil revenues that feed its war coffer.  The new assaults came just hours after trade data published by Reuters showed…

For the third time in as many months, the Russian natural gas supplier Gazprom is turning off the tap to Armenia, claiming a need to repair infrastructure. Some observers believe the Kremlin is instigating the repeated cut-offs as a means of pressuring Yerevan to moderate its geopolitical turn away from Russia towards the West. In a statement on the latest shut-off, Gazprom Armenia, a Gazprom subsidiary, announced “planned repair work” would take place in Russia on the North Caucasus-Transcaucasia gas pipeline, causing supplies to Armenia…

The penalties proposed in the European Union’s climate and social responsibility legislation would be bone-crushing to any company, ExxonMobil’s chief executive Darren Woods told Bloomberg.  The EU’s planned Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, which is designed to prevent adverse human rights and environmental impacts across a company’s value chains, has been severely criticized by U.S. officials and industry leaders, including U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright.  These rules and the EU’s “crusade”…

United Nations investigators on Tuesday unveiled rampant and systemic corruption by South Sudan’s ruling class, compounding the country’s security challenges and putting the pivotal oil-driven economy at severe risk. The global agency has accused South Sudanese authorities of plundering the country’s wealth, including bogus payments totaling $1.7 billion in the 2021-2024 period to companies linked with Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel for road construction contracts that were never delivered. The 101-page report uncovers how South…

The rates for chartering supertankers have surged to a nearly three-year high this month as more crude is moving out of the Middle East and the U.S. to Asia, Reuters reports, citing sources in the shipping industry and data from LSEG.  As OPEC+ continues to raise production, shipments out of the world’s key exporting region, the Middle East, are on the rise. Additionally, Saudi Arabia has slashed the prices of its crude loading for Asia next month, further incentivizing crude flows to the top oil-importing region.  The tanker fleet…

SAIC Motor, one of China’s biggest state-controlled auto manufacturers, looks to significantly reduce its current 49% stake in its Indian joint venture with India’s JSW Group, Reuters reported on Thursday, quoting sources with knowledge of the plans.   SAIC and Indian conglomerate JSW Group have created the JSW MG Motor joint venture “to capitalise on the significant opportunities emerging in the fast-evolving Indian automotive sector.”   However, the joint venture hasn’t delivered on the Chinese…

Energy security and affordability have trumped fears of stranded assets in recent years, prompting the world’s biggest international oil and gas firms to shift focus back to exploration after years of trying to develop clean energy solutions. Big Oil has scaled back investments in renewables, at least those majors that tried to become key green energy providers, as poor returns from clean energy and demand, cost, and regulatory challenges further diminished the appeal of returns on investments in solar and wind. Back to the Basics European…

Colombia’s oil and gas reserves could be revised up this year compared to 2024, but oil output continues to drop amid a hostile climate to oil and gas, social and security issues, and international majors bailing on Colombia. Colombia’s oil production could suffer another major blow as the investment climate will further sour after the United States this week stripped Colombia of its so-called U.S. Drug Certification. This means that the Trump Administration no longer believes Colombia is fully cooperating with the U.S. counter-narcotics…