The global energy crisis has reshaped global energy priorities seemingly overnight. The Strait of Hormuz has been closed to virtually all commercial traffic for well over a month now, severely restricting global flows of oil and gas. As a result, global energy prices have skyrocketed, and supplies have tightened, pushing many countries to explore alternative energy pathways in a big hurry. This has led to an unfortunate resurgence of coal-fired power, especially in Asia – but it is also set to supercharge the clean energy industry on a global…

Japan Petroleum Exploration (Japex) has unveiled plans to invest 1.16 trillion yen ($7.3 billion) in exploration and production in a bid to quadruple oil and gas output over the next decade, mainly in the United States. Japex has set a goal to raise net profit to 100 billion yen and achieve a 12% Return on Equity (ROE) by 2035. In February, Japex completed the acquisition of Denver-based tight oil company, Verdad Resources, in a $1.3-billion deal, the company’s largest ever M&A transaction. The merger gives Japex exposure to the sprawling…

A Kyrgyz-registered cryptocurrency exchange, slapped with Western sanctions for helping Russia finance its war effort in Ukraine, has experienced a hack that sucked over 1 billion rubles (over $13 million) out of users’ crypto wallets. The exchange, Grinex, announced via its Telegram channel on April 16 that it was suspending operations. Exchange representative alleged the hack was the work of foreign special services seeking to disrupt Russian efforts to evade sanctions and finance the procurement of needed goods and technologies, RFE/RL reported.…

Unidentified traders executed a highly suspicious $430-million bearish bet on crude oil futures roughly 15 minutes before President Trump announced an indefinite extension of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire. The traders placed a total of 4,260 sell orders for Brent crude futures during a "post-settlement" period when trading volume is typically extremely low, with the directional trades occurring between 19:54 and 19:56 GMT on Tuesday, just minutes before Trump announced the extension around 20:10 GMT on Tuesday. Brent crude prices plunged from $100.91…

Crude oil inventories in the United States increased by 1.9 million barrels during the week ending April 17, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Wednesday. The increase brings commercial stockpiles to 465.7 million barrels according to government data, which is still 3% above the five-year average for this time of year. The EIA’s data release follows API’s figures that were released a day earlier, which reported that crude oil inventories saw a draw of 4.4 million barrels in the period.…

Lufthansa Group will remove a total of 20,000 short-haul flights from its European summer schedule, Europe’s biggest airline said as the airline industry faces jet fuel shortages and soaring prices. The cancellation of the 20,000 uneconomical short-haul flights through October would save the group about 40,000 metric tons of jet fuel, the price of which has doubled since the outbreak of the Iran conflict, Lufthansa said. “For the flights scheduled in the summer timetable, the Group expects a largely stable fuel supply,” the airline…

The UK will host on Wednesday and Thursday a two-day multinational conference convening military planners from more than 30 countries as Britain and France renew efforts to re-open the Strait of Hormuz. The two-day conference takes place just after U.S. President Donald Trump late on Tuesday extended the U.S.-Iran ceasefire until negotiations with Iran conclude “one way or the other.” President Trump has also ordered that the U.S. blockade at the Strait of Hormuz remains in place. Hopes of U.S.-Iran negotiations resuming as early as…

As the clock ticked toward the end of a two-week cease-fire, US President Donald Trump announced he was unilaterally extending the truce to give a "fractured" Iranian leadership a chance to make a “unified” peace proposal, but said a blockade of Iranian ports that has angered Tehran will remain in place. “Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack…

Iraq has been facing a critical oil export crisis since tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz largely seized up. About a month ago, Iraq reached a temporary agreement with Iran to allow its ships to sail through the waterway; however, additional war risk premiums for Persian Gulf transits have increased dramatically, rendering transport through the route uneconomical. Unlike Iran, which relies heavily on a shadow fleet of tankers to transport its oil, Iraq lacks a large national fleet, forcing it to rely on third parties. Lack of shipping…

Peak demand in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) territory could more than quadruple to 367,790 MW by 2032, driven primarily by data centers as well as other large load customers, the grid operator said in a preliminary forecast published Wednesday and noted by Utility Dive. ERCOT, which serves most of Texas, set its current peak demand record of 85,508 MW in August 2023.  The forecast is based on ERCOT’s economic forecasts as well as information provided by utilities working with medium…

Seven weeks after the war in the Middle East began, the world has already lost 500 million barrels of oil supply, equal to around $50 billion at an average price of $100 per barrel, around which futures prices have been hovering since February 28. The losses are enormous and continue to pile up as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, where 20 million barrels per day of oil supply moved before the war, remains severely restricted, and tensions in the region escalated again. Even if traffic were restored today at full capacity, oil and LNG supply…

Pakistan has been at the center of media coverage of the Middle East war as the country that took up the initiative to moderate peace talks. It also happens to be the country arguably most hurt by the war without being directly involved in the hostilities. Pakistan is a big importer of liquefied natural gas from Qatar. With QatarEnergy suspending production following Iranian strikes on its LNG infrastructure, Pakistan has been in a race with many others to secure deliveries from alternative sources. Yet Pakistan is among the poorest nations in…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 4.4 million barrels in the week ending April 17. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories rose by 6.10 million barrels. Analysts had expected a 1 million barrel draw. Inventories in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) continue to draw down to alleviate the pressure on prices. For week ending April 17, 4.2 million barrels left the SPR, bringing the new total to 405 million barrels. This is 320.5 million barrels shy of maximum capacity.…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 4.4 million barrels in the week ending April 17. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories rose by 6.10 million barrels. Analysts had expected a 1 million barrel draw. Inventories in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) continue to draw down to alleviate the pressure on prices. For week ending April 17, 4.2 million barrels left the SPR, bringing the new total to 405 million barrels. This is 320.5 million barrels shy of maximum capacity.…

The world is on the verge of a geothermal revolution. Until recently, the clean energy technology was only viable in very specific geological areas where the heat from the Earth’s core naturally reached the surface of the planet, as in Iceland’s geysers and volcanoes, but now, with improved drilling technologies, advanced geothermal energy systems could very soon be feasible and affordable virtually anywhere on Earth. And while the sector is nascent, it has some critical advantages over other energy forms, meaning that it could revolutionize…

Last week, Goldman analysts led by Mark Delaney laid out a detailed roadmap for clients on how autonomous vehicles could reshape America’s highways through the 2030s, with a particular focus on “the impact of AI on profit pools.” In a separate report, Goldman analysts led by Allen Chang covered the rapid expansion of China’s robotaxi fleet, highlighting how both superpowers now appear to be locked in a race to automate roads and highways. “We expect a strong ramp up of robotaxis in China, with the robotaxi fleet in…

China is likely to return to buying large volumes of oil within weeks after selling down inventories during the peak of the Iran supply disruption, according to Mercuria. Marco Dunand, chief executive of the trading house, said at the FT Commodities Summit that China has been drawing from commercial stocks accumulated ahead of the crisis, effectively stepping back from the market as prices surged and Middle East flows tightened. That sell-off is a critical and possibly underappreciated part of the recent balance. China entered 2026 with a sizable…

Western mining companies and investors continue to flock to Kazakhstan in search of deals, drawn by the country’s abundance of minerals and its comparatively well-developed legal framework. But Astana, buoyed by Washington’s and Brussels’ increasing interest in critical minerals, has begun tinkering with the mining sector’s legal framework, making incremental edits to increase the state’s role and ensure the government gets a larger cut of the profits. Changes to the tax code and sub-soil use law enacted over the last…

Primary oil processing at Rosneft’s Novokuibyshevsk refinery has been halted. The outage, which began on April 18 after a Ukrainian drone strike, encompasses the first stage of crude processing at one of Russia’s refineries in the Samara region, two sources told Reuters on Tuesday. The outage follows attacks reported on Saturday by Samara region governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, who said the Novokuibyshevsk and Syzran refineries had been targeted. The Novokuibyshevsk plant is operated by Rosneft and processed 5.74 million metric tons…

While diplomatic efforts struggle to stabilize access to the Strait of Hormuz amid tensions between the United States and Iran, Eurasian trade is increasingly being redirected toward overland alternatives, with the Trans-Caspian Transport Route, also known as the Middle Corridor, emerging as a key diversification route in Eurasian logistics. The World Bank described the Middle Corridor back in 2023 as a strategically important but structurally constrained route. While geopolitical fragmentation, driven in part by Russia's war in Ukraine, has increased…