Oil prices fell in early Asian trading on Wednesday, with traders shifting focus away from what will likely be a short-lived supply disruption in Kazakhstan and back toward the prospect of rising U.S. inventories and renewed macro uncertainty tied to trade threats. At the time of writing, Brent was down $0.79 or 1.22% at $64.13 per barrel, while WTI had fallen $0.64 or -1.06% to $59.72. The decline comes a day after crude posted strong gains, buoyed by news that OPEC+ producer Kazakhstan halted output at the Tengiz and Korolev oilfields…

India’s energy strategy is increasingly defined by balance rather than allegiance. As demand surges and geopolitical pressure mounts, New Delhi is locking in long term supply wherever it can, from gas in the Gulf to discounted crude from Russia, alongside nuclear partnerships that promise reliable baseload power. The approach reflects a broader effort to insulate economic growth from volatility, even as global energy markets fracture along political lines. UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan concluded his visit to India’s…

The renewed U.S. interest in taking control over Greenland – one way or another – has placed the Arctic island back in the spotlight a year after U.S. President Donald Trump first suggested the United States should buy Denmark’s autonomous territory.   The Trump Administration’s reasons and intensified pressure on NATO allies aside, is Greenland really worth it? The island, which is the size of about a fourth of the continental U.S., is estimated to hold oil and gas resources, as well as critical minerals and rare…

The European Union has been looking for rare-earth suppliers outside China for a while now. Last year, Commission president Ursula von der Leyen declared, “The aim is to secure access to alternative sources of critical raw materials in the short, medium and long term for our European industries.” It seems one of these alternative sources will be Brazil. “We will speed up work on critical raw materials partnerships with countries like Ukraine and Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Chile and Greenland,” von der Leyen…

As AI integration soars on a global level, the amount of energy consumed by large language models is also exploding. Everyone wants to be at the forefront of the AI revolution, but there are far fewer volunteers for figuring out how to source all that energy and source it sustainably – and even fewer volunteers to foot the bill for its skyrocketing resource needs. In fact, powering data centers has become such a tricky business that some AI moguls have been turning to illegal channels to keep the electricity flowing. Last week, the Environmental…

  The Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) is once again edging toward a fiscal breaking point. Officials in its Erbil-based semi-autonomous regional government (KRG) say they are receiving only a fraction of the budget transfers they are owed under the current oil-for-budget payments arrangement with the Federal Government of Iraq (FGI) in Baghdad. This revives the same dispute that triggered the collapse of the deal in March 2023 and shut down the crucial Iraq-Turkey Pipeline (ITP) for more than two years. Erbil argues that Baghdad’s shortfalls…

China has filed requests to reserve orbital slots for almost 200,000 satellites, prompting concerns it may be positioning itself to control large swathes of near-Earth space, according to the Daily Mail. The applications, submitted on December 29 by the newly formed Institute of Radio Spectrum Utilisation and Technological Innovation, outline two constellations—CTC-1 and CTC-2—each with 96,714 satellites spread across thousands of orbits. If built, the system would dwarf SpaceX’s Starlink plans and could restrict access for rival…

Octopus chief Greg Jackson has said choosing London as the destination for the blockbuster IPO of tech spin-off Kraken would be a “no brainer” if the exchange maintains its world-leading performance in 2025 and demonstrates it can lure fresh capital into the UK. In the biggest signal yet that the firm may select London over New York for its eagerly anticipated £7bn IPO of Kraken, Jackson told City AM he would prefer to make his stock market debut in the Square Mile, and keep his “cutting-edge tech company” on British…

A new discovery in the Permian Basin is challenging the narrative that shale oil and gas in the United States is declining. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has released its assessment of undiscovered gas and oil in the Woodford and Barnett shales in the Permian Basin, assessing that there are technically recoverable resources of 28.3 trillion cubic feet of gas — enough to supply the United States for 10 months at the current rate of consumption — and 1.6 billion barrels of oil, or 10 weeks’ supply.If that doesn’t…

Equatorial Guinea is looking to strike prepaid oil and LNG delivery deals with commodity traders as OPEC’s smallest oil producer needs money to maintain operating fields and revive its upstream sector, anonymous sources with knowledge of the plans told Bloomberg on Tuesday.   The central African country has been struggling to attract upstream investments in recent years and has seen its oil production drop. The country has also been an LNG exporter for two decades.  But Equatorial Guinea needs capital to cover expenses and…

Equatorial Guinea is looking to strike prepaid oil and LNG delivery deals with commodity traders as OPEC’s smallest oil producer needs money to maintain operating fields and revive its upstream sector, anonymous sources with knowledge of the plans told Bloomberg on Tuesday.   The central African country has been struggling to attract upstream investments in recent years and has seen its oil production drop. The country has also been an LNG exporter for two decades.  But Equatorial Guinea needs capital to cover expenses and…

Nationwide protests in Iran are threatening to disrupt the country’s upstream sector and underscoring a deeper economic crisis that has fueled domestic turmoil. Iran has restored output and exports despite sanctions, but at a rising cost: deeper discounts to China, expensive ‘shadow’ logistics and shrinking fiscal buffers, including the near depletion of its National Development Fund (NDF). Rystad Energy’s analysis shows Iranian crude production is expected to remain stable at around 3.2 million barrels per day (bpd) this…

U.S. natural gas prices surged sharply on Tuesday, posting one of the largest single-day gains seen this winter as the market quickly repriced near-term supply risk. Front-month Henry Hub futures spiked more than 25 percent and briefly traded near $3.90 per million British thermal units. It is a level not seen in weeks. The immediate driver is the weather. Forecast models over the past 48 hours flipped decisively colder, showing a sustained Arctic outbreak in the Midwest and Northeast into late January. That matters because heating demand had already…

U.S. natural gas prices surged sharply on Tuesday, posting one of the largest single-day gains seen this winter as the market quickly repriced near-term supply risk. Front-month Henry Hub futures spiked more than 25 percent and briefly traded near $3.90 per million British thermal units. It is a level not seen in weeks. The immediate driver is the weather. Forecast models over the past 48 hours flipped decisively colder, showing a sustained Arctic outbreak in the Midwest and Northeast into late January. That matters because heating demand had already…

Pakistan’s state-owned Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) on Tuesday said it had made an oil and gas discovery at its exploratory well Baragzai X-01 in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which would boost domestic supply and Pakistan’s energy security.  A Cased Hole Drill Stem Test at in Samana Suk and Shinawari formations showed the well flowed at the rate of 3,100 barrels of oil per day (bpd) and 8.15 million standard cubic feet per day of gas, OGDC said. “This discovery will contribute towards mitigating the…

Pakistan’s state-owned Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) on Tuesday said it had made an oil and gas discovery at its exploratory well Baragzai X-01 in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which would boost domestic supply and Pakistan’s energy security.  A Cased Hole Drill Stem Test at in Samana Suk and Shinawari formations showed the well flowed at the rate of 3,100 barrels of oil per day (bpd) and 8.15 million standard cubic feet per day of gas, OGDC said. “This discovery will contribute towards mitigating the…

Pakistan’s state-owned Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) on Tuesday said it had made an oil and gas discovery at its exploratory well Baragzai X-01 in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which would boost domestic supply and Pakistan’s energy security.  A Cased Hole Drill Stem Test at in Samana Suk and Shinawari formations showed the well flowed at the rate of 3,100 barrels of oil per day (bpd) and 8.15 million standard cubic feet per day of gas, OGDC said. “This discovery will contribute towards mitigating the…

Oil markets are ignoring Trump’s Greenland drama as a fire at Kazakhstan’s giant Tengiz field tightens supply, lifting Brent back to $65. China Embraces Dominant Power-Producer Role - With China’s National Bureau of Statistics finally publishing data for December 2025, Beijing can now officially declare that 2025 saw the first annual drop in fossil-fuel power generation since 2015.- Thermal electricity generation amounted to 6.29 trillion kWh last year, down 1% from a year ago, even though coal output soared to another all-time…

Saudi oil giant Aramco expects AI and other advanced technology to have helped it achieve in 2025 a technology realized value of between $3 billion and $5 billion, chief executive Amin Nasser said on Tuesday.  The world’s biggest oil firm in both production and market capitalization had total realized technology value of $6 billion in the period 2023-2024, the executive said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.  Through increased use of AI and other advanced tech, Aramco realizes savings in drilling costs, well productivity,…

Saudi oil giant Aramco expects AI and other advanced technology to have helped it achieve in 2025 a technology realized value of between $3 billion and $5 billion, chief executive Amin Nasser said on Tuesday.  The world’s biggest oil firm in both production and market capitalization had total realized technology value of $6 billion in the period 2023-2024, the executive said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.  Through increased use of AI and other advanced tech, Aramco realizes savings in drilling costs, well productivity,…