Ever since President Trump ordered the first strike on a boat offshore Venezuela, speculation about a direct intervention in the South American country with a view to regime change has been rife. Much of that has focused on oil, for obvious reasons. For those very same reasons, a U.S. regime change in Venezuela would have far-reaching implications. Venezuela has the largest proven reserves of crude oil in the world. Most of those reserves are heavy crude, for which U.S. Gulf Coast refineries are calibrated. This fact made life temporarily harder…

There is the economy you see on the screen. And then there is the economy that runs the screen. For the last few years, the screen has been winning. We have been living in a "Zero Marginal Cost" fantasy… We convinced ourselves that adding another million users to ChatGPT was free. That scaling a startup was just a matter of writing better code. That "The Cloud" was an infinite, weightless place where business happened by magic. But today, S&P Global Energy dropped a bucket of ice water on that fever dream. I’ve spent the morning…

The European Union (E.U.) of 27 member countries will “never go back to our dangerous dependence on Russia”, said Dan Jørgensen, European Commissioner (E.C.) for Energy last week. “We will never go back to volatile supplies and market manipulation, and we will never go back to energy blackmail and economic exposure,” he added. This followed the full agreement on 3 December of the E.U.’s ‘REPowerEU Roadmap’, which E.C. President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted as enabling the continent…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States saw a large draw of 4.8 million barrels in the week ending December 5. Crude oil inventories shrank by 2.48 million barrels in the week prior. Crude oil inventories in the United States are so far showing a net increase of just 121,000 barrels for the year, according to Oilprice calculations of API data. Earlier this week, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) have risen by 200,000…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States saw a large draw of 4.8 million barrels in the week ending December 5. Crude oil inventories shrank by 2.48 million barrels in the week prior. Crude oil inventories in the United States are so far showing a net increase of just 121,000 barrels for the year, according to Oilprice calculations of API data. Earlier this week, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) have risen by 200,000…

Chinese foreign investment in clean energy has jumped to $80 billion in the year to November 2025, with Trump’s aggressive trade tariffs prompting many countries to deepen energy ties with China. That’s good for a 60% annualized increase compared with a total of $100 billion spent over the previous two years with Beijing leveraging its dominance in energy transition technologies. China already was the global leader in sectors such as solar and wind energy as well as electric vehicles and EV batteries before the Trump administration…

For farmers in the United States, concerns about too much clean energy production are quickly transforming into concerns about too little energy to go around. For years, rural America has been pushing back against the spread of utility-scale solar and wind farms competing for agricultural land. Now, they have a new sector to worry about as massive data center developments look to set up shop across the country, competing for land, energy, and water resources. AI integration is becoming ubiquitous, with virtually no market sector untouched by its…

The US is the world’s largest exporter of LNG. And efforts are apace to further increase that export capacity. As the US exports LNG at an increasing rate, this implies good news and bad news. The good news is that gas producers and owners of gas liquefaction facilities will likely enjoy higher profitability in the years ahead. The bad news is that US residential and industrial consumers will be paying those higher prices for gas while also experiencing increased price volatility. Why? Because where or how commodity prices are set makes a…

Israel is expected to approve its $35 billion gas export with Egypt, worth an estimated $35 billion, amid pressure from the Trump administration. Under the deal, Israel will export 130 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the Leviathan gas field to Egypt with partners Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CVX), NewMed Energy (OTCPK:DKDRF)(TASE: NWMD) and Ratio Petroleum Energy (TASE: RTPT) guaranteeing a set price for the domestic economy. Previously, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced that the supply agreement was extended until 2040. However,…

Trade is expected to stabilise over 2026 but global uncertainty may potentially impact economies by up to two per cent of their GDP, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) director has warned. Jihad Azour, who oversees the MENA, North Africa, Central Asia, and the Caucasus Region, said 2025 was a year “of two cities,” with shocks and incentives. Speaking at Abu Dhabi Finance Week, Azour said: “It was a year of shocks, but also a year of incentives, a year of uncertainty, and also a year of bullishness in terms of investment.”…

New York-based investment bank Xtellus Partners has proposed that proceeds from the sale of Lukoil's foreign assets be used to compensate American investors who lost money after their Lukoil stock holdings were frozen following Russia’s war in Ukraine. Leading U.S. asset managers such as Goldman Sachs, Blackrock and JP Morgan lost billions of dollars through writing off their Lukoil stocks holdings following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Xtellus has proposed a cashless sale back to Lukoil securities held by U.S. investors in…

New York-based investment bank Xtellus Partners has proposed that proceeds from the sale of Lukoil's foreign assets be used to compensate American investors who lost money after their Lukoil stock holdings were frozen following Russia’s war in Ukraine. Leading U.S. asset managers such as Goldman Sachs, Blackrock and JP Morgan lost billions of dollars through writing off their Lukoil stocks holdings following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Xtellus has proposed a cashless sale back to Lukoil securities held by U.S. investors in…

Central Asian states are cultivating growing connections to Pakistan, as decades of suspicion and hostility give way to a mutual desire to expand trade and strengthen regional security. A trip by Kyrgyzstan’s president, Sadyr Japarov, to Islamabad on December 3-4 highlights the rapid expansion of engagement. The visit, the first such visit by a Kyrgyz leader in over two decades, yielded a variety of agreements covering such areas as trade, education, tourism, energy, and agriculture.   A business forum held in conjunction with…

China has accelerated purchases of Saudi crude oil for January to the highest volumes in five months, after the world’s top crude exporter slashed its official selling prices for Asia to the lowest premium over benchmarks in five years. Chinese refiners have nominated almost 50 million barrels in total of Saudi crude volumes for January loading, anonymous traders with knowledge of the purchases told Bloomberg on Tuesday. The nominations for January are about 10 million barrels higher compared to the December volumes and the highest level…

Qatar's Energy Minister Al-Kaabi has told a forum in Doha that insufficient investment in energy infrastructure, coupled with surging demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom will lead to a global LNG and natural gas shortage after 2035. The energy minister has projected that global LNG demand will surge to 700 million tons per year over the next decade, from 400 million tons currently, noting that oil prices remain below the $70-80 per barrel range required to finance the necessary infrastructure investments. "In every country we…

The collapse of longtime Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last year was felt across the Middle East, and nowhere more than in Iran, his closest ally. Assad’s fall was a major blow to Iran, which had used Syria to expand its regional influence and funnel weapons to armed groups fighting Israel, Tehran’s archrival. One year on from Assad’s overthrow on December 8, 2024, Iran is still grappling with the consequences of its strategic defeat in Syria. The Islamic Republic has attempted to rebuild its influence in Syria, but experts…

India has added as much as 7.2 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power capacity in the current fiscal year ending March 2026, which is about 60% above the previous fiscal year’s capacity expansion with four months to go, government data showed on Tuesday.   The newly-commissioned capacity in the 2025/2026 fiscal year so far has hit the highest in a decade as India looks to bolster its energy security with flexible baseload power capacity, according to the data shared in Parliament by India’s Deputy Power Minister Shripad Naik and…

India has added as much as 7.2 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power capacity in the current fiscal year ending March 2026, which is about 60% above the previous fiscal year’s capacity expansion with four months to go, government data showed on Tuesday.   The newly-commissioned capacity in the 2025/2026 fiscal year so far has hit the highest in a decade as India looks to bolster its energy security with flexible baseload power capacity, according to the data shared in Parliament by India’s Deputy Power Minister Shripad Naik and…

India has added as much as 7.2 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power capacity in the current fiscal year ending March 2026, which is about 60% above the previous fiscal year’s capacity expansion with four months to go, government data showed on Tuesday.   The newly-commissioned capacity in the 2025/2026 fiscal year so far has hit the highest in a decade as India looks to bolster its energy security with flexible baseload power capacity, according to the data shared in Parliament by India’s Deputy Power Minister Shripad Naik and…

India has added as much as 7.2 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired power capacity in the current fiscal year ending March 2026, which is about 60% above the previous fiscal year’s capacity expansion with four months to go, government data showed on Tuesday.   The newly-commissioned capacity in the 2025/2026 fiscal year so far has hit the highest in a decade as India looks to bolster its energy security with flexible baseload power capacity, according to the data shared in Parliament by India’s Deputy Power Minister Shripad Naik and…