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…

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…

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…

Norway kept petroleum production near peak levels in March 2026—but the more important signal for oil markets is that the country is now operating with virtually no spare capacity. At a time when global supply remains highly sensitive to geopolitical disruptions, one of the world’s most reliable non-OPEC producers has little left to give. According to preliminary figures from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate, total liquids production averaged around 2.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in March, including crude oil, NGLs, and condensate.…

Norway kept petroleum production near peak levels in March 2026—but the more important signal for oil markets is that the country is now operating with virtually no spare capacity. At a time when global supply remains highly sensitive to geopolitical disruptions, one of the world’s most reliable non-OPEC producers has little left to give. According to preliminary figures from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate, total liquids production averaged around 2.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in March, including crude oil, NGLs, and condensate.…

U.S. intervention in Venezuela, with illegitimate President Nicolas Maduro snatched in a daring January 2026 night raid, opened the country's oil industry to foreign investment. While President Donald Trump is aggressively pushing for Big Oil to invest in Venezuela, energy majors are taking a more sober approach. Venezuela's heavily corroded oil infrastructure, responsible for a nationwide environmental catastrophe, will require tens of billions of dollars to remediate before production will rise significantly. This, along with an ecological crisis…

Oil markets are on edge as delayed U.S.-Iran talks and Trump’s warning on the ceasefire raise the risk of renewed conflict, with Brent crude potentially spiking back toward $100 per barrel. Oil Whiplash, Gas Freefall: LNG Shrugs Off Hormuz Chaos - Crude oil prices have spent most of March-April seesawing up and down, reacting to Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts. Global LNG prices have been declining for the past four weeks, defying upward swings in other commodities. - Northeast Asia’s…

Environmental activists on Tuesday launched a new lawsuit against Shell in the Netherlands, demanding that the supermajor stop bringing new oil and gas fields on stream to avoid additional emissions. Friends of the Earth – the Netherlands, or Milieudefensie, delivered the summons to Shell on Tuesday, in the second such case against the oil and gas major in the country. In 2024, a Dutch court of appeal handed a victory to Shell in the first landmark climate case, overturning a lower court ruling that had obliged the supermajor to slash its…

A sustained $100-per-barrel oil price could unlock up to 2.1 million barrels per day (bpd) of additional crude supply across South America by the mid-2030s, according to new analysis by Rystad Energy. The finding comes as the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has forced a sharp upward revision in our forecasted average 2026 oil price, from $60 Brent per barrel in January to $89 per barrel today. At current production levels, government revenues across South America are expected to rise by approximately $43 billion this year alone relative…

An Iranian supertanker, which had delivered 2 million barrels of crude to a ship-to-ship transfer offshore Indonesia, is en route to return to Iran’s Kharg Island after entering the Strait of Hormuz through the U.S. blockade, TankerTrackers.com said on Tuesday. A very large crude carrier (VLCC) owned by the Iranian national company departed Iran in late March 2026 and traveled to the Riau Archipelago in Indonesia, where she transferred 2 million barrels of crude oil to another VLCC, according to vessel monitoring data by TankerTrackers.com.…

The Middle East war and the crisis at the Strait of Hormuz could redraw the global energy map as world’s most critical oil chokepoint is no longer seen as a reliable route for oil and gas supply, says Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA). The Iran war and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz have shown the world that the Strait has lost its status of a reliable energy export route, Birol told Turkish newspaper Dünya. As a result, the crisis could lead to the global energy flows being redrawn,…

The United States is looking to increase its exports of crude oil and natural gas to India—the world’s most heavily import-dependent nation. As such, India is a tasty morsel for any producing country with extra barrels. Yet there is a reason that the U.S. is not already a major supplier to the subcontinent—there are simply too many obstacles on this course. Last week, Washington’s ambassador to New Delhi, Sergio Gor, said on X that he’d met with India’s energy minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, to discuss “Expanding…

A couple of weeks ago, we reported that traders had ramped up bearish bets on oil prices, with traders pouring nearly $1 billion into the ProShares UltraShort Bloomberg Crude Oil ETF (SCO), a leveraged bet on falling prices following war-driven highs. This massive buildup in bearish sentiment came shortly before U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 2-week ceasefire on April 7, which sent oil prices plunging nearly $20 per barrel from recent highs. And now fresh reports have emerged that something far more sinister could be lurking in financial…

China looks to further boost its footprint in neighboring Asian markets as the energy crisis is straining fuel supply to Southeast Asia. As the region became the first victim of the fuel crunch due to the Middle East war, Cambodia broke ground on its first gigawatt-scale hydropower project to boost its renewable energy output and reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels. The start of construction at the Upper Tatay pumped storage hydropower BOT project could not be timelier as the Iran war is reducing fuel supplies to Cambodia and other Southeast…

The oil market is heading into unknown spaces. To paraphrase Starship Enterprise, “Oil markets ('Space' the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before”. As we can now see, there is a moment in every crisis when the language of markets, which is normally based on price discovery, marginal barrels, and supply-demand balance, quietly but dangerously stops making sense. For the oil…

I was recently fueling up my wife's car in Tempe, Arizona when I noticed something I hadn't seen in a while: an "I did that!" sticker pointed at the price on the pump. Those stickers were everywhere during the gas price spike under President Biden. Now they're back — with the same message, but a different president. It’s true that fuel prices have spiked under both administrations. But the reality is more complicated than a sticker on a pump suggests. To understand what really happened, you have to look at the underlying market forces…

Inflation is expected to jump to 3.3 per cent as the first effects of the war in Iran will be recorded in a new set of data. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is expected to reveal that inflation inched up in the year to March due to soaring fuel prices and tremors across financial markets. Economists polled by Bloomberg predicted that the consumer price index (CPI) inflation print would come in at 3.3 per cent, compared to three per cent for February. The acceleration in price growth could dampen hopes of improved stability, posing a challenge…