Norway is supposedly breaking with Brussels. Energy Minister Terje Aasland says the country will continue exploring for oil and gas in the Barents Sea despite European Union support for an Arctic drilling moratorium. He has also dismissed the old ambition for Norway to become Europe’s “green battery” as a flawed idea. Placed together, the statements create a compelling political story: a sovereign energy producer finally resisting European climate restrictions and refusing to sacrifice its reservoirs for an unreliable continental…

Chevron, India’s ONGC, GE Vernova, Eni and GeoPark are preparing to sign final energy agreements in Venezuela, bringing new foreign investment into the country’s oilfields and power infrastructure, Reuters reported Monday, citing five sources close to the preparations. Venezuela has spent the past six months rewriting existing oil contracts under its amended hydrocarbons law, giving foreign companies more operational flexibility over fields previously dominated by PDVSA.  The new terms allow companies to export their own crude…

Chevron, India’s ONGC, GE Vernova, Eni and GeoPark are preparing to sign final energy agreements in Venezuela, bringing new foreign investment into the country’s oilfields and power infrastructure, Reuters reported Monday, citing five sources close to the preparations. Venezuela has spent the past six months rewriting existing oil contracts under its amended hydrocarbons law, giving foreign companies more operational flexibility over fields previously dominated by PDVSA.  The new terms allow companies to export their own crude…

Two days after President Trump called his new Venezuela agreement “the biggest oil deal in world history,” the story has already moved past the barrels themselves. A Pentagon spokesman contradicted the reported ownership structure. The company positioned to run the fields changed hands under murky circumstances just weeks before the deal was announced. And the revenue figures Caracas released over the weekend fall apart under basic math. Trump announced the deal Friday on Truth Social, saying Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense…

Roughly two years ahead of schedule, BP has started production from the Fayoum-4 well in Egypt’s West Nile Delta, adding around 80 million cubic feet per day of natural gas to a market where declining domestic production has forced Cairo back into large-scale LNG imports, Egyptian media reported on Monday.  Fayoum-4 was connected to BP’s existing West Nile Delta processing facilities through the Giza-Fayoum pipeline, eliminating the need for new subsea infrastructure. BP operates the facilities with an 82.75% interest, while Harbour…

Roughly two years ahead of schedule, BP has started production from the Fayoum-4 well in Egypt’s West Nile Delta, adding around 80 million cubic feet per day of natural gas to a market where declining domestic production has forced Cairo back into large-scale LNG imports, Egyptian media reported on Monday.  Fayoum-4 was connected to BP’s existing West Nile Delta processing facilities through the Giza-Fayoum pipeline, eliminating the need for new subsea infrastructure. BP operates the facilities with an 82.75% interest, while Harbour…

India’s crude imports fell in August, and Russia’s share declined with them, exposing a supply problem that seasonal refinery patterns alone cannot explain. The usual maintenance period at Indian plants comes toward the end of the monsoon, when domestic diesel and gasoline demand typically eases, but most refiners have largely postponed this year’s work because the current market crisis has produced strong margins on refined products. Demand has also remained unusually resilient. The more consequential shift is on the other side…

The world’s largest oilfield services company is spending $3.4 billion to expand into the infrastructure behind the AI power boom. SLB said Monday it will acquire German cooling equipment maker Kelvion, more than doubling the revenue opportunity per gigawatt of delivering capacity, according to the company.  SLB will pay approximately $3.4 billion in cash to acquire Kelvion and assume another $700 million of debt. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. SLB expects $120 million…

The world’s largest oilfield services company is spending $3.4 billion to expand into the infrastructure behind the AI power boom. SLB said Monday it will acquire German cooling equipment maker Kelvion, more than doubling the revenue opportunity per gigawatt of delivering capacity, according to the company.  SLB will pay approximately $3.4 billion in cash to acquire Kelvion and assume another $700 million of debt. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. SLB expects $120 million…

The world’s largest oilfield services company is spending $3.4 billion to expand into the infrastructure behind the AI power boom. SLB said Monday it will acquire German cooling equipment maker Kelvion, more than doubling the revenue opportunity per gigawatt of delivering capacity, according to the company.  SLB will pay approximately $3.4 billion in cash to acquire Kelvion and assume another $700 million of debt. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. SLB expects $120 million…

Two weeks ago, I wrote about how conflict and climate change are combining to impede navigation across the globe. That same combination is also pushing food supply down and prices up worldwide. Climate change is no longer coming; it's here, and we're mixing it with our human folly in war in ways that make matters worse. A single headline can only tell a fragment of the story. For example, "Britain faces food shortages within months, warn farmers," one article blares. Why? The writer explains: "The worst harvest since 1984 and a spike in livestock…

European benchmark natural gas prices jumped by 5% in early morning trade on Monday as the re-escalation of hostilities between the United States and Iran intensified concerns about LNG supply from the Middle East. The benchmark price at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) soared by 5% in morning trade in Amsterdam, and the price topped 70 euros, or $81.20, per megawatt-hour (MWh), after the U.S. and Iran resumed trading strikes for the first time in more than a month. This was the highest price the front-month benchmark futures have seen in…

Six months after US and Israeli air strikes against Iran launched a conflict that has shaken energy markets and disrupted global shipping, there is still no clear end to the confrontation. While Iran's military capabilities have suffered major damage, it retains leverage in the Strait of Hormuz. Experts interviewed by RFE/RL from across Washington's policy spectrum see the next phase being shaped by four questions: how long Iran can withstand economic pressure, can diplomacy turn military gains into a durable settlement, what happens to Hormuz,…

Supply issues have been tightening the Chinese coking coal market for months, pushing the price of the key steelmaking raw material a record 46% in August alone, the biggest surge on record. Coking coal futures on China’s Dalian exchange were rising by 6% on Monday afternoon local time amid persistent supply issues following the mining disaster in May and increased safety checks on other Chinese mines. But more importantly, the futures were on track to post a record-setting 46% monthly surge, the biggest on record since the Dalian coking…

Supply issues have been tightening the Chinese coking coal market for months, pushing the price of the key steelmaking raw material a record 46% in August alone, the biggest surge on record. Coking coal futures on China’s Dalian exchange were rising by 6% on Monday afternoon local time amid persistent supply issues following the mining disaster in May and increased safety checks on other Chinese mines. But more importantly, the futures were on track to post a record-setting 46% monthly surge, the biggest on record since the Dalian coking…

There is always a winner in any major global oil crisis. In 1973/74, it was Saudi Arabia and its OPEC brothers who shifted the balance of power in the market away from the previous arrangement dominated by the West’s ‘Seven Sisters’ to the oil producers of the Middle East. After the 2014-2016 Oil Price War, it was the U.S. whose earlier nascent shale oil sector resisted the threat to its very existence from Saudi Arabia and OPEC, reorganising into a meaner, leaner, lower-cost oil production machine. The U.S. was the winner again…

Iran on Monday dismissed as “laughable” a Truth Social AI-generated post by U.S. President Donald Trump that the key Iranian oil export hub of Kharg Island is “being blown to smithereens”, as tensions in the Middle East boiled up again with U.S. attacks and Iranian claims of retaliatory strikes. President Trump late on Sunday posted an AI-generated video on his Truth Social platform, with the caption “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT”. In response to the post, Iran on Monday said, via…

Chancellor John Healey has been presented with a plan to tax oil firms and banks further as bosses in the sectors have posted huge profits, according to reports.  Healey may look to tax businesses at this year’s Budget in order to rebuild a partly-eroded £22.7bn fiscal buffer, and fill spending pledges for defence and the cost of living.  It was reported in Bloomberg that Treasury officials believe windfall taxes on banks and oil companies could be “low hanging fruit” for increasing government receipts.  The…

Refiners are set to reap stronger profits on the global diesel shortage, Goldman Sachs has said, revising its earlier profit forecast to double the total profits that refining companies would make from the squeeze. “Rising strikes on refineries in the Middle East and Russia have further constrained already-stretched global refining capacity, pushing refined-products margins to new highs,” the bank’s analysts wrote in a note, as quoted by Bloomberg. “Diesel remains at the epicenter of the rally,” they added Global diesel…

The United States will use Venezuelan crude to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, President Donald Trump said on Sunday on social media. Describing the move as a “Gift from Venezuela to the People of the United States,” President Trump said the “topping out” will begin soon, as quoted by Reuters. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been drawn close to minimum operational levels amid a surge in U.S. crude oil exports in response to the crisis in the Middle East. As of August 21, per Reuters, the SPR held 290 million…