Another round of unconfirmed reports about a potential U.S.-Iran diplomatic breakthrough sent fresh optimism rippling through oil markets on Monday, after Al Arabiya claimed that a Qatari-Pakistani mediation proposal had revived serious negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program. Citing unnamed sources, Al Arabiya reported that Washington was prepared to allow Iran to continue enriching uranium to 3.67%, with Tehran supposedly agreeing to the proposed limit. The sources suggested that a preliminary agreement was increasingly likely, although neither…

Another round of unconfirmed reports about a potential U.S.-Iran diplomatic breakthrough sent fresh optimism rippling through oil markets on Monday, after Al Arabiya claimed that a Qatari-Pakistani mediation proposal had revived serious negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program. Citing unnamed sources, Al Arabiya reported that Washington was prepared to allow Iran to continue enriching uranium to 3.67%, with Tehran supposedly agreeing to the proposed limit. The sources suggested that a preliminary agreement was increasingly likely, although neither…

Europe often discusses critical raw materials as if geographical distance were the central problem. Lithium comes from South America or Australia. Cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rare earths are processed in China. The obvious response appears to be finding alternative suppliers elsewhere in the world. But part of Europe’s raw-material future may be much closer. Ukraine and the Western Balkans hold deposits of many materials required for batteries, power grids, wind turbines, electric vehicles, semiconductors and defense…

Central Asian leaders gathered in Astana on November 6 for discussions on ways to contain the dark side of the Internet and artificial intelligence.  The talks, taking place under a format known as the Aqaba Process, focused on how militant groups can use AI to enable terrorism. Deep fakes, for example, have been used to spread propaganda and disinformation while also helping recruitment efforts. Militants can also use AI to hinder government investigations into suspected terrorist incidents and activities. …

Let’s begin with a question. “How would an average-sized human fare in a 'negotiation' with a six-ton Tyrannosaurus Rex?”  Obviously, the interaction would end with the human serving as a high-protein snack. The T-Rex weighs 75 times more than the average person. With that kind of weight disparity, there is no “negotiating,” just a stomp and gulp. Something analogous may be in store for the electric industry: a T-Rex scenario. In negotiating with prospective data center owners, US utilities are puny in size compared…

Israel’s Energy Ministry on Monday awarded six offshore natural gas exploration licenses to Houston-based Murphy Oil and Israel’s Ratio Energies, eight months after the war with Iran forced Israel to shut its biggest gas field. The Zone G licenses cover about 1,700 square kilometers of seabed roughly 25 kilometers southwest of Leviathan. Murphy will operate the licenses, and each partner holds 50%.  The award marks Murphy’s first venture into the Eastern Mediterranean, and it joins Chevron, the operator of Leviathan and Tamar,…

Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, the kingdom’s main route for moving crude around the Strait of Hormuz, came under attack on Monday, the same day a Reuters survey showed OPEC output had recovered to 90% of its pre-war rate. An Energy Ministry official said the pipeline was targeted in the Medina region, causing a limited fire that emergency crews put out with no casualties and no disruption to operations. The line carries Saudi crude to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, which handled the bulk of the kingdom’s export growth in October.…

Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, the kingdom’s main route for moving crude around the Strait of Hormuz, came under attack on Monday, the same day a Reuters survey showed OPEC output had recovered to 90% of its pre-war rate. An Energy Ministry official said the pipeline was targeted in the Medina region, causing a limited fire that emergency crews put out with no casualties and no disruption to operations. The line carries Saudi crude to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, which handled the bulk of the kingdom’s export growth in October.…

Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, the kingdom’s main route for moving crude around the Strait of Hormuz, came under attack on Monday, the same day a Reuters survey showed OPEC output had recovered to 90% of its pre-war rate. An Energy Ministry official said the pipeline was targeted in the Medina region, causing a limited fire that emergency crews put out with no casualties and no disruption to operations. The line carries Saudi crude to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, which handled the bulk of the kingdom’s export growth in October.…

The defining feature of the Northern Hemisphere winter 2026/27 is uncertainty. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices are above $30 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), and gas inventories are markedly lower in key markets. Further price rallies are not a foregone conclusion, though. Potent downside risks remain, including a recovery of Middle Eastern LNG supply and weather-suppressed power and heating demand. Europe: Paying to keep the arbitrage closed  Europe enters winter with the lowest gas inventory of the 2020s, just as the lack of…

A weather front is bringing still and cloudy weather at the start of the week in some of Europe’s largest electricity markets, resulting in power prices for peak evening periods soaring to 2022 highs.  Across the UK, Germany, and France, the top power markets in Europe, wind and solar power generation is slumping on Monday and is expected to remain below normal until at least the middle of this week. The wind speed slumps will be especially pronounced in Germany, the UK, Belgium, and the Netherlands. This means that the price of electricity…

The loss of his Republican Party majority to the Democratic Party in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives in the 2026 U.S. midterm elections has left President Donald Trump looking like a lame duck to many in the last two years of his tenure -- a particularly unfortunate turn of events, given his first name. However, while the Democrats taking control of both chambers of Congress has meant that Trump’s ability to dictate domestic policy through legislation has effectively ended, there is nothing cartoonish about this continued…

UN leaders urged governments to move faster on climate change mitigation efforts as the two-week COP31 climate summit began in Antalya, Turkey, on Monday.  “No single COP is a silver bullet that can stop climate change overnight. But every recent COP has made essential progress. COP31 in Antalya will, too, Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said in prepared remarks ahead of the start of the summit.  Amid the ongoing Strait of Hormuz crisis and the heightened geopolitical…

UN leaders urged governments to move faster on climate change mitigation efforts as the two-week COP31 climate summit began in Antalya, Turkey, on Monday.  “No single COP is a silver bullet that can stop climate change overnight. But every recent COP has made essential progress. COP31 in Antalya will, too, Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said in prepared remarks ahead of the start of the summit.  Amid the ongoing Strait of Hormuz crisis and the heightened geopolitical…

Ukrainian authorities battled to restore power to hundreds of thousands of people in the east of the country following Russian air strikes, while US President Donald Trump suggested in a TV interview that Kyiv may have to cede territory in any US-brokered peace deal. "I think we're going to have it [a peace deal] done, and I think it's going to happen, and they're going to end up with a ‌little bit different shape Ukraine," Trump said without elaborating in an interview broadcast by CBS's 60 Minutes program on November 8. Ukraine has previously…

Brent crude fell 3.6% to $94.00 per barrel on Monday as Qatar’s prime minister headed to the White House with an Iranian proposal for an interim deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. WTI dropped 3% to $88.09, and U.S. natural gas rose 0.8% to $3.02/MMBtu as of 7:26 a.m. ET. The decline extends last week’s 16% slide in Brent, the benchmark’s steepest weekly fall since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Iran has signed off on the Qatari-brokered terms, according to two diplomatic sources who spoke to Israeli media. Tehran would…

Iraq's campaign for a larger OPEC production allocation has taken a complicated turn after Oil Minister Basim Mohammed Khudair said the country is already producing more than 5 million barrels per day, more than half a million barrels above its current OPEC+ requirement. Khudair’s statement raises a basic question over Iraq’s current production as OPEC prepares to set production levels for 2027. Just six days earlier, Baghdad joined six other OPEC+ producers in agreeing to maintain current production requirements for December, leaving…

The blue wave in the midterm elections that will put Democrats in charge of the House and Senate could reshape U.S. energy policies. Democrats in charge of both chambers of Congress and its key committees, Democratic governors in key data-center development states such as Ohio, Georgia, and Texas, a Democrat in Georgia’s utilities regulator, and the first Democratic member of the Texas oil regulator since 1990 would seek to stymie the Trump Administration’s pro-fossil fuel and unchecked data center expansion. Investigations into oil…

Several countries around the globe are racing to develop space-based solar power (SBSP) systems to harness solar power from space. On Earth, solar power has become a popular form of renewable energy production. However, tapping solar power is limited by night, cloud cover, atmospheric conditions, and seasonality. Roughly 30 per cent of all incoming solar radiation never makes it to ground level. Meanwhile, in space, the sun shines constantly. For this reason, several governments are exploring the potential to develop SBSP projects that will help…

Artificial intelligence companies are deepening their ties with the fossil fuel industries as some of the biggest names in the tech world make massive deals with energy companies, both to power their energy-hungry data centers and to embed machine learning into the energy sector itself. Already, the artificial intelligence boom is causing a natural gas surge in the United States, and experts expect that data center hyperscalers will greatly extend the life of fossil fuels in the global energy mix, even as the world continues to shatter clean energy…