Canadian Utilities Ltd has announced it will build a billion-dollar pipeline in Alberta to transport natural gas as demand soars amid industrial expansion in the province, Reuters reports.  Construction is expected to begin on the new Yellowhead Mainline natural gas pipeline, which will feed a provincial petrochemicals plant and other industrial facilities, in 2026, with completion the following year, according to Reuters. The project requires regulatory approval and a final investment decision before proceeding.  The 124-mile pipeline…

Canadian Utilities Ltd has announced it will build a billion-dollar pipeline in Alberta to transport natural gas as demand soars amid industrial expansion in the province, Reuters reports.  Construction is expected to begin on the new Yellowhead Mainline natural gas pipeline, which will feed a provincial petrochemicals plant and other industrial facilities, in 2026, with completion the following year, according to Reuters. The project requires regulatory approval and a final investment decision before proceeding.  The 124-mile pipeline…

The world is experiencing a nuclear renaissance. Uranium prices are soaring as the world snaps up nuclear fuel, public favor for nuclear power is at a 10-year high in the United States, Russia is busily expanding its own nuclear energy empire in emerging economies in Africa, and even Japan is moving back to the carbon-free energy source 13 years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. All told, approximately 60 new nuclear reactors are currently under construction around the globe, and another 110 are in planning…

Russia advanced into eastern Ukraine, taking two villages in two regions, Moscow said on Wednesday, in the aftermath of over 70 drone and missile attacks that targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure overnight.  The barrage of drones and missiles fired early on Wednesday, including Iranian-made Shahed drones, was Moscow’s retaliation for Kyiv’s targeting of Russian refineries. Russia has also reportedly taken control of two villages, one in the Kharkiv region and another in the Donetsk region, Reuters reports, without independent…

Russia advanced into eastern Ukraine, taking two villages in two regions, Moscow said on Wednesday, in the aftermath of over 70 drone and missile attacks that targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure overnight.  The barrage of drones and missiles fired early on Wednesday, including Iranian-made Shahed drones, was Moscow’s retaliation for Kyiv’s targeting of Russian refineries. Russia has also reportedly taken control of two villages, one in the Kharkiv region and another in the Donetsk region, Reuters reports, without independent…

In what appears to be just the latest 'lawfare' angle of attack against Elon Musk (and his freedom of speech enabling platform), President Biden's Department of Justice is examining whether Tesla committed securities or wire fraud by misleading investors and consumers about its electric vehicles’ self-driving capabilities. Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems assist with steering, braking and lane changes - but are not fully autonomous - and Reuters reports that, according to three people familiar with the matter, the DoJ…

Norway is expanding the acreage in the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea, for which companies vying for licenses in mature areas can bid this year, the energy ministry of Western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer said on Wednesday.       Following the ministry’s announcement, the annual rounds of awards in predefined areas (APA), which give oil companies the opportunity to gain access to attractive acreage in the mature areas of the Norwegian shelf, will include a further 37 blocks—three…

Crude oil prices recovered lost territory today after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported an inventory draw of 1.4 million barrels for the week to May 3. This compared with a build of 7.3 million barrels estimated for the previous week that pressured prices last week. On Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute estimated crude oil inventories had added a modest half a million barrels in the week to May 3. The EIA, for its part, also reported small inventory builds in gasoline and middle distillate inventories for…

Nigeria launched this week a new oil and gas licensing round, inviting bids for as many as 12 onshore and offshore blocks and promising transparency in the bidding process. At the ongoing Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) announced the start of the 2024 Licensing Round. During his speech at OTC to announce the bidding round, the commission’s chief executive Gbenga Komolafe “reiterated Nigeria’s commitment to advancing its oil and gas…

The Chinese authorities have issued draft guidance on new rules for the domestic battery industry, which appear to be targeting to address the current overcapacity in the sector. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology unveiled on Wednesday a new set of draft rules that lay out minimum energy density standards and stricter battery specifications, as well as advise that companies should refrain from the construction of new plants that “simply expand production capacity,” Bloomberg reports. The proposal and…

Over the past two years, the U.S. and its Western allies have imposed a raft of sanctions on Russian energy commodities, including a $60-a-barrel cap on Russia's seaborne exports of crude oil. Europe has, however, shied away from placing limitations on Russian gas, hardly surprising considering that the share of Russia's pipeline gas in EU imports exceeded 40% before Russia invaded Ukraine.   Since then, the continent has been largely successful in weaning itself off Russian energy, with gas imports from Russia falling dramatically.…

Oil prices slumped by $10 per barrel in a month, from above $90 Brent in early April to the low $80s, as tensions in the Middle East subsided and prompted money managers to shift their focus on the upcoming OPEC+ decisions and the path to lower interest rates. In early April, the Iran-Israel standoff and the rising tensions in the most important region for oil supply led to a spike in prices to over $90 per barrel amid higher risk premium in the market. A month later, fears of escalation and potential disruption to oil supply have faded, and so…

Meeting global climate goals will require an unprecedented buildout of energy infrastructure in terms of both speed and scale. And while the energies themselves may be renewable, their construction, production, and maintenance requires a whole lot of finite resources, from rare Earth minerals and metals to the very land they are built on. This last issue regarding mass-scale land use and acquisition, in particular, is already one of the biggest hurdles facing the global decarbonization transition. As the renewable revolution…

An international team including researchers from the University of Würzburg has succeeded in creating a special state of superconductivity. The discovery could advance the development of quantum computers. The paper discussing the research has been published in Nature Physics titled “Magnetically tunable supercurrent in a dilute magnetic topological insulator based Josephson junctions.” Superconductors are materials that can conduct electricity without electrical resistance – making them the ideal base material for electronic…

Crude oil inventories in the United States rose this week by 509,000 barrels for the week ending May 3, according to The American Petroleum Institute (API). Analysts had expected a 1.430 million barrel draw. For the week prior, the API reported a 4.906 million barrel build in crude inventories. On Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) rose by 0.9 million barrels as of May 3. Inventories are now at 367.2 million barrels—the highest point since last April,…

Both Ukraine and Moldova are expected to formally open EU accession talks in the final week of June. Several diplomats that RFE/RL spoke to on condition of anonymity are confident that a “ceremonial intergovernmental conference” (IGC) will be held in Brussels with the pair just before Hungary takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the EU on July 1. They also said they expected the negotiation frameworks with both countries to be adopted by EU member states at the same time. You would be forgiven for thinking…

Via SchiffGold.com, With the eventual introduction of central bank digital currency (CBDCs) now seemingly inevitable, there are a lot of directions central banks could take with their digital currency projects that would have dramatic implications for the price of gold. Touted for their “convenience” and “efficiency,” the endgame of digital currencies is not only achieving greater power over the currency but also a means of surveilling and micromanaging the personal finances of each individual. Owe taxes or a parking ticket?…

U.S. spot power and natural gas prices plummeted into negative territory across Texas, California, and Arizona on Tuesday, signaling a surplus in production amidst subdued demand and ample hydropower reserves. At the Waha hub, next-day gas prices plummeted to a three-week low of negative $2.72 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) on May 6. Next-day power prices at hubs in Arizona and Southern California plunged to one-week lows. The dynamics driving negative prices suggest energy firms are grappling with excess power and gas production. As…

U.S. spot power and natural gas prices plummeted into negative territory across Texas, California, and Arizona on Tuesday, signaling a surplus in production amidst subdued demand and ample hydropower reserves. At the Waha hub, next-day gas prices plummeted to a three-week low of negative $2.72 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) on May 6. Next-day power prices at hubs in Arizona and Southern California plunged to one-week lows. The dynamics driving negative prices suggest energy firms are grappling with excess power and gas production. As…

U.S. spot power and natural gas prices plummeted into negative territory across Texas, California, and Arizona on Tuesday, signaling a surplus in production amidst subdued demand and ample hydropower reserves. At the Waha hub, next-day gas prices plummeted to a three-week low of negative $2.72 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) on May 6. Next-day power prices at hubs in Arizona and Southern California plunged to one-week lows. The dynamics driving negative prices suggest energy firms are grappling with excess power and gas production. As…