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Copper futures in London reached a record high on Tuesday as expectations of US tariffs drew record volumes from the seaborne market into US warehouses, tightening availability elsewhere despite subdued demand. As we highlighted on Monday, deteriorating conditions across global mining operations are adding to supply woes. Benchmark three-month futures on the LME gained nearly 1% to reach $14,533 a ton, exceeding January's peak before trimming some of those gains. Dr. Copper is breaking out...but this isn’t mainly…
Rosneft has shipped the first crude oil cargo from the Vostok Oil project in Eastern Siberia, despite sanctions targeting Russia’s energy industry and the exit of Western business partners. At peak capacity, the project is expected to produce between 50 and 100 million tons of crude annually. The Vostok Oil project is Russia's largest new oil development, comprising a group of fields in Krasnoyarsk Krai, some already producing and the rest new discoveries. A total of 2,000 wells have been drilled at the site, Rosneft’s chief executive…
The biggest oil companies in the United States are playing hardball in unionized labor negotiations in a bid to get more concessions from workers’ unions in the new contracts. Over the past few years, some of the top U.S. refining companies have resorted to lockouts to ensure most of the company management’s proposals in new labor contracts are accepted. The trend began earlier this decade with Exxon locking out in 2021 as many as 650 workers out of the Beaumont refinery for 10 months. This was the longest labor dispute at a U.S. refinery…
Northeast Asia is experiencing a rapid nuclear energy revival as Japan and South Korea move to prioritize the baseload clean energy source into their energy security strategies. Not only are the two major economies ramping up nuclear energy expansion, they are also changing the geopolitics of how and with whom they plan these expansions. As the artificial intelligence boom pushes an all-of-the-above approach to energy expansion and the war in Iran catalyzes a transition away from reliance on international fossil fuel supply chains, a new nuclear…
The world is undergoing a transformation driven by the exponential growth of artificial intelligence (AI)—a pace of change unprecedented in human history. Consequently, many people fear massive unemployment, along with other implications that could affect their livelihoods and quality of life. Is this truly the case? Yes—or perhaps not entirely. The purpose of this short article is to explore the potential benefits of AI and its implications for human society. It is still too early to fully assess the potential benefits of AI, but they…
Big Tech is betting trillions of dollars on artificial intelligence, with a lot of that to be spent on building the data centers that would power large language models. Stock markets are reflecting this in Big Tech stocks, but that’s not the only industry riding the artificial intelligence wave. Because that wave runs on electricity and the equipment that brings it from generator to consumer. There have been reports about a chip shortage caused by the AI rush, and higher compute prices overall resulting from AI-related demand growth in electronics.…
As the artificial intelligence boom drives major energy demand growth and catalyzes an all-of-the-above approach to energy development, enhanced geothermal energy is catching a windfall of investment dollars and renewed policy interest. A new wave of next-gen geothermal energy projects and startups may have the backing it takes to bring the cutting-edge, round-the-clock clean energy technology out of the lab and into commercial markets across the United States. Geothermal energy is not a new technology, but its applications are severely limited…
Solar energy is going gangbusters. The world is adding photovoltaic solar panels at a blistering rate, shattering its own records year after year, buoyed by a flood of ever-cheaper solar panels out of China. “We have a plentiful and cheap source of electricity that can be built quickly, almost anywhere in the world,” NewScientist wrote in an article published late last year. “Is it fanciful to imagine that solar could one day power everything?” But the growth of solar power is uneven around the globe, with some regions seeing…
The renewed trade war between the United States and Canada adds even more uncertainty to the complex steel and aluminum supply chains critical for heavy manufacturing and North America’s automotive industry. Last week’s breakdown in trade talks led to a quick escalation of tariffs and counter-tariffs, which the two close trading partners announced on each other’s imports. The trade war escalation will hit trade in key metals such as steel and aluminum and force producers and importers to seek longer-term solutions to the heightened…
U.S. shale innovation is not limited to drilling techniques and engineering breakthroughs. Producers are testing and already getting more oil out of existing wells in the shale formations with the use of advanced chemicals. The mixture of cocktails of various chemicals, the so-called surfactants, helps release oil from the tight and shale formations. And shale drillers, including supermajors and independent producers, are increasingly perfecting the right cocktail mix to release more oil from the rocks. These advanced chemical mixtures, together…
For years, the economic case for solar came with an awkward qualification. Yes, it had no fuel bill. Yes, its operating costs were low. And yes, over the life of a project it could already produce cheaper electricity than a new coal or gas plant. But first, someone had to pay for it. Solar concentrated most of its lifetime costs at the beginning. Fossil power appeared to ask for less capital upfront and spread the rest of the bill across decades of coal or gas purchases. In rich countries with deep capital markets, that distinction could be managed.…
Azerbaijan is one of the world’s oldest oil producers and exporters, having pumped crude since the mid-19th century, and remains a major global oil producer. It has long relied on oil and gas to meet its energy needs and as a major economic contributor. However, the host of the 29th UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in 2024 is now looking to diversify its energy mix by deploying more renewable energy capacity. Natural gas contributed 67 per cent of Azerbaijan’s energy supply in 2023, while oil and oil products accounted for 31.1%…
Europe is heading for the winter with one of the lowest levels of gas in storage in the past two decades as the war in the Middle East crippled LNG supply from Qatar, sent gas and LNG prices in Europe and Asia skyrocketing, and intensified competition for the shrunk pool of readily available global LNG cargoes. A perfect storm of elevated demand for filling depleted storage and electricity during the summer heatwaves, and slashed global LNG supply with Qatar’s cargoes trapped behind the Strait of Hormuz have pushed European benchmark prices…
Octopus boss Greg Jackson has called on Andy Burnham to deliver “urgent reform” to the energy market to protect households from “volatile” gas prices. Jackson, founder of the UK’s biggest household electricity supplier, said: “The government’s decision to take VAT off electricity and remove some of the levies from bills has helped soften the blow this winter, but bills are still too high. “Britain remains far too exposed to volatile global gas prices. The wars in Ukraine and Iran have created an unprecedented…
U.S. refineries have been running at full speed for months to make up for lost fuel supply from the Middle East. Fuel exports from the United States have been breaking records. This may be about to change, and not because of the war. It is oil sands maintenance season in Canada. In September, Canadian crude oil production may drop by 300,000 barrels daily due to maintenance activities in the oil sands, Rystad Energy said this week, as quoted by Bloomberg. Usually, whenever such a seasonal disruption occurs, it gets offset with crude from storage.…
The fertilizer crisis is usually framed as a natural gas problem. When gas prices rise, ammonia costs rise, fertilizer plants reduce production, and farmers become exposed to a global commodity chain they cannot control. That diagnosis is correct but incomplete. Across Europe, thousands of anaerobic digesters are already producing a methane-rich gas close to the farms and food industries that consume fertilizer. Most sites burn it in a combined heat and power unit, upgrade it to biomethane, or flare a small surplus. Very few ask a more disruptive…
Mexico’s state oil firm Pemex and Brazil’s national oil company Petrobras are joining efforts and expertise to drill prospects in Mexican waters in the Gulf of Mexico, hoping to unlock huge oil resources from source rock formations that are miles deeper and eight times older than the currently producing formations in the U.S. Gulf. Exploration in the Jurassic formations deep under the Mexican Gulf seabed in the Campeche Bay carries high risks, but the reward in case of a discovery could be enormous, geologists and analysts tell Bloomberg.…
Order a heavy-duty gas turbine from GE Vernova today and it won’t arrive until 2031. That’s the company’s actual production schedule, confirmed on its July 22 earnings call, and it’s the fact sitting underneath every AI data center power plan announced in the last two years. It comes up far less often than the announcements do. Goldman Sachs put hard numbers on the demand side in May. U.S. data center power demand climbs from 31 gigawatts in 2025 to 41 GW this year and 66 GW in 2027. Year-over-year capacity additions accelerate…
Countries around the globe are racing to become the world’s first geologic hydrogen hotspot. A few years ago, the United States Department of Energy released a bombshell report that estimated that there are trillions of metric tons of natural hydrogen deposits sitting in underground pockets around the world – and that a considerable amount of that could be extracted for industrial use. Energy companies around the world have been eagerly exploring for the most ideal locations to put that theory to the test – and they’re zeroing…
Solar power is far and away the world’s fastest-growing form of energy production, beating out every other form of energy on Earth in 2025. Despite a recent political pivot away from renewable energies in the world’s largest economy, solar power additions continue to shatter its own records year over year as the sector has long since outgrown any need for subsidies. Solar power has simply become too cheap to fail. “We have a plentiful and cheap source of electricity that can be built quickly, almost anywhere in the world,”…
Oilfield services giant SLB is preparing to reactivate as many as 15 drilling rigs in Venezuela, potentially removing one of the biggest obstacles to increasing the country’s crude production. SLB and energy-focused private equity firm Formentera Partners are working on separate efforts to increase Venezuela’s drilling capacity, executives said at an industry conference in Houston on Wednesday. Formentera is discussing importing rigs with international service companies, while SLB is focused on equipment already inside Venezuela. SLB…
AI is changing energy systems, but data centers are only a small part of the impact. Much has been written and said about how the data center and AI boom are consuming and will consume increasingly higher shares of global electricity demand, and grids are struggling to meet soaring demand. Fossil Fuel Gains Could Outweigh Emissions Cuts from Renewables Arguably, a fundamental change in the energy system may not come from surging power demand, but from the efficiencies and productivity gains AI will help energy companies achieve, according to a…
The proposed Libya–Egypt crude oil pipeline has, surprisingly quickly, entered a phase in which Cairo and Tripoli are actively discussing it. The pipeline, expected to be 800 kilometers long, will connect Tobruk in eastern Libya to Egypt’s port of Alexandria, allowing Libyan crude to flow directly into Egypt's Mediterranean refining system. With an expected cost of over $1 billion, it represents a significant strategic opportunity. However, neither the final capacity, financing structure, nor investment decision has yet been agreed.…
With less than three full months left until the start of heating season in much of Europe, the issue of gas inventories is becoming increasingly pressing. Current inventory levels are at the lowest in 17 years, and supply available for purchase is tighter than it was back in 2022. Yet Europe needs to start buying gas now—or risk shortages. The energy import dependence of most of Europe has been in the spotlight for the past four years. The sanction barrage against Russia led the European Union—and Germany specifically, as Russia’s…
