As in all poker games, the player with the deepest pockets will ultimately win if he is prepared to stay at the table, and so with the high-stakes game of the U.S.-Iran War. The contents of a confidential CIA report relayed last week assessed that Iran can endure the current U.S. naval blockade in and around the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf for at least 90 to 120 days, but after that it would face economic collapse. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to benefit from dramatically increased oil production and prices on the higher historical side,…

Small Modular Reactors still won’t shift the Energy Transition, but for a different reason Last year, I argued that small modular reactors will not save the energy transition. The core reasoning was simple: timelines were too long, costs too uncertain, and grid issues too persistent for SMRs to meaningfully scale in the critical decade ahead. Today, as the UK’s flagship SMR programme unfolds and European policymakers cast fresh doubt on offshore wind targets by pointing to Rolls-Royce’s design, one thing is clear: SMRs remain…

Portugal just got a thorough energy policy review from the IEA, and the short version is this: the power sector has done its job. Everything else needs to get moving. The Portugal 2026 Energy Policy Review, released in Lisbon this week, covers the full picture, electricity, gas, transport, buildings, industry, and grid infrastructure, and lays out 10 recommendations for what the country needs to do next. It is more candid than these reports usually are. The Part That Worked Solar PV, hydropower, and wind have transformed Portugal's electricity…

I'm shocked, shocked, to find out that the Chinese are stealing America's agricultural technology! It can hardly come as a surprise that the Chinese government actively encourages and organizes the theft of intellectual property from other nations and their companies, in this case, agricultural technology in the United States. College students are some of the most active players in these thefts, as between 250,000 and 300,000 routinely attend U.S. colleges and universities in any given year, most of them studying in scientific and engineering fields.…

OPEC oil output has declined to its lowest level since 2000, with production falling by 830,000 barrels per day (bpd) to an average of 20.04 million bpd in April, according to a Reuters survey published Monday. Kuwait recorded the largest production drop, with reports indicating it exported zero crude in April thanks to its total reliance on the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia and Iraq also saw significant output decreases as they were forced to shut-in production. Saudi production dropped towards 7 million barrels per day (bpd) following attacks…

OPEC oil output has declined to its lowest level since 2000, with production falling by 830,000 barrels per day (bpd) to an average of 20.04 million bpd in April, according to a Reuters survey published Monday. Kuwait recorded the largest production drop, with reports indicating it exported zero crude in April thanks to its total reliance on the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia and Iraq also saw significant output decreases as they were forced to shut-in production. Saudi production dropped towards 7 million barrels per day (bpd) following attacks…

Donald Trump arrives in Beijing on Wednesday for his first state visit to China since 2017, heading into a two-day summit with President Xi Jinping that carries more energy-market weight than any bilateral meeting in recent memory. The talks, scheduled for Thursday and Friday, come as the world grapples with what the International Energy Agency has called the “largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market” — the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February.…

India has officially declined Russia's offer to sell liquefied natural gas (LNG) from projects currently under U.S. sanctions, following April reports of an LPG-laden tanker en route to western India, according to Indian media reports on Monday. Last month, Reuters reported that the 138,200-cubic-metre tanker Kunpeng was heading from Russia's Baltic Portovaya plant to the Dahej LNG terminal in western India. This shipment involved U.S.-sanctioned Russian LNG, signaling a potential first such delivery to India, with Energy Intelligence reporting…

Oil prices rallied on Monday morning after U.S. President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s response to a U.S. peace proposal, “I don’t like it – totally unacceptable,” Trump said in a Truth Social post, quashing hopes for an imminent resolution to the Middle East conflict that kicked off in late February. Brent crude for July delivery was up 1.% to trade at $103.3 per barrel at 9.48 am ET while WTI crude for June delivery gained 1.04% to trade at $96.41/bbl. Last week, the White House offered a one-page, 14-point memorandum…

Oil prices rallied on Monday morning after U.S. President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s response to a U.S. peace proposal, “I don’t like it – totally unacceptable,” Trump said in a Truth Social post, quashing hopes for an imminent resolution to the Middle East conflict that kicked off in late February. Brent crude for July delivery was up 1.% to trade at $103.3 per barrel at 9.48 am ET while WTI crude for June delivery gained 1.04% to trade at $96.41/bbl. Last week, the White House offered a one-page, 14-point memorandum…

Fewer passengers were heading to Heathrow Airport in April as the war in the Middle East keeps travellers grounded. Passenger numbers at Europe’s biggest airport fell by five per cent in April to 6.7m with the blame being attributed to the “ongoing impact of the Middle East conflict”. For those heading to that particular region, Heathrow saw a whopping 50 per cent drop in volumes. Still, in the year-to-date (Jan–Apr) traffic maintained modest growth at 1.2 per cent. Transfer demand grew ten per cent in April, as travellers…

The European oil majors with the biggest trading desks raised their trading profits by up to $4.75 billion in the first quarter from the end of last year, amid extreme market volatility driven by the war in Iran. The biggest European majors, BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies, likely earned between $3.3 billion and $4.75 billion more in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, the Financial Times reports, citing estimates from analysts. Big Oil companies do not disclose their trading profits separately from the overall results, but usually…

Capacity installations of renewable energy co-located with batteries for storage are expected to surge in Europe from 6 gigawatts in 2025 to as much as 35 GW by 2030, a new report by Aurora Energy Research showed on Monday. The research examined developments in 20 European markets in terms of attractiveness for co-location, and identified Germany, Great Britain, and Bulgaria as Europe's most attractive co-location investment markets. Germany is the most attractive co-location market, thanks to its sheer size and significant upside potential for…

Capacity installations of renewable energy co-located with batteries for storage are expected to surge in Europe from 6 gigawatts in 2025 to as much as 35 GW by 2030, a new report by Aurora Energy Research showed on Monday. The research examined developments in 20 European markets in terms of attractiveness for co-location, and identified Germany, Great Britain, and Bulgaria as Europe's most attractive co-location investment markets. Germany is the most attractive co-location market, thanks to its sheer size and significant upside potential for…

When lawmakers propose solutions to complex economic problems, the first requirement should be a clear understanding of how those problems actually work. A recent Facebook post by Bernie Sanders comparing today’s oil and gasoline prices to those in 2011 suggests that oil companies are “ripping off” consumers. The logic is straightforward: if oil prices are roughly the same, gasoline prices should be as well. If they aren’t, someone must be taking advantage. It’s an intuitive argument, but it misses important elements…

The Browse LNG project in Australia, proposed by Woodside Energy, is set to cost about $35 billion, a new report commissioned by the Australian oil and gas major showed on Monday. Woodside first proposed the Browse to North West Shelf (NWS) Project to deliver natural gas from the Calliance, Torosa, and Brecknock fields to the existing Karratha Gas Plant back in 2018. Cost estimates as of 2019 pointed to US$20 billion (AUS$27.3 billion) of total investment. However, the project, which has been long delayed due to a carbon capture and storage (CCS)…

Last month, we reported that over $1 billion in "perfectly timed" wagers, spanning both traditional oil futures and digital prediction markets, accurately anticipated major military and diplomatic shifts linked to developments in the Iran-US war minutes before they were publicly announced, raising major suspicion of insider trading. Many suspicious accounts were newly created and only traded on specific Iran-related events with a win rate of up to 93%. Well, the final numbers are in, and the initial report might only have been the tip of the iceberg.…

The last tankers out of the Persian Gulf are reaching their destinations. Strategic reserves are being drained to make up for lost Middle East supply and keep a lid on prices. But there is a problem with this: an emergency response to a crisis is by definition unsustainable. Analysts and energy industry executives are warning that the longer the war in the Middle East continues, the worse the supply situation will become. Global oil inventories are falling at a record pace, media reported earlier this week, with one Kpler analyst noting that “inventory…

China has expanded its cleantech manufacturing capacity so much that industry players are searching for a way to decrease competition to make pricing more realistic and stop smaller producers from falling into debt. However, despite the problem being discussed widely last year, no solution has yet been found. In addition, while forecasts suggest that the Iran war and energy supply chain disruptions will refocus international demand for a green transition, thereby driving up purchases of solar components, this is unlikely to drive a big enough increase…

Russia’s Leningrad Oblast lies some 600 kilometers from the closest corner of Ukraine. But on April 15, its governor declared it a “frontline” region. Part of his explanation: From January through March, a total of 243 Ukrainian drones were shot down over the province, he said. Some drones were not shot down, though. From export terminals on the Gulf of Finland to refineries inland, oil facilities in the region that surrounds St. Petersburg, President Vladimir Putin’s hometown, have been among the hardest hit in an upsurge…