Qatar’s state-owned QatarEnergy has extended by several weeks its force majeure on LNG deliveries to customers as the LNG flows at the Strait of Hormuz remained blocked despite increased oil flows. QatarEnergy has notified buyers in Pakistan and Bangladesh this week that LNG cargo cancellations would continue through October, traders with knowledge of the situation told Bloomberg on Friday. Some previously planned deliveries to Europe under long-term deals have also been cancelled beyond September, with Edison of Italy saying the force majeure…

US President Donald Trump told reporters that he does not believe Moscow will attack a NATO nation amid rising concerns that Russian President Vladimir Putin will strike a Baltic country or other member state to test the Western alliance’s resolve. Trump on August 27 told reporters in the Oval Office that he had engaged in "good talks" with Putin and that "he's not going to be attacking a NATO territory." He did not specify when those talks were held. "I am not concerned...at all. There is no problem," Trump was quoted earlier as saying by…

Amazon has expanded Germany’s largest-ever power purchase agreement (PPA), signed in June, and announced another four deals to buy power from four wind farms in Sweden as the e-commerce giant and other electricity-intensive hyperscalers look to power their rising AI computing and data center needs with carbon-free electricity. Amazon on Friday highlighted the signing of a PPA to purchase 600 megawatts (MW) of carbon-free electricity from the Gennaker offshore wind farm in the German Baltic Sea. By agreeing to purchase this energy, Amazon…

Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict Hormuz is “open”, but nowhere close to functioning normally. The U.S. has cleared mines from the internationally recognized shipping lanes and can technically get vessels through, but Iran’s military capability will still keep most commercial operators away. Only five commodity vessels crossed on Tuesday, compared to some 130 ships a day before the war. Iran is offering a temporary and limited corridor while making full normalization conditional on sanctions relief, an end to the U.S. blockade…

The war with Iran has handed Russia a strategic advantage in Ukraine. Washington is burning through the weapons Europe needs to deter Russia, moving military capacity into the Gulf and simultaneously telling NATO governments to take over more of their own defense.  CIA Director John Ratcliffe flew to Moscow this week precisely because of the connected nature of these two problems. He met Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin in the first known visit by a CIA director since William Burns traveled there in late 2021, just before…

WTI crude oil futures were trading at $83.51 late Thursday, down $3.13, or 3.61%, for the week. The market opened near the weekly high at $86.57, then broke to $79.62 as traders sold on reports that Iran, Oman and the United States were moving toward a workable shipping arrangement through the Strait of Hormuz. Thursday changed the tone. WTI bounced after Iran fired on a vessel near Oman and President Trump rejected terms tied to reviving the June Iran ceasefire agreement. The market stopped trading a Hormuz reopening and started trading the fact…

Pakistan’s five oil refineries are expected to sign agreements in early September for upgrades that are expected to unlock as much as $6 billion in investment in the country’s refining sector. Representatives of the five refineries, Pak Arab Refinery Limited (PARCO), Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL), National Refinery Limited (NRL), Cnergyico, and Attock Refinery Limited (ARL), have met with Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Petroleum, Ali Pervaiz Malik, to discuss the so-called Refinery Upgradation Policy, local daily Business Recorder…

India is comfortably on track to meet its goal to have 500 gigawatts (GW) of non-fossil-fuel power capacity installed by 2030, after having just hit the 300 GW milestone, New and Renewable Energy Minister Pralhad Joshi said at an industry event.   Early this month, India announced it had topped 300 GW of non-fossil fuel-based installed electricity generation capacity as of July 31, 2026. This is 60% of the 500 GW capacity targeted to be achieved by 2030.  Solar power led the capacity installations, with a total of 164.59 GW as of the…

Three of China’s top solar market players reported deepening losses over the first half of the year, reflecting weakening demand for solar in the world’s top manufacturer and generator. Jinko Solar, JA Solar Technology, and Tongwei all reported six-month losses as overcapacity in the sector meets weakening demand, not only at home but also abroad, Bloomberg reported, citing statements made by the companies at their financial results releases. The report noted new solar power capacity additions in China had shrunk to 72.07 GW over the…

Tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz slowed below the ten-day average this week, with only seven commodity vessels traversing the waterway on Thursday, Reuters reported today, citing preliminary data from Kpler. This compared to 17 vessels passing through Hormuz a day earlier, with the ten-day average at 15, based on ship-tracking data. A total of 17 tankers passed through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, 11 of them exiting and six entering, per Reuters. Windward, meanwhile, reported a total of six tankers passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday,…

Crude oil prices were on course to book another weekly loss despite no sign of any progress being made towards peace between Iran and the United States. At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $89.17 per barrel, with West Texas Intermediate at $83.19 per barrel. Brent was down by 5.3% over the week, and WTI was set for a 4.3% decline, Reuters reported earlier today. The price trend is interesting in light of reports from vessel-tracking companies that tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz remains much weaker than it was before the war.…

Egypt’s gas sector is running short of domestic gas just as Cyprus prepares to become a producer. The recently approved Cronos project offshore Cyprus (expected to deliver up to 2.8 million tonnes per year of LNG from 2028) offers a three-way bargain. Cyprus gains an export route it cannot economically build alone; Egypt secures feedstock for infrastructure increasingly constrained by falling domestic production, and Europe gains another non-Russian source. The logic is compelling, but technical, commercial and geopolitical risks could still…

Last month, we reported that Nigerian billionaire and Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has agreed to build a $17 billion (Ksh2.2 trillion), 700,000-barrel-per-day refinery on Kenya’s Lamu Island that would process crude not only for Kenya but also its neighbors such as Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and the DRC. The giant refinery--Africa’s second largest refinery behind only Nigeria’s Dangote refinery--would easily exceed East Africa’s current refined fuel demand of roughly 450,000 bpd, leaving room to supply…

The Trump administration is no friend of wind and solar. Axed subsidies and project suspensions have been the attitude towards those alternative forms of energy. Geothermal, however, is something else. The current Department of Energy is very much for it. In fact, it is so much for it that it funded an experiment that would show whether fracking technology could be used to generate geothermal anywhere in the world. Geothermal energy is, simply put, heat. It is heat that is generated from the decay of radioactive elements in the planet’s mantle.…

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…

The Trump administration is reportedly in active discussions with Venezuela’s interim government to acquire a direct U.S. ownership stake in key Venezuelan oil fields. According to senior U.S. officials cited by Axios, the talks involve equity stakes in a select group of high-yield fields containing approximately 90 billion barrels of proven crude—a transaction that would significantly alter Washington’s foreign energy policy framework and expand U.S.-controlled global reserves. The targeted fields represent a strategic slice…

United States President Trump has strongly criticised wind power since coming into office, introducing several executive actions aimed at restricting the development of wind farms. Trump has particularly targeted offshore wind, leading to several projects being put on hold or cancelled. The on-again-off-again nature of U.S. offshore wind has hit workers hard, creating job insecurity and posing the threat of permanent project cancellations, at a time when renewable energy jobs were expected to be more stable. Oil and gas workers have been encouraged…

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are tossing figurative darts at a US trial balloon connected to the intensifying race between the United States and China for leadership in AI development.  Reuters reported on August 14 that the US State Department had drafted a note stating that any nation interested in widening access to advanced American know-how and technology in the AI sector under a program known as Pax Silica must refrain from participating in a rival Chinese initiative known as the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO).…

Energean is in exclusive talks to buy a package of BP’s Egyptian oil and gas assets in a deal that could raise about $1 billion for the British energy major, Reuters reported Thursday exclusively, citing two people involved in the negotiations. The proposed deal includes BP’s interests in the producing West Nile Delta gas assets, which it owns with Harbour Energy, as well as its 50% contractor working interest in the Temsah concession in the eastern Mediterranean. BP and Energean declined to comment. The talks advance a sale process…

Energean is in exclusive talks to buy a package of BP’s Egyptian oil and gas assets in a deal that could raise about $1 billion for the British energy major, Reuters reported Thursday exclusively, citing two people involved in the negotiations. The proposed deal includes BP’s interests in the producing West Nile Delta gas assets, which it owns with Harbour Energy, as well as its 50% contractor working interest in the Temsah concession in the eastern Mediterranean. BP and Energean declined to comment. The talks advance a sale process…