Who says price isn't a rationing mechanism? Rather than sink billions into long-term oil sands projects, Alberta energy companies are increasingly chasing the Clearwater formation, a conventional heavy oil field that allows producers to capitalize on rising crude prices far more quickly, according to Bloomberg. The surge in activity has been significant. Alberta approved 1,764 drilling licenses between Jan. 1 and June 12, the busiest start to a year since 2014. Roughly one-fifth of those permits were for Clearwater wells, marking the highest proportion…

The European Commission is set to unveil next week an electrification target for 2040 in a bid to reduce the need for fossil fuels and strengthen the renewable energy sector in the EU, according to a draft proposal seen by Bloomberg News. The Commission, the EU’s legislative arm, is expected to propose on July 17 a target for the share of electrification, still unspecified, as part of the energy consumption in the bloc by 2040. “With decisive action at all levels, Europe can become the first electro-continent,” the European Commission…

Ukraine hit two fuel tankers overnight offshore Russia’s southern coast in an expanding campaign to deepen the fuel crisis in Russia. The two tankers were hit in Taganrog Bay, the northeastern arm of the Sea of Azov in the southern Russian Rostov region. Yury Slyusar, the governor of the region of Rostov, posted on Telegram early on Thursday that two tankers were hit in the Taganrog Bay. The vessels suffered “mechanical damage” and caught fire, while no injuries or casualties were reported by the Russian authorities.   …

In September, Google walked away from a $1 billion data center outside Indianapolis, pulling its Franklin Township proposal minutes before the city-county council was set to vote it down. It wasn’t an isolated incident. Communities across the United States have now blocked or delayed more than $130 billion in AI data centers in the first three months of 2026, refusing projects the industry's biggest names assumed they could build anywhere. This is the problem Bitzero (Nasdaq: AIBZ) spent the last four years quietly engineering its way around.…

Dangote’s 700,000 b/d Lekki refinery has been running at full capacity over the past two months, pushing product exports to Europe to record levels and overtaking traditional suppliers from the Gulf and the US. Its rise has already reshaped the West African fuel trade: imports of clean products from outside the region fell by almost 25% year-on-year in the second quarter. Yet Dangote is treating this only as a starting point. The group plans to add another crude distillation unit (CDU), lift total capacity to 1.45 million b/d and build a…

Saudi Arabia has slashed the price of its crude oil loading for Asia next month by the most in two decades as the world’s top crude exporter and the other major exporters in the Persian Gulf restarted the competition to sell into their biggest market, Asia, after the tentative reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia, as well as Iraq, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have bet in recent weeks that the situation with the navigability through the Strait of Hormuz will only improve from now on, and have restarted the fight for…

A team of scientists at Texas A&M University accidentally discovered a new method for producing a critical component in lithium-ion batteries. The team, based in College Station, Texas, was trying to study an entirely different phenomenon when they discovered that they could produce graphene oxide directly from natural gas. Not only does this discovery mean that a critical battery component could be produced more efficiently and cheaply, the process also creates green hydrogen as a byproduct. Initially, the team was trying to experiment with…

Just a decade ago, the Indian government seemed hell-bent on using coal to power its industrialization drive, with large-scale solar energy virtually unheard of in the country apart from a few microgrids serving remote rural villages and rooftop installations. In early 2015, the Modi administration set a goal to double domestic coal output to roughly 1.5 billion tonnes by 2030. However, the country’s energy landscape has since undergone a massive transformation in a short space of time. While the majority of the world’s industrial heavyweights…

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has downgraded its 2026 global economic growth forecast to 3%, down from 3.5% posted in 2025 with the impact of the Iran war expected to negate gains made by the ongoing AI boom. According to the IMF, oil prices will average ~32% higher in the current year compared to the previous year while global consumer prices are set to jump 4.7%, halting two years of cooling inflation. However, the AI investment boom is expected to provide one of the few bright spots, with productivity gains helping limit the damage from…

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has downgraded its 2026 global economic growth forecast to 3%, down from 3.5% posted in 2025 with the impact of the Iran war expected to negate gains made by the ongoing AI boom. According to the IMF, oil prices will average ~32% higher in the current year compared to the previous year while global consumer prices are set to jump 4.7%, halting two years of cooling inflation. However, the AI investment boom is expected to provide one of the few bright spots, with productivity gains helping limit the damage from…

The governments of Canada and Alberta signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on a West Coast oil pipeline on Nov. 27, 2025. The landmark MOU declared the proposed oil pipeline to Asian markets as a potential project of national interest. Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier Danielle Smith signed a subsequent Implementation Agreement on May 15, 2026, which outlines specific timelines to push for construction approval as early as September 2027. On July 2, the pair announced the new pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia will be built as…

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has downgraded its 2026 global economic growth forecast to 3%, down from 3.5% posted in 2025 with the impact of the Iran war expected to negate gains made by the ongoing AI boom. According to the IMF, oil prices will average ~32% higher in the current year compared to the previous year while global consumer prices are set to jump 4.7%, halting two years of cooling inflation. However, the AI investment boom is expected to provide one of the few bright spots, with productivity gains helping limit the damage from…

Forty miles outside Abilene, in the highlands between Taylor and Nolan counties, 421 wind turbines have spun since 2006. Horse Hollow was the largest wind farm on earth when it went up…nearly 47,000 acres of cattle country and mesquite scrub, leased from ranch families who mostly kept running cattle underneath the blades. West Texas doing what West Texas does best…selling the wind nobody else wanted. Twenty years later, the same stretch of the state is selling something else nobody has enough of…land with power still attached…

Russia has officially banned all diesel exports in a bid to secure its domestic fuel market following highly destructive Ukrainian drone strikes on its energy infrastructure. According to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, the embargo covers all diesel exports, closing a loophole that allowed self-producing oil firms to sell fuel abroad. The ban is scheduled to remain in place through the end of July. On Tuesday, a long-range Ukrainian strike successfully crippled Gazprom Neft’s Omsk oil refinery--Russia's largest fuel processing plant--knocking…

Russia has officially banned all diesel exports in a bid to secure its domestic fuel market following highly destructive Ukrainian drone strikes on its energy infrastructure. According to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, the embargo covers all diesel exports, closing a loophole that allowed self-producing oil firms to sell fuel abroad. The ban is scheduled to remain in place through the end of July. On Tuesday, a long-range Ukrainian strike successfully crippled Gazprom Neft’s Omsk oil refinery--Russia's largest fuel processing plant--knocking…

Russia has officially banned all diesel exports in a bid to secure its domestic fuel market following highly destructive Ukrainian drone strikes on its energy infrastructure. According to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, the embargo covers all diesel exports, closing a loophole that allowed self-producing oil firms to sell fuel abroad. The ban is scheduled to remain in place through the end of July. On Tuesday, a long-range Ukrainian strike successfully crippled Gazprom Neft’s Omsk oil refinery--Russia's largest fuel processing plant--knocking…

China is planning to deploy a constellation of over 1,000 remote-sensing satellites to observe Central Asia, according to China’s official news outlets Xinhua and The People’s Daily. The first batch of five satellites of the Tianwu Constellation is expected to be launched into orbit by the end of 2026. The project is presented as a combined initiative with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, with a declared purpose of monitoring environmental developments and reducing the potential harm caused by natural disasters and climate change.…

Jet2 recorded a nearly £400m boost from the rising price of jet fuel which caused widespread fear that summer holidays could be cancelled and airlines could go bust. The package holiday provider revealed that it defied the travel chaos caused by the Middle East conflict to instead take a £388m balance sheet boost from rising jet fuel prices. Because the company had already locked in low fuel prices with its suppliers, the rising market cost of fuel meant that the value of its fuel contracts soared during the conflict. The AIM-listed…

Oil prices surged over 7% to a two-week high on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump declared that the interim ceasefire agreement with Iran is officially over and dismissed the recently signed memorandum of understanding as a "waste of time." Brent crude for September delivery spiked 7.6% to trade at $79.76 per barrel at 10:40 am ET, while WTI crude for August delivery gained 7.2% to change hands at $75.4/bbl. Iran attacked three commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, prompting retaliatory attacks by the United States.…

The world’s fleet of nuclear power capacity is expected to surge by 44% over the next decade as China will topple the United States as the biggest nuclear power capacity holder and India will hike its capacity to boost energy security. These are the estimates in a new report by BloombergNEF, which sees total global nuclear capacity at 535 gigawatts (GW) by 2036, up from the 372 GW of installed capacity as of the end of 2025. China is set to nearly double its current nuclear capacity to 102 GW from 59 GW, surpassing the U.S. as the holder…