The United States is deploying jet fighters, air defenses, and an air carrier with thousands of troops to the Middle East, in a move that has heightened tensions with Iran and increased the likelihood of military action, experts say. US President Donald Trump threatened military strikes against Iran after the authorities killed thousands of people in a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests. Trump recently backed away, although he has not ruled out an attack on the Islamic Republic. Experts say the military buildup, along with planned US…

Winter storm Fern has slashed U.S. oil and gas production as operators curtailed output amid the big freeze. Over the weekend, the storm led to producers losing up to 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil production, or about 15% of total U.S. oil output, according to estimates by analysts and traders cited by Reuters. According to estimates by Energy Aspects, the Permian alone saw production outages of around 1.5 million bpd. However, production is already recovering, and the lost output in the Permian is down to some 700,000 bpd. Output is expected…

Winter Storm Fern has eclipsed Kazakhstan’s Tengiz restart, with up to 2 million b/d of U.S. crude output curtailed—yet Brent remains pinned near $66. Arctic Fern vs. America: A Winter Brawl in the Energy Markets - Arctic Storm Fern has curbed electricity supply to millions of people across the eastern two-thirds of the United States, slashing oil supply by 2 million b/day, gas production by more than 10 bcf/day and sending power prices skyrocketing. - Day-ahead electricity prices in the PJM Interconnection area, the most impacted by…

Chinese state-owned giant PetroChina, which hasn’t bought Venezuelan crude since the U.S. imposed sanctions on Venezuela in 2019, is not too keen to start buying again after the U.S. authorized global traders to market the crude from the world’s biggest reserves holder.   PetroChina has told traders not to buy or trade Venezuela’s oil—a trade that is now under U.S. control after the capture of Nicolas Maduro, trading sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.   The Chinese oil and gas giant stopped…

Chinese state-owned giant PetroChina, which hasn’t bought Venezuelan crude since the U.S. imposed sanctions on Venezuela in 2019, is not too keen to start buying again after the U.S. authorized global traders to market the crude from the world’s biggest reserves holder.   PetroChina has told traders not to buy or trade Venezuela’s oil—a trade that is now under U.S. control after the capture of Nicolas Maduro, trading sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.   The Chinese oil and gas giant stopped…

Canada’s efforts to diversify its energy exports away from the United States go through boosting sales oil, gas, and uranium to the major energy market India, Canadian Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said at a conference in India on Tuesday. Canada has the opportunity to work with India now that it sees its high dependence on the U.S. market as a “strategic blunder,” the minister told the Indian Energy Week conference in Goa today, as carried by Reuters. “If Canada wants to be an energy superpower, we need to be trading our…

Oil demand will stay above 100 million barrels per day (bpd) through 2040, the chief executive of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) said on Tuesday, reiterating the need for investment in all forms of energy. Global oil demand will remain above 100 million barrels per day through 2040, with demand for both LNG and electricity surging by 50% or more. Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, and Managing Director and Group CEO of ADNOC, told the India Energy Week conference.      Global power demand…

Canada’s efforts to diversify its energy exports away from the United States go through boosting sales oil, gas, and uranium to the major energy market India, Canadian Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said at a conference in India on Tuesday. Canada has the opportunity to work with India now that it sees its high dependence on the U.S. market as a “strategic blunder,” the minister told the Indian Energy Week conference in Goa today, as carried by Reuters. “If Canada wants to be an energy superpower, we need to be trading our…

Wintertime in the Northern hemisphere is usually a cold affair spanning at least a couple of months. The winters of 2022-23 and 2023-24 were extra-mild. That, coupled with a massive boost in LNG supply from the United States, lulled many playing the gas market into a false sense of security: there was so much gas around; no amount of demand could lead to a price spike. Except it could, and it just did. This winter was off to a pretty cold start in Europe as early as October. Gas buyers in the EU had stocked up on gas in the storage caverns across…

Until U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent comments pushed it into public view, Greenland was widely regarded as a geopolitical footnote: immense, frozen, sparsely inhabited, and far from the centre of global power politics. Yet in strategic terms it sits at the hinge of the 21st?century Arctic contest. As climate change opens northern sea routes and unlocks previously inaccessible energy reserves, the region is shifting from a frozen buffer zone to a theatre of competition between Washington, Moscow, and Beijing. Russia already views the…

The world’s biggest international trading houses, which couldn’t trade Venezuelan oil for years due to the sanctions of the first Trump Administration, are back in the business, with the backing and blessing of the U.S. Following the capture of Nicolas Maduro and the U.S. takeover of Venezuelan oil sales, Vitol Group and Trafigura were authorized by the Trump Administration to help market the oil from the world’s biggest crude resource holder. The trade could be potentially very lucrative for the trading houses, which would reap…

It seemed like a good idea at the time… After protests against economic mismanagement broke out in Iran in December 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump encouraged the protestors: “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” and “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”  He threatened to attack Iran if the government executed any of the protestors. Tehran relented, and Trump replied, “I greatly respect the fact that they canceled [the executions].” Iran’s top prosecutor then rebutted Trump…

The global onshore wind sector entered 2026 with overall stability in capacity growth, but beneath the surface, the industry is undergoing a profound shift in priorities. As markets mature and renewable energy penetration rises, the focus is moving from sheer scale and turbine costs to system-level value, integration, and revenue resilience. Original equipment manufacturers, developers, and policymakers alike are adapting to evolving economics, advanced technologies, and geopolitical pressures, setting the stage for a year in which strategic decisions…

Petrobras and its logistics arm Transpetro have signed new contracts worth about 2.8 billion reais (roughly $520 million) to build a fleet of gas carriers, barges and pushboats, advancing a major domestic shipbuilding push under Brazil’s Mar Aberto (Open Sea) Program. The deal was formalized at a ceremony in Rio Grande do Sul attended by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, underscoring his wider priority of revitalizing Brazil’s maritime industrial base. Under the contracts, the Rio Grande shipyard will build five…

Petrobras and its logistics arm Transpetro have signed new contracts worth about 2.8 billion reais (roughly $520 million) to build a fleet of gas carriers, barges and pushboats, advancing a major domestic shipbuilding push under Brazil’s Mar Aberto (Open Sea) Program. The deal was formalized at a ceremony in Rio Grande do Sul attended by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, underscoring his wider priority of revitalizing Brazil’s maritime industrial base. Under the contracts, the Rio Grande shipyard will build five…

Petrobras and its logistics arm Transpetro have signed new contracts worth about 2.8 billion reais (roughly $520 million) to build a fleet of gas carriers, barges and pushboats, advancing a major domestic shipbuilding push under Brazil’s Mar Aberto (Open Sea) Program. The deal was formalized at a ceremony in Rio Grande do Sul attended by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, underscoring his wider priority of revitalizing Brazil’s maritime industrial base. Under the contracts, the Rio Grande shipyard will build five…

After years of volatility and struggles, Egypt’s oil and gas sector has entered 2026 with a rare piece of good economic news. It has made a decisive dent in the mountain of debts owed to international energy companies, as reported by Egypt’s Prime Minister Madbouli. Cairo has been facing years of crippling foreign-currency shortages and mounting overdue payments, both of which have negatively affected investment and slowed domestic gas production. Egypt is starting to turn the page. Still, optimism should be tempered, as the broader…

U.S. President Donald Trump has taken the first formal step toward reopening offshore oil and gas leasing off California, after the federal government launched a process that could lead to the first new offshore lease sales in the state in decades. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said Monday it has issued two Calls for Information and Nominations covering offshore areas in Southern and Central California. The move initiates the early stages of offshore leasing under Trump’s proposed 11th National Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas…

Herbert Stein was an American economist who served in both the Nixon and Ford administrations. He is probably most famous for formulating Stein's Law, namely, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." This is, of course, an obvious statement. But I think it cannot be stated too often in a global society that believes in infinite economic growth. I propose to take a subset of that growth to demonstrate Stein's point. The subset is world oil and natural gas consumption versus discoveries. It turns out that Rystad Energy, a major consulting…

In the global race to decarbonize energy systems, attention tends to focus on the headline technologies like hydrogen, carbon capture, electric vehicles, and massive lithium-ion batteries. Yet behind the scenes, a quieter revolution is taking shape. Across Europe and beyond, heat batteries, or thermal energy storage systems, are emerging as one of the most efficient, scalable, and cost-effective ways to balance renewable energy and decarbonize heat. They may not look futuristic. They have no moving parts, produce no dramatic chemical reactions,…