Construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway is steadily advancing, with work underway on 28 of the 29 planned tunnels and 47 of 50 bridges along the route’s roughly 305-kilometer Kyrgyz section, according to Kyrgyz Railways, a partner in the project. About 22 percent of total construction work is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, with tunnel excavation currently 21.5 percent complete, earthworks 67 percent complete and bridge pile foundations 95 percent complete, the project’s deputy director general said. The…

Equinor halted output at its Visund oil and gas platform in the Norwegian North Sea on Wednesday after a fire in an electrical switchboard room, taking all 13.2 million cubic meters per day of the field’s gas export capacity off the market from Thursday. The fire broke out shortly before 11 a.m. local time, NRK reported. Equinor spokesperson Ellen Maria Skjelsbæk told the broadcaster that crews first reported smoke and then found flames in the switchboard room, which houses the panels that control and distribute power on the platform.…

Equinor halted output at its Visund oil and gas platform in the Norwegian North Sea on Wednesday after a fire in an electrical switchboard room, taking all 13.2 million cubic meters per day of the field’s gas export capacity off the market from Thursday. The fire broke out shortly before 11 a.m. local time, NRK reported. Equinor spokesperson Ellen Maria Skjelsbæk told the broadcaster that crews first reported smoke and then found flames in the switchboard room, which houses the panels that control and distribute power on the platform.…

Equinor halted output at its Visund oil and gas platform in the Norwegian North Sea on Wednesday after a fire in an electrical switchboard room, taking all 13.2 million cubic meters per day of the field’s gas export capacity off the market from Thursday. The fire broke out shortly before 11 a.m. local time, NRK reported. Equinor spokesperson Ellen Maria Skjelsbæk told the broadcaster that crews first reported smoke and then found flames in the switchboard room, which houses the panels that control and distribute power on the platform.…

New Jersey Democratic Governor Mikie Sherrill warned port and terminal operators in the state against "purchasing or unloading the illegal Russian fuel currently bound for the east coast of the United States."  Sherrill's move threatens to complicate President Trump's efforts to bring Russian diesel into US markets to ease high industrial fuel prices amid a severe global refining squeeze fueled by Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. In a Monday letter, Sherrill urged operators to turn away…

Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person whose Dangote Group operates the biggest refinery on the continent, on Wednesday broke ground for a planned fuel storage site in Namibia, which will serve as a fuel distribution hub in southern Africa. “We want to heavily invest so that most of the landlocked countries will be able to access petroleum products at a cheaper price,” Dangote said at a groundbreaking event on Wednesday. The project, expected to cost $2.5 billion, includes a fuel depot outside the main port of Walvis Bay in Namibia…

Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person whose Dangote Group operates the biggest refinery on the continent, on Wednesday broke ground for a planned fuel storage site in Namibia, which will serve as a fuel distribution hub in southern Africa. “We want to heavily invest so that most of the landlocked countries will be able to access petroleum products at a cheaper price,” Dangote said at a groundbreaking event on Wednesday. The project, expected to cost $2.5 billion, includes a fuel depot outside the main port of Walvis Bay in Namibia…

Crude oil inventories in the United States saw a decrease of 900,000 barrels during the week ending October 30, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Wednesday. The decrease brings commercial stockpiles to 409.8 million barrels, according to government data, which is now 4% below the five-year average for this time of year. Total commercial petroleum inventories slipped by 8.2 million barrels during the reporting period. The EIA’s data release follows API’s figures that were released…

Oil traders are pricing a U.S.-Iran settlement and discounting the threats around it. As of 9:40 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Brent had fallen $3.04, or 2.9%, to $100.60 per barrel, its third straight loss, and WTI had dropped $2.86, or 3%, to $93.23. Murban slipped $1.27 to $100.90. Both crude benchmarks traded higher early before reversing in a volatile session. President Trump told the Financial Times that Washington has no immediate plans to strike Iran. “We seem to be getting everything we want,” he said. Vice President JD Vance said…

Oil traders are pricing a U.S.-Iran settlement and discounting the threats around it. As of 9:40 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Brent had fallen $3.04, or 2.9%, to $100.60 per barrel, its third straight loss, and WTI had dropped $2.86, or 3%, to $93.23. Murban slipped $1.27 to $100.90. Both crude benchmarks traded higher early before reversing in a volatile session. President Trump told the Financial Times that Washington has no immediate plans to strike Iran. “We seem to be getting everything we want,” he said. Vice President JD Vance said…

US first lady Melania Trump will host Russian and Ukrainian representatives at the White House on November 5, with both sides confirming their participation in a meeting focused on a localized cease-fire in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, as a new round of US-mediated peace talks is set to take place next week. The meeting follows a six-day cease-fire in and around the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, which Melania Trump said she helped broker to allow humanitarian aid deliveries and the evacuation of vulnerable civilians. According to sources…

Spanish energy firm Moeve has agreed to sell its upstream oil and gas assets in Algeria to units of Indonesia’s state energy firm Pertamina in a deal that sees Moeve, majority owned by Abu Dhabi’s fund Mubadala, exiting the upstream business globally.   Moeve, which rebranded from Cepsa in 2024 “to drive the energy transition towards a more sustainable future,” is nearly 62% owned by Mubadala, the sovereign investment company of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Moeve is selling its entire interests in the non-operated…

Spanish energy firm Moeve has agreed to sell its upstream oil and gas assets in Algeria to units of Indonesia’s state energy firm Pertamina in a deal that sees Moeve, majority owned by Abu Dhabi’s fund Mubadala, exiting the upstream business globally.   Moeve, which rebranded from Cepsa in 2024 “to drive the energy transition towards a more sustainable future,” is nearly 62% owned by Mubadala, the sovereign investment company of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Moeve is selling its entire interests in the non-operated…

Spanish energy firm Moeve has agreed to sell its upstream oil and gas assets in Algeria to units of Indonesia’s state energy firm Pertamina in a deal that sees Moeve, majority owned by Abu Dhabi’s fund Mubadala, exiting the upstream business globally.   Moeve, which rebranded from Cepsa in 2024 “to drive the energy transition towards a more sustainable future,” is nearly 62% owned by Mubadala, the sovereign investment company of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Moeve is selling its entire interests in the non-operated…

Texas voters on Tuesday elected a Democrat to the Railroad Commission, the regulator of the state’s oil and gas industry, for the first time since 1990. They also elected a Democratic governor who promised to halt new data center construction. Democrats running against data centers took the governorships of Georgia and Ohio and won control of Georgia’s utility regulator. Voters cast those ballots with gasoline at its highest Election Day price on record. State Rep. Jon Rosenthal, a former oilfield engineer who calls himself a “drill…

The U.S. Army wants first dibs on American-produced heavy rare earths, and REalloys (NASDAQ: ALOY) has just signed a landmark nonbinding term sheet that could put it at the top of the military's supply chain list. And the terms are extraordinary. The term sheet proposes a potential 75-year operating lease on approximately 200 acres at Tooele Army Depot in Utah, where REalloys would build and operate a facility processing dysprosium and terbium, two metals China has spent decades monopolizing. In return, one of the things that the Army wants is…

The war on Iran has doubled what Egypt pays for imported LNG, and Cairo is deferring cargoes into 2027 and burning fuel oil in its power plants to hold down the bill. Egypt’s own output fell to 3.63 bcf/d in August as older fields declined faster than new wells came online, and the petroleum ministry has now extended the deadline for bids on 14 exploration blocks meant to reverse that decline to December 14 after companies asked for more time. QatarEnergy has kept its LNG deliveries under force majeure since April, and on October 28 it extended…

While crude oil imports in Asia have reached pre-war levels, imports of refined products remain weak as gasoline and diesel imports from the Middle East have crashed amid reduced refining capacity. Asia’s oil import story these days is a reflection of the global oil markets—crude oil availability has significantly increased since the early summer lows and flows out of the Middle East have largely recovered, but supply of gasoline, and especially diesel, has sharply dropped since the Iran war began at the end of February. Reduced refinery…

The world’s biggest oil and gas companies have posted another strong quarter, with just Europe’s top six majors booking a collective $38 billion for the July-to-September quarter. Adding Exxon and Chevron, the figure swells considerably. But the supermajors are in no rush to start spending that windfall. The oil and gas industry is having the exact opposite year to 2020. The war between the United States and Israel, and Iran has pushed oil and gas prices to the highest in years. The war between Russia and Ukraine, meanwhile, has driven…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 5.267 million barrels in the week ending October 30. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories fell by a staggering 2.031 million barrels. Commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR have lost more than 64 million barrels over the last 29 weeks, and 12 million over this year, according to API data, which has been kept in check in part thanks to draws from the SPR. For the week ending October 30, 400,000 barrels of crude oil left the…