Despite a discouraging political climate and unprecedented uncertainty in the United States clean energy sector, low costs of wind and solar energy continue to drive growth of the domestic clean energy sector. However, while market forces continue to support the expansion of renewable energy capacity, the sector faces critical challenges extending beyond the antagonism of the Trump administration.  The continued growth of solar and wind power risks being hampered by several mitigating factors, including (but not limited to) intensifying competition…

The Danish wind energy producer Ørsted has blamed United States President Donald Trump for its plummeting shares following Trump’s months of attack on wind energy, and it is not the only wind energy producer suffering from the new U.S. policies that make it more difficult to develop wind farms. For months, President Trump has threatened those in the wind and solar energy industries, as he stated plans to restrict new development. In July, Trump announced plans to tighten federal permitting to restrict solar and wind energy development,…

How much energy does the newest version of ChatGPT consume? No one knows for sure, but one thing is certain – it’s a whole lot. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, hasn’t released any official figures for the large language model’s energy footprints, but academics are working to quantify the energy use for query – and it’s considerably higher than for previous models.  There are no mandates forcing AI companies to disclose their energy use or environmental impact, so most do not offer up those kinds of statistics…

An insurance association has urged its members to assess their exposure to Russian oil as the UK and EU prepare to update their oil price cap regimes. The oil price cap, introduced by the G7, EU, and Australia, aims to restrict Russia’s oil revenues by preventing Russian companies from selling oil above a specified threshold. In July, the UK and EU announced plans to lower the price cap to further limit Russia’s ability to fund its war in Ukraine. The new measures take effect on 2 September in the UK and 3 September in the EU. However,…

Chevron has dispatched the first two Venezuelan crude cargoes to the U.S. since Washington restored its license to operate in the sanctioned nation last month. The Mediterranean Voyager and Canopus Voyager left Venezuelan waters on Friday loaded with Hamaca and Boscan heavy crudes, bound for the U.S. West Coast and Port Arthur, Texas, respectively. The move signals a tentative reopening of trade flows that had been abruptly halted earlier this year when the White House revoked Chevron’s license, triggering a 20% drop in Venezuela’s…

The asymmetrical trade agreement between the EU and the US will further worsen Germany’s recession. Yet neither politicians nor corporate leaders show any willingness to make the sweeping policy changes needed to reverse course. Germany’s economic data leaves no room for illusions. After contracting by 0.9% in 2023 and another 0.5% last year, the decline will continue this year. The Machine Room Has Been Blown Apart It is precisely the sectors that have sustained German prosperity for decades—automobiles, construction, machinery—that…

The total number of active drilling rigs for oil and gas in the United States stayed the same this week, according to new data that Baker Hughes published on Friday. The total rig count in the US stayed at 539, according to Baker Hughes, down 47 from this same time last year. The rig count is still near four-year lows. The number of oil rigs, however, rose by 1 for the second week in a row to 412, although year over year this represents a 71-rig decline. The number of gas rigs fell by 1 this week, coming in at 122 for a gain of 24 active gas rigs…

Ukraine’s drone campaign against Russian energy assets has taken out another major target—this time Lukoil’s Volgograd refinery, one of the ten largest in the country, forcing a halt to crude intake. According to regional officials, Thursday’s strike sent falling debris onto oil product storage, sparking a fire that burned for 19 hours before being contained. The 300,000 bpd facility, a key supplier to southern Russia with some exports, has been hit multiple times this year. Lukoil has yet to comment. The attack comes amid…

The UK government has decided against bailing out the country’s bioethanol plants, which have warned they would be forced to close without a rescue package as the U.S.-UK trade deal has made them unviable.  The trade deal from May removed a previous 19% tariff, which the UK imposed on imports of U.S. bioethanol. As a result, the UK-produced bioethanol has been unable to compete with the zero-tariff imported U.S. bioethanol.    Vivergo Fuels, the UK’s largest bioethanol plant, warned at the end of May that “if…

Oil markets have seen thin liquidity and rangebound prices this week, with ICE Brent hovering near $66 a barrel as traders focus almost entirely on the upcoming Trump–Putin meeting in Alaska. Friday, August 15, 2025Thin trading liquidity, rangebound price movements, and almost zero interest in any other topic than the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska have marked this week, with ICE Brent still trading around the $66 per barrel mark. LNG prices have already shed some $0.50/MMBtu this week as gas traders seem to expect some semblance of a deal…

As Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump prepare to meet in Alaska for a high-stakes summit to discuss ending the 43-month-old war in Ukraine, a deep feeling of unease is gripping European capitals, especially Kyiv. The August 15 meeting between the two leaders, their first since Trump returned to the presidency in January, could reshape not only Ukraine's future borders but also European security without either Kyiv or Brussels having a say. Trump has made ending the conflict -- Europe's largest since World War II -- a…

Algeria nears the finalization of agreements with U.S. supermajors Exxon and Chevron to explore and invest in its shale gas resources as the North African country bets big on boosting its gas pipeline and LNG exports, the head of the Algerian energy regulator told Bloomberg.  “The technical aspects have more or less been agreed upon, but the commercial alignment is still under negotiation and will soon be finalized,” Samir Bekhti, chairman of energy regulator Alnaft, told the newswire in an interview published on Friday. …

Numbers Report – August 15, 2025 In the latest edition of the Numbers Report, we will take a look at some of the most interesting figures put out this week in the energy and metals sectors. Each week we’ll dig into some data and provide a bit of explanation on what drives the numbers.  Let’s take a look.  ‘Bloated’ Markets Are Finally Coming, Warns the IEA  The International Energy Agency has sought to squash hopes for an oil market recovery with a scathingly bearish monthly report, cutting 2025-2026…

It Is Not Too Late To Benefit From A Potential Short Squeeze In Uranium I don’t claim to be a Roaring Kitty or anything, but short squeezes, having been profitable for me in the past, always interest me. So, when I was sent a link to this article by one of the editors here at Oilprice.com, I was intrigued. The piece, from Goehring and Rozencwajg Natural Resource Investors, is headlined “A Uranium Short Squeeze?”, and goes into some detail about why that might have been coming earlier this year. The gist of the story is that, in…

Oil prices fell by more than 1% early on Friday as the market awaits the outcome of the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, who will discuss a potential ceasefire in Ukraine.  As of 9:37 a.m. EST on Friday, the U.S. benchmark oil price, WTI Crude, was down by 1.38% at $63.10, as President Trump departed for Anchorage, Alaska, to meet with Putin.  The international benchmark, Brent Crude, traded 1.18% lower at $66.07 per barrel.    The face-to-face meeting between President…

Light Crude Oil Futures settled at $63.96 as of Thursday’s close, marking a mild rebound but still reflecting broader weakness in market structure. The week was shaped by several high-impact fundamental events—none of which proved decisive enough to shift the balance away from oversupply and tepid demand. Traders were focused on Friday’s Trump-Putin meeting, but until concrete action disrupts physical flows, the dominant pressure remains rooted in inventories and production. Trump-Putin Meeting Raises Risk, But Market Demands…

Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict Now that Trump has gotten himself involved in numerous conflict venues, Venezuela’s Maduro is testing to see if he’ll have the bandwidth for another: Guyana, which is gearing up for its general elections on September 1. President Irfaan Ali’s PPP/C government is seeking a second term, with opposition alliances trying to consolidate ground. But overshadowing it all is Maduro’s escalating rhetoric over a Russian-style annexation of the Essequibo region, Guyana’s oil-rich western territory…

Today’s sit-down in Anchorage will be the first U.S.-Russia summit on American soil since Reagan met Gorbachev in ’88. Trump’s billing it as a shot at ending the Ukraine war, but let’s keep some perspective: he’s been saying “two weeks” since the campaign trail and has repeated it in office like a mantra. Nothing on the battlefield or in politics has shifted in his favor, yet markets are trading this as if an outcome is baked in–and the outcome is expected to be more Russian barrels on the market.…

Hours before the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska, Ukraine said it had struck an oil refinery in Russia and a Caspian port that Moscow uses to ship weapons from Iran for the war in Ukraine.    Ukraine said it attacked overnight the Syzran refinery, owned by oil giant Rosneft and located in Russia’s Samara region, about 500 miles from the Ukrainian border with Russia.    “The target was hit, with fire and explosions recorded,” after the strike in the early hours on Friday, the General Staff of Ukraine’s…

Hours before the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska, Ukraine said it had struck an oil refinery in Russia and a Caspian port that Moscow uses to ship weapons from Iran for the war in Ukraine.    Ukraine said it attacked overnight the Syzran refinery, owned by oil giant Rosneft and located in Russia’s Samara region, about 500 miles from the Ukrainian border with Russia.    “The target was hit, with fire and explosions recorded,” after the strike in the early hours on Friday, the General Staff of Ukraine’s…