Nord Stream 2, the Switzerland-based company behind the gas pipeline project, has reached an agreement with its creditors to restructure its debt, a Swiss court in Zug said on Friday. Friday, May 9, was the deadline set by the court for Nord Stream 2 to restructure its debt and repay smaller creditors, or be declared bankrupt.  Bankruptcy was avoided thanks to the debt restructuring deal announced by the court today. Nord Stream 2, an $11-billion project to carry Russian natural gas from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea following the Nord…

The total number of active drilling rigs for oil and gas in the United States slipped this week, according to new data that Baker Hughes published on Friday, following a 3-rig decrease last week. The total rig count in the US fell by 6 to 578 rigs, according to Baker Hughes, down 25 from this same time last year. The number of oil rigs fell by 5 to 474 after falling by 4 during the previous week—and down by 22 compared to this time last year. The number of gas rigs stayed the same this week at 101 for a loss of 2 active gas rig from this…

The UK is more than doubling the funding for a so-called Clean Industry Bonus to support offshore wind projects, just as the world’s biggest offshore wind project developer, Orsted, pulled the plug on a major UK plan due to worsened economics. The UK government announced on Friday that it is bumping up the budget for the Clean Industry Bonus to $722 million (£544 million) from an initial $265 million (£200 million). Under the Labour government’s plan to make Britain a clean energy superpower, the UK has introduced the Clean…

Solar radiation storms happen when a large-scale magnetic eruption from the sun accelerates charged particles in the solar atmosphere to very high velocities. This can cause protons to get accelerated to large fractions of the speed of light, meaning they can travel the 150 million km from the sun to the Earth in just tens of minutes. Once they reach the Earth, the rapidly moving protons break through the magnetosphere that shields Earth from lower-energy charged particles to land near the north and south poles. A major disturbance in the Earth’s…

Crude oil futures ended the week higher, buoyed by renewed optimism around U.S.-China trade talks and signs of tightening inventories. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) settled near $59.91, marking a 2.78% weekly gain after rebounding sharply from multi-year lows earlier in the week. Bargain buying and improved sentiment supported prices despite strong macroeconomic and supply-driven headwinds. Trade Talks and Risk Sentiment Offer Limited Relief The upcoming May 10 trade negotiations between U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China’s top…

Oil Refiners Fear Trade Wars Will Hit Them Soon - Q1 2025 results of downstream-focused majors have been in stark contrast with how bearish the market remains on the future of refining, with the past years’ demand growth jeopardized by trade wars. - Consumption patterns in refined products have lagged flat price developments, leading to relatively higher margins today – the Singapore margin for refining Dubai crude is now around $7 per barrel, up from $4.3 per barrel a year ago. - The contango futures structure that has developed in…

On paper, the EU is phasing out Russian gas. A ban on new contracts kicks in by 2025, and the goal is full independence by 2027. That’s the public position, reinforced by press releases, parliamentary votes, and the REPowerEU strategy. But behind the curtain? Brussels is playing a double game. The truth is this: Europe wants Russian gas—it just doesn’t want to be seen wanting it. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the U.S. and Qatar is expensive. Infrastructure is uneven. And political unity across 27 member states is mostly a fiction…

Last weekend, at the Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) shareholders meeting, Warren Buffett surprised everyone except his two children, who were the only people he had told beforehand, by announcing that he would be retiring as the company’s CEO. I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised that a 94-year-old wanted to retire, but Buffett’s boundless energy and enthusiasm for investing created an illusion that he would go on forever. He didn’t, of course, but much of his investing advice will. Warren Buffett was enormously successful…

It’s been a busy first half of the year, geopolitically, and this week has been no different, with the India-Pakistan conflict erupting into airstrikes, more back-and-forth on the tariff front, ISIS rearing its head in repositioning Syria, more cracks in the Libyan power architecture, and the hatching of a European plan to ban Russian gas fully by 2027 (but please can we find a way to get Russian gas that is … less obvious?). India and Pakistan are sliding into their most dangerous confrontation in years. After a deadly Kashmir attack…

Canada’s pipeline giant Enbridge Inc. reported on Friday record quarterly earnings for the first quarter of the year as it moved a record-high volume of liquids on its huge Mainline pipeline system in North America. The company booked adjusted earnings of US$1.58 billion (C$2.2 billion), or US$0.74 (C$1.03) per common share, for the first quarter, up from US$1.44 billion (C$2 billion) for the same period of 2024. The EPS beat the analyst consensus estimate of US$0.69 (C$0.96) for the first quarter of 2025. Enbridge operates the Mainline system,…

Crude oil prices climbed this week on hopes that the U.S. and China might come to a trade agreement after a deal was announced with the UK.Friday, May 9th, 2025 ICE Brent futures have recovered to $64 per barrel as oil markets keep their hopes high for the upcoming first round of US-China trade talks this weekend. Should US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reach some sort of breakthrough with his Chinese counterpart He Lifeng, May could recoup most of April’s losses. US Slaps Sanctions on Third Chinese Refiner. The US Department…

Indonesia plans to slash its fuel imports from Singapore and source more refined products from the United States as the country looks to negotiate lower tariffs with the U.S. Indonesia was slapped with one of the highest tariffs - 32% - in the “liberation day” tariffs announced by U.S. President Donald Trump in early April. These tariffs have been suspended for 90 days, during which the Trump Administration expects most countries to come pleading their cases and promising to boost their imports of U.S. goods to avoid high tariffs. In…

Indonesia plans to slash its fuel imports from Singapore and source more refined products from the United States as the country looks to negotiate lower tariffs with the U.S. Indonesia was slapped with one of the highest tariffs - 32% - in the “liberation day” tariffs announced by U.S. President Donald Trump in early April. These tariffs have been suspended for 90 days, during which the Trump Administration expects most countries to come pleading their cases and promising to boost their imports of U.S. goods to avoid high tariffs. In…

Oil prices are on track to post a weekly gain amid expectations that the first U.S. trade deal post-tariffs, with the UK, could be a good sign of thaw in the tense trade relations ahead of the U.S.-China talks this weekend. As of 9:45 a.m. EDT on Friday, the front-month U.S. benchmark futures, WTI Crude, were up by 0.92% at $60.42. The international benchmark, Brent Crude, was rising by 0.80% at $63.31. After posting a weekly loss last week, oil was on track early on Friday for a weekly gain this week, after the U.S. and the UK announced on Thursday…

The U.S. is proposing that the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Risks (TFCR) at the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) be downgraded to a working group, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing sources briefed on the matter. The Basel Committee is the top global regulator of the banking sector, and its 45 members comprise central banks and bank supervisors from 28 jurisdictions. For the United States, the representatives on the committee are four institutions – the Fed, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Office…

The U.S. is proposing that the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Risks (TFCR) at the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) be downgraded to a working group, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing sources briefed on the matter. The Basel Committee is the top global regulator of the banking sector, and its 45 members comprise central banks and bank supervisors from 28 jurisdictions. For the United States, the representatives on the committee are four institutions – the Fed, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Office…

Mexico’s Pemex plans to reopen mature oil wells in a bid to increase production, which has been in a steady decline for years. According to a Reuters report, the Mexican state energy firm filed a report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission saying it expected this year’s average daily oil output to 1.58 million barrels daily. This compares to a government production target of 1.8 million barrels daily. To stem this decline, Pemex seems to be considering reopening idled wells, according to sources that Reuters did not name.…

Some of China’s independent refiners, the so-called teapots, are making a rare foray into the prompt Middle Eastern crude supply by buying cargoes of Abu Dhabi’s Murban grade for delivery in June, anonymous sources with knowledge of the deals told Bloomberg on Friday. The buyers, independent refiners Fuhai Group Co. and Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum Group, bought 1 million barrels of Murban crude each, at a premium of about $5 above the August ICE Brent futures, traders told Bloomberg.               …

Half a dozen Big Oil companies have “run the numbers” on a potential BP acquisition, the Financial Times has reported, citing unnamed industry sources. Shell has got all the headlines as a potential suitor for BP, but Exxon, Chevron, TotalEnergies, and Adnoc have also studied the possibility of acquiring the supermajor, as has commodity trading house Vitol, according to the FT sources. BP is worth close to $160 billion on a sum-of-the-parts basis, the FT reported, excluding debt and liabilities. This is more than twice as much as its…

The UK government will impose sanctions on as many as 100 tankers that it says are used to ship Russian crude oil abroad. Bloomberg reports that this constitutes a 75% increase in the number of sanctioned so-called shadow fleet vessels. This, Downing Street said, will make the UK the country that has sanctioned the most tankers carrying Russian oil. Initially, it targeted 133 vessels with sanctions, the Bloomberg report also noted. The UK has already sanctioned 41 vessels used to transport Russian oil abroad. Of these, however, 39 have continued…