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The only commercial-scale uranium enrichment plant in the United States is now three-quarters of the way through its latest expansion, a milestone for the country's push to build out a domestic nuclear fuel supply chain. Urenco USA said Oct. 8 that the sixth of eight new centrifuge cascades at its National Enrichment Facility in New Mexico has started production, with the seventh due later this year and the last in spring 2027. As the Trump administration works to reestablish the country as the global leader in nuclear energy, cutting reliance…
President Donald Trump has announced a massive new energy agreement with Taiwan, claiming the island will purchase between $70 billion and $80 billion worth of liquefied natural gas from Alaska over the next two decades, as Asian importers scramble to secure supplies beyond the increasingly dangerous Strait of Hormuz. In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump said Taiwan had committed to purchasing 30% of the planned Alaska LNG project's output for 20 years, alongside a $4.4 billion equity investment. The president described the arrangement as…
Permian producers spent much of this year paying buyers to haul away the natural gas that comes up with their oil. Waha Hub spot prices stayed below zero for a record 90 days in a row before turning positive on June 16, Reuters reported, and the hub had averaged minus $2.19 per million British thermal units for the year up to that point. Four of the five companies below still posted record results in the second quarter. Three of the five don’t drill at all, and one of the two that do works mostly in North Dakota, far from Waha. The U.S. Energy…
A new breakthrough in high-temperature heat pumps could provide a critical pathway toward relieving global reliance on fossil fuels in industrial contexts. A team of scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE (Fraunhofer ISE) in Germany tested heat pumps at 320 degrees Fahrenheit and proved that they can produce hot water and steam, showing promise for replacing coal in hard-to-abate industrial sectors. “Data collected from the test rig could allow manufacturers to design heat pumps and heat exchangers for high temperatures,…
Nuclear energy stocks have suffered heavy losses over the past year, even as technology companies commit billions of dollars to securing nuclear electricity for AI data centers. The Global X Uranium ETF (URA) has lost more than 20% over the past 12 months, compared with gains exceeding 40% for the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE). Investors have grown increasingly concerned about valuations, financing requirements and the long development timelines for companies that don’t yet generate any meaningful commercial revenues. The market has…
Mexico is dependent on oil and gas imports for two-thirds of its energy consumption, despite the fact that the country has abundant domestic fossil fuel resources. But instead of exploiting its own producing power to the greatest potential, Mexico relies on its neighbor to the north for the majority of its energy needs, leaving it in a vulnerable position. However, the answer to Mexico’s energy insecurity is not building up more domestic oil and gas production and refining capacity, according to a recent assessment from the International…
The United States is producing more crude oil than ever. According to the Energy Information Administration, U.S. crude production is on track to average a record 13.8 million barrels per day in 2026, surpassing the previous record set last year. Yet diesel prices recently climbed to record highs, while distillate inventories remain unusually low. The EIA expects those inventories to stay below the five-year range through much of 2027, with stocks falling below 100 million barrels for the first time in more than two decades. At first glance,…
This year’s global energy crisis has revived international interest in hydrogen’s potential to replace fossil fuels in a wide range of industrial applications, from steelmaking to shipping. Green hydrogen is still massively expensive to produce, reducing its potential for commercial scaling, while gray and blue hydrogen relies on the same fossil fuels that many global markets are trying to move away from. But scientific breakthroughs are piling up to expand the hydrogen rainbow in ways that could sidestep these pitfalls and potentially…
Electrification has become the focus of global climate talks as COP31 draws closer. We already have the technologies to transition away from direct consumption of fossil fuels and toward electricity in our vehicles, homes, businesses, and industry – it is now just a matter of scaling those technologies and doing it at an unprecedented pace, supported by strong policy measures from global leadership. The central pledge that will be on the table at the upcoming 31st annual United Nations climate conference, to be hosted in Türkiye…
The global energy landscape is undergoing a rapid transformation as the age of electrification takes hold and the runway growth of artificial intelligence introduces new challenges and possibilities for energy production and use, as well as the ways that our power grids operate. As a result, an increasingly complex nexus is emerging at the intersection of digitalisation, artificial intelligence and grid flexibility that could be make-or-break for the future of energy security. The issue is not that we don’t have the technology to keep up…
Singapore is in an energy pickle. The island nation is still reeling from high oil and gas prices driven by the war in Iran, and is scrambling to build up alternative and indigenous energy sources. The problem is that there’s almost nowhere to build it. As the second-most densely populated country in the world (after Monaco), Singapore has an enormous need for energy and problematically scarce land parcels on which to develop it. Because of these parameters, Singapore needs to look toward the most energy-dense energy production options, leading…
China this week announced it will suspend all fuel exports this month to keep its domestic market supplied. Also this week, President Donald Trump demanded that Germany and France release 120 million barrels of diesel from their storage or get hit with a U.S. diesel export ban. Europe is running out of options to stay well supplied with a critical fuel. Diesel is the fuel, on which any economy runs. While it may feature less commonly in passenger cars these days, diesel is the default fuel for heavy machinery, agriculture, and freight transport.…
The green hydrogen hype has all but stalled out – but could white hydrogen take its place as the next big thing in decarbonization? Geologic hydrogen, so-called ‘white’ hydrogen, could potentially bypass the most critical barriers to scaling hydrogen use without significantly expanding the sector’s carbon footprint. While the technology is still nascent, it could one day decarbonize some of the world’s hardest-to-abate industrial sectors. This form of hydrogen involves sourcing naturally occurring hydrogen found…
President Donald Trump said Friday that South Korea’s investment agreement with the United States now includes $8.4 billion for an enhanced oil recovery project. Seoul says it agreed to no such thing. “The Republic of Korea Deal keeps getting BETTER! 8.4 Billion Dollars for an enhanced Oil Recovery Project. Producing more Oil and Gas means American Energy Dominance and Energy Security in the World for the Future!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is used to squeeze more production from aging fields after…
Venezuela’s oil exports fell nearly 9% in September to 1.08 million barrels per day as soaring tanker costs forced traders to demand steeper discounts and delayed cargoes leaving the country. Global trading houses, including Vitol and Trafigura, pressed PDVSA for better terms as freight costs chew into margins, and tanker reroutings added to shipping delays that had already accumulated over the summer. The United States took more Venezuelan crude despite the overall decline. Shipments rose to 629,000 bpd from 553,000 bpd in August. India…
The United States Department of Energy (DoE) is offering up $215 million in funding to help domestic firms develop the world’s first reliable quantum computer. The race to unlock quantum computing has heated up as the next-gen technology has arisen as a potential solution to the Pandora's box of energy demand that the AI boom has opened. The DoE’s Quantum Genesis Q Competition is now accepting proposals on ideas for how to “deploy quantum computers with at least 100 logical qubits that are capable of performing hundreds…
The U.S. federal government has come up with an alternative to a diesel fuel export ban that could alleviate the price pain at the pump by boosting the availability of a tax-free sort of diesel. That’s according to unnamed sources quoted by Reuters this week. It is unclear if the idea is a replacement for the ban or will complement it, should a ban be approved. The fuel in question is red-dyed diesel, which is used in agriculture and construction, among other industries. Also called off-road diesel, the fuel is literally dyed red to distinguish…
The fuel trading market is expanding from an established group of specialized desks at oil majors, commodity trading houses, and refiners to AI-assisted trades. AI could either make the sometimes opaque fuel trading a level playing field for many new entrants or break the market by overcrowding it in some trades, as Reuters columnist Clyde Russell notes in a recent commentary. The AI boom and the race to offer and receive “actionable insights” in seconds are equally tempting for the developers of the technology, the commodity analytics…
The Trump Administration is touting the new oil order in Venezuela as a tremendous opportunity for reviving the industry in the world’s biggest crude oil resource holder. The U.S.-led restructuring of the sector kicked out Russian and Chinese companies out of previously awarded concessions, and spurred a flurry of oil deals with oil majors, the biggest oilfield service providers, and relatively unknown newcomers—all with the purpose of boosting Venezuela’s oil production and exporting a large part of it to the United States. The…
Global natural gas supply is likely to remain tighter than it should be until next summer at least, and it could cause prolonged demand destruction. Should this scenario materialize, it would deliver a severe blow to Europe, as it already struggles to cover its winter gas needs ahead of the official start of heating season—but Asia won’t be happy about it, either. The prediction comes from the International Gas Union, an industry association that covers 90% of the world’s gas producers. “The market right now is saying that…
Nigeria has ambitious energy plans for the coming decades, including expanding its oil industry and accelerating the development of its renewable energy sector. In recent years, Nigeria has begun to solidify its position as a major energy power in Africa. This led the International Energy Agency (IEA) Governing Board to decide in June to welcome Nigeria as an Association country. Nigeria joins South Africa, Kenya, and Senegal as an IEA Association country in sub-Saharan Africa. To solidify the agreement, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol…
The energy crisis caused by the United States and Israel’s war in Iran could be just what the world needed to achieve 35 percent electrification by 2035. This goal, “35 by ‘35” has emerged as a key platform of the upcoming COP31 United Nations climate conference, to be held in Antalya, Türkiye, from November 9 to 20, 2026. And experts say that a number of factors, including volatile oil and gas markets stemming from the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz, have put that goal within “striking distance.”…
China just broke ground on a revolutionary new hybridized energy production and storage facility. The power plant will store excess energy in the form of molten salt, and then produce electricity during peak demand times through a supercritical carbon dioxide system. The goal of the project is to limit energy waste while also stabilizing the local power grid. The project could also inform future next-gen energy and energy storage systems, including for application in the nuclear power sector and even on the moon. Construction of the Ruitan…
Emerging economies are going to see an explosion of energy demand over the coming decades. Countries like Brazil, India, Nigeria, and Indonesia are racing to expand their energy production and imports in order to keep up with rapid economic development. While the leaders of these and other emerging economies are making a concerted effort to expand their renewable energy capacity, meeting demand will require an all-of-the-above approach to energy that will extend the life of oil and gas, according to a new report from S&P Global. According to…
