OPEC+ yesterday agreed to yet another monthly boost in production, this time for a modest 137,000 barrels daily. Oil prices inched up, yet they remain tightly range-bound, with Brent at just over $65 per barrel following the news. On the one hand, this is good news for consumer countries—including the U.S. On the other hand, it’s bad news for producer countries—including, again, the U.S. The Wall Street Journal called Saudi Arabia’s strategy of leading the production cut unwinding a gift to President Trump. It would keep…

Back in January, a massive fire ripped through Vistra Corp’s (NYSE:VST) giant battery storage facility in Moss Landing in Northern California, leading to the evacuation of hundreds of people after toxic fumes polluted the air. While the cause of the fire is still under investigation, a key factor that has so far been identified is the failure of the fire suppression system, which allowed the fire to spread rapidly. The building that housed 300 megawatts of battery capacity was completed five years ago, around the time the U.S. utility scale…

The foundation stone for the re-entry of several major Western energy firms into Iraq was the US$27-billion four-pronged mega-project finally ratified by France’s TotalEnergies in 2023. The project was particularly aimed at addressing two critical issues that had dogged Iraq’s development for decades and whose resolution had been stymied by bureaucracy and corruption at senior levels across several governments in Baghdad, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. One of these crucial issues was dramatically…

Markets carried their momentum into the third quarter of 2025, even as political uncertainty and softer labor data kept investors cautious.  The S&P 500 advanced 7.8% in Q3, a solid showing that reflected both moderating inflation and rising expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts. For income and defensive investors, the period was constructive: dividend-paying sectors once again demonstrated resilience, while more cyclical industries delivered some of the strongest gains. Across sectors, the rotation toward cyclical and commodity-linked…

Oil markets are struggling to reconcile geopolitics with fundamentals as headlines push prices one way while physical signals pull in the other direction. The result is a market where Brent spreads and gasoil cracks appear strong on paper, even as North Sea grades compete for premiums and US crude arrives at a discount in Europe. Markets are operating on a split screen, with futures signalling at least some tightness still, while the physical market has been weakening markedly. The paper structure has solidified, still in backwardation.  Traders…

Bloomberg’s Javier Blas warned on Monday that the next oil glut will be harder and costlier to finance than any in recent memory, describing a “cartoonish” surplus forming as new barrels from Guyana, Brazil, the United States and the Middle East converge with slower demand growth and sharply higher borrowing costs. In a column for EnergyNow, Blas argues that the most dangerous element of the coming oversupply is not the scale of production but the price of money.  In previous downturns, cheap credit allowed traders to hold…

Bloomberg’s Javier Blas warned on Monday that the next oil glut will be harder and costlier to finance than any in recent memory, describing a “cartoonish” surplus forming as new barrels from Guyana, Brazil, the United States and the Middle East converge with slower demand growth and sharply higher borrowing costs. In a column for EnergyNow, Blas argues that the most dangerous element of the coming oversupply is not the scale of production but the price of money.  In previous downturns, cheap credit allowed traders to hold…

Sam Altman is the CEO of the most visible artificial intelligence (AI) organization on the planet, OpenAI, the purveyors of the popular ChatGPT AI interface. His job is to keep the investment dollars flowing into OpenAI, tens of billions of them. So, it's pretty important for Altman to keep investors interested and to promise them breakthroughs...and also, apparently, to reschedule those breakthroughs when they don't occur. Now, something that most people don't understand about OpenAI is that despite being recently valued at $500 billion, OpenAI…

In a new operational blow to Russia’s refining capacity, the Kirishi complex has reportedly shut down its CDU-6 crude distillation unit, the largest processing block at the plant, following damage from a Ukrainian drone strike.  According to Reuters, the refinery’s core capacity is now offline, though this has not been confirmed officially by Moscow.   The CDU-6 unit historically accounts for most of Kirishi’s processing output, and its halt means a significant drop in daily refined product volumes. Two industry…

The global copper market has had quite the year. On September 8, approximately 800,000 tons of wet material flooded multiple levels of the Grasberg Block Cave mine in Papua, Indonesia, leading to the suspension of all underground operations. It was just one more event to add to the list of copper mining and supply disruptions for 2025. According to reports, the wet material flood reached the level of the mine where a team of workers was conducting development activities, leading to two confirmed fatalities. Meanwhile, Freeport-McMoRan Inc. has…

Chart Industries shareholders have approved the company’s $13.6-billion all-cash sale to Baker Hughes, positioning the Houston-based energy technology giant at the center of the expanding markets for both LNG and industrial gases, Reuters reports. The vote, held Monday, follows regulatory filings confirming that Baker Hughes will pay $210 per share in cash, with closing targeted for mid-2026, pending antitrust clearance and other customary conditions, according to Reuters. The acquisition represents one of the largest energy-technology transactions…

Chart Industries shareholders have approved the company’s $13.6-billion all-cash sale to Baker Hughes, positioning the Houston-based energy technology giant at the center of the expanding markets for both LNG and industrial gases, Reuters reports. The vote, held Monday, follows regulatory filings confirming that Baker Hughes will pay $210 per share in cash, with closing targeted for mid-2026, pending antitrust clearance and other customary conditions, according to Reuters. The acquisition represents one of the largest energy-technology transactions…

U.S. natural gas futures surged 17.3% last week, the largest weekly gain since early May. Goldman Sachs analysts offered context for the rally, noting that the market narrative has shifted "from U.S. storage congestion fears to tightening 2026 supply." A team of Goldman analysts led by Samantha Dart, senior energy strategist, explained that the jump in NatGas prices last week to nearly $3.5/mmBtu was largely due to the roll into the November "winter" contract, which carries stronger heating demand and lower storage congestion risk.  $3.5/mmBtu…

Power prices in the top European economies, Germany and France, surged on Monday to the highest level since February amid expectations of an early-autumn cold snap and reduced renewable energy output. France’s month-ahead electricity price jumped by 4.1% to $89.13 (76.23 euros) per megawatt-hour (MWh) on Monday. The equivalent price in Germany rose by 3.6% to $116.69 (99.79 euros) per MWh, per data from EEX cited by Bloomberg. “German power prices have risen mainly due to fears about colder weather and lower-than-normal renewable generation,”…

A harsh winter awaits Kyrgyzstan. That was Kyrgyz Energy Minister Taalaibek Ibraev’s message to the country, as he recently revealed that the volume of water in the Toktogul Reservoir, which feeds many of the country’s hydroelectric plants, is at its lowest level for this time of year in more than a decade.  “With every year, we’re feeling the water shortage more and more acutely, and this trend is observed around the world,” the Ibraev said, adding that in mid-September, there were 10.8 cubic kilometers of water…

Iran claims a new natural gas discovery would add an estimated 10 trillion cubic feet to its gas reserves and could help offset an expected energy imbalance. Iran has discovered significant gas and oil reserves at the Pazan field in the southern part of the Fars province, Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said on Monday. “Exploration efforts in the Pazan field, in southern Fars Province and extending toward northern Bushehr, have led to this important discovery,” Shana, the news service of Iran’s oil ministry, quoted the minister…

Iran claims a new natural gas discovery would add an estimated 10 trillion cubic feet to its gas reserves and could help offset an expected energy imbalance. Iran has discovered significant gas and oil reserves at the Pazan field in the southern part of the Fars province, Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said on Monday. “Exploration efforts in the Pazan field, in southern Fars Province and extending toward northern Bushehr, have led to this important discovery,” Shana, the news service of Iran’s oil ministry, quoted the minister…

Iran claims a new natural gas discovery would add an estimated 10 trillion cubic feet to its gas reserves and could help offset an expected energy imbalance. Iran has discovered significant gas and oil reserves at the Pazan field in the southern part of the Fars province, Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said on Monday. “Exploration efforts in the Pazan field, in southern Fars Province and extending toward northern Bushehr, have led to this important discovery,” Shana, the news service of Iran’s oil ministry, quoted the minister…

Iran claims a new natural gas discovery would add an estimated 10 trillion cubic feet to its gas reserves and could help offset an expected energy imbalance. Iran has discovered significant gas and oil reserves at the Pazan field in the southern part of the Fars province, Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said on Monday. “Exploration efforts in the Pazan field, in southern Fars Province and extending toward northern Bushehr, have led to this important discovery,” Shana, the news service of Iran’s oil ministry, quoted the minister…

Iraq’s 11 November parliamentary elections could mark the key turning point in the country’s history since the ousting of former president Saddam Hussein in April 2003. The nationwide ballot of around 21 million registered voters will determine the occupants of its 329-seat Council of Representatives (the de facto parliament), which will then elect a president. He will subsequently nominate a prime minister, who in turn will have to be approved by an absolute majority of the Council. Each step of this process is likely to be complicated…