U.S. oil companies dominating the shale patch are planning to trim their spending plans and instead take advantage of higher international oil prices to reduce debt and boost shareholder returns. This is bad news for production growth. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that all the big names in shale had reduced their spending over the first six months of the year. Chevron and ConocoPhillips spent 10% less in the period while Occidental slashed its spending on operations in the Permian by as much as a fifth over the first half of the year.…

The rise of automation, AI, and electric trucks can fundamentally change the freight transportation industry in the United States, leading to a revolution in transport fuel demand. Various vehicle and technology companies and U.S. cities and states have launched in recent years automation trucking pilot programs. In barge transportation on the Mississippi River, AI-assisted co-pilot projects are already being used to make transportation more efficient. The increase in efficiency, via technological, autonomous, or AI-enabled systems, could optimize…

The proposed Libya–Egypt crude oil pipeline has, surprisingly quickly, entered a phase in which Cairo and Tripoli are actively discussing it. The pipeline, expected to be 800 kilometers long, will connect Tobruk in eastern Libya to Egypt’s port of Alexandria, allowing Libyan crude to flow directly into Egypt's Mediterranean refining system. With an expected cost of over $1 billion, it represents a significant strategic opportunity. However, neither the final capacity, financing structure, nor investment decision has yet been agreed.…

Strategic shortfalls? Maybe in getting cobalt out of the Congo or rare earth powders from China or natural gas from Russia or oil from the Persian Gulf? Or maybe something closer to home. Thanks to climate change (yes, just say it and hope the big boss doesn’t hear you), temperatures have risen, and rainfall patterns have changed dramatically. As an example of the consequences, the Colorado River’s flow has diminished and Lake Mead, its principal reservoir, has dropped to record low water levels. Aside from the obvious impact on water…

Carbon capture is still debated as if technical performance were the decisive question. Can a solvent remove carbon dioxide from flue gas? Can the CO2 be compressed, transported and injected underground? Will the storage remain secure? These questions matter, but they no longer explain why most announced projects do not reach construction. The missing component is usually commercial. A cement plant can capture carbon and still lose money on every tonne. A storage site can be technically ready and remain empty without contracted volumes. A pipeline…

Russia has received its first gasoline cargo from India as Ukrainian attacks knock out refining capacity and a second wave of fuel shortages spreads across at least 10 Russian regions, Reuters reported on Monday. The roughly 68,000-metric-ton cargo was produced by Nayara Energy at its Vadinar refinery in western India and delivered to Russia’s Arctic port of Vitino after a ship-to-ship transfer at Port Said, Egypt. Two more gasoline cargoes from India are expected to reach Russia in the coming weeks. Russia’s gasoline shortages have…

Russia has received its first gasoline cargo from India as Ukrainian attacks knock out refining capacity and a second wave of fuel shortages spreads across at least 10 Russian regions, Reuters reported on Monday. The roughly 68,000-metric-ton cargo was produced by Nayara Energy at its Vadinar refinery in western India and delivered to Russia’s Arctic port of Vitino after a ship-to-ship transfer at Port Said, Egypt. Two more gasoline cargoes from India are expected to reach Russia in the coming weeks. Russia’s gasoline shortages have…

Russia has received its first gasoline cargo from India as Ukrainian attacks knock out refining capacity and a second wave of fuel shortages spreads across at least 10 Russian regions, Reuters reported on Monday. The roughly 68,000-metric-ton cargo was produced by Nayara Energy at its Vadinar refinery in western India and delivered to Russia’s Arctic port of Vitino after a ship-to-ship transfer at Port Said, Egypt. Two more gasoline cargoes from India are expected to reach Russia in the coming weeks. Russia’s gasoline shortages have…

Since early March, a previously obscure waterway between Iran and Oman that very few people could name has become the subject of daily reporting around the world after Iran closed it in response to the attack on Iran by the United States and Israel. The Strait of Hormuz, which remains closed to most ships, is now known around the world as the transit point for 20 percent of the world's oil and high percentages of key materials including fertilizers such as ammonia (23 percent), urea (34 percent) and phosphate (20 percent), helium (30 percent),…

Chevron has announced a new oil and gas condensate discovery offshore Angola, hitting more than 2,000 feet of hydrocarbons in a Block 0 exploration well that could be tied directly into the company’s existing production infrastructure in the country. The 105-4X well encountered more than 300 feet of net pay in the Pinda reservoir in the Lower Congo Basin, with Chevron describing the reservoir quality as “excellent” in a press release. The company has not yet disclosed an estimate of recoverable resources or potential production.…

U.S. importers hauled in more than 200,000 tonnes of refined copper in July, the biggest monthly volume in at least 12 years. Add that to what's already sitting in Comex warehouses, LME-registered stock and private port storage, and the country's copper stockpile is now pushing past 1 million tonnes, built almost entirely on the bet that Washington is about to tax refined imports. LME warehouse stocks, however, have fallen for 42 straight sessions, the longest losing streak since 2014, down to just 204,975 tonnes, with nearly half of that already…

Libya’s electricity grid suffered another major collapse on Monday, knocking power plants offline across western, central and southern parts of the country, shutting down the Great Man-Made River water system, fueling widespread public anger in a country already divided between rival power centers. The Zawiya, Khoms and Ubari power plants went offline, with large parts of western and central Libya losing electricity. The Libya Herald reported that it was the third major blackout to hit western Libya in two days. The cause of Monday’s…

Libya’s electricity grid suffered another major collapse on Monday, knocking power plants offline across western, central and southern parts of the country, shutting down the Great Man-Made River water system, fueling widespread public anger in a country already divided between rival power centers. The Zawiya, Khoms and Ubari power plants went offline, with large parts of western and central Libya losing electricity. The Libya Herald reported that it was the third major blackout to hit western Libya in two days. The cause of Monday’s…

Libya’s electricity grid suffered another major collapse on Monday, knocking power plants offline across western, central and southern parts of the country, shutting down the Great Man-Made River water system, fueling widespread public anger in a country already divided between rival power centers. The Zawiya, Khoms and Ubari power plants went offline, with large parts of western and central Libya losing electricity. The Libya Herald reported that it was the third major blackout to hit western Libya in two days. The cause of Monday’s…

When President Vladimir Putin sent his forces into Ukraine, the Kremlin appeared to be betting on a familiar axiom of European security: sheer Russian mass, backed by vast Soviet-era stockpiles and nuclear power, would overwhelm resistance. More than four years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion, that assumption has been all but obliterated. Ukraine survived, derailed Russia's expected quick victory, and turned the conflict into a high-tech war of attrition. It has developed an innovation cycle that Joshua Huminski, senior vice president for…

Grid constraints and rising coal-fired power generation in China led to soaring curtailment rates of solar and wind power generation in the first half of the year. China curtailed as much as 360 terawatt-hours (TWh) of solar and wind generation between January and June, up by 49% from a year earlier, a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) showed. All the clean electricity curtailed would have been enough to meet all of China's electricity demand growth in the first half of 2026 and allow…

Grid constraints and rising coal-fired power generation in China led to soaring curtailment rates of solar and wind power generation in the first half of the year. China curtailed as much as 360 terawatt-hours (TWh) of solar and wind generation between January and June, up by 49% from a year earlier, a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) showed. All the clean electricity curtailed would have been enough to meet all of China's electricity demand growth in the first half of 2026 and allow…

Grid constraints and rising coal-fired power generation in China led to soaring curtailment rates of solar and wind power generation in the first half of the year. China curtailed as much as 360 terawatt-hours (TWh) of solar and wind generation between January and June, up by 49% from a year earlier, a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) showed. All the clean electricity curtailed would have been enough to meet all of China's electricity demand growth in the first half of 2026 and allow…

Following the Washington-led removal of Venezuela’s previous president, Nicolás Maduro, from office on 3 January this year, U.S. firms are pushing hard to keep increasing oil production from the hydrocarbons giant, in line with President Donald Trump’s grand plans for the country within his new world order. The foundation for such output increases is extremely solid, as Venezuela still holds the world’s largest proven crude reserves -- roughly 303 billion barrels, or about 17% of the global total. Most of this is extra-heavy…

The project to ship Iraqi crude to the Syrian Mediterranean coast to bypass the Strait of Hormuz is still at least four years and $15 billion in investments away, sources familiar with the project told Reuters on Monday. The pipeline plan, supported by the U.S. Administration as a way to reduce the importance of the Strait of Hormuz in global oil supply, is being reviewed and its feasibility assessed by a consortium, which includes U.S. supermajor Chevron. The U.S. is touting the project as making Hormuz “irrelevant” within two years,…