The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has forced hundreds of commercial ships onto longer routes around Africa, and Somali pirates are moving quickly to exploit the sudden increase in traffic off the continent’s eastern coast. Oil tankers MT Honour 25, MT Eureka and MT Asana were hijacked in the Gulf of Aden and off Puntland between April and July 2026, the largest attacks by Somali pirates in years. The Iran war has now delivered these groups more targets, spread across thousands of miles of ocean, while diverting naval resources…

Big Tech companies are quietly moving farther and farther away from their decarbonization goals. Back in 2019, Amazon pledged to become carbon neutral by 2040, thereby setting a goalpost ten years ahead of the Paris climate agreement in a show of dedication to becoming a leader in decarbonization. The next year, in 2020, Google and Microsoft upped the ante when each pledged to become carbon-free by 2030. Now, just six years later, those companies are heading in the opposite direction, seeing their emissions balloon by double-digit increments thanks…

Only an exceptionally strong El Niño will meaningfully ease Europe's LNG needs this winter, and forecasters currently rate that outcome as a long shot. Rystad Energy's analysis indicates that European winter temperatures would need to be at least 2 degrees Celsius above the historical average before the region's LNG demand could fall to or below last winter's level. Current forecasts point to a strong El Niño event forming through the winter of 2026-2027, potentially the most intense since 2015, however a strong El Niño event…

Oracle’s proposed $165 billion data center project in New Mexico has run into a decidedly low-tech problem: the natural gas pipeline meant to help power it won’t be ready on time. Energy Transfer subsidiary Transwestern Pipeline pushed the expected in-service date for its Green Chile Project from August 15 to February 1, 2027, according to a regulatory filing Friday. That six-month delay threatens the schedule for Oracle’s Project Jupiter, a proposed data center development in Doña Ana County near the U.S.-Mexico border.…

Since returning to the White House in early 2025, President Donald Trump has consistently argued that the war in Ukraine should end through negotiations. He initially believed that direct engagement with Russian President Vladimir Putin could create conditions for a political settlement and that Moscow would ultimately be willing to compromise. Recent developments, however, indicate that Washington’s assessment of Putin has become noticeably less optimistic, and the US approach toward Ukraine may be evolving. According to The Wall Street…

The total number of active drilling rigs for oil and gas in the United States rose this week, according to new data that Baker Hughes published on Friday, with the total rig count in the US rising to 593, up 54 from this same time last year. The number of active oil rigs rose by 1, reaching 455 during the latest reporting period, according to the data. This is 43 above this same time last year. The number of gas rigs rose by 4 to 128, which is 6 more than this time last year. Miscellaneous rigs stayed at 10. The latest EIA data showed that weekly…

South Africa’s Constitutional Court has blocked Shell-led exploration along the country’s Wild Coast, adding another legal setback to an offshore sector already struggling to keep pace with neighboring Namibia. The country’s highest court on Friday overturned a 2024 Supreme Court of Appeal ruling that had preserved a pathway for Shell and Impact Africa to conduct seismic surveys off South Africa’s east coast under an exploration right granted in 2014. Local communities and environmental groups had challenged the plans partly…

Brent heads toward a 5% weekly gain as stalled US-Iran talks and Hormuz attacks push oil prices toward $100. Friday, August 14, 2026 Crude oil prices are set to post a 5% weekly gain after this week quashed hopes (for the umpteenth time) of a negotiated US-Iran settlement, with Tehran ratcheting up its strikes on ships attempting to transit the Strait of Hormuz, whilst the White House doubled down on its maritime blockade of Iranian crude. The unusually high, 17-million-barrel build in US crude inventories has offset a little part of the overall…