In a surprise development, the tiny South American nation of Guyana recently emerged as a major oil exporter. In a mere four years, the former British colony of one million went from first discovery to first oil. Guyana has cemented its place among South America’s leading oil producers, pumping nearly one million barrels per day, making it the continent’s third-largest oil producer. The rapid expansion of Guyana’s offshore oil industry will enhance energy security in the Americas at a crucial time, with heightened Middle East…

Commodity producing and trading giant Glencore expects to post a profit of $3.3 billion in its marketing division for the first half of the year, as extreme market volatility during the Iran war generated windfall earnings for the energy commodity traders. Glencore expects to report next week a strong half-year marketing adjusted earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of about $3.3 billion in its Marketing segment, which includes oil trading, the company said on Wednesday in its half-year production report. The trading giant didn't specify how…

Oil prices spiked in early Asian trade on Wednesday, erasing a significant portion of Tuesday's selloff on the back of renewed hostilities in the Middle East and a bullish U.S. inventory report from the API. At the time of writing, Brent crude had climbed to $87.95 per barrel, up 4.59%, while West Texas Intermediate was trading at $82.89, up 4.58%. Oil prices had been tumbling since the U.S. brought an end to 13 consecutive nights of attacks on Iran last Thursday, with both sides playing up hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough. Those hopes were significantly…

Just recently, in a span of about six weeks, one impressive company was selected by the U.S. Army to build and operate rare earth processing facilities on an American military base…the first time the Army has ever done this. That same company closed $100 million in institutional financing, giving it a war chest of roughly $130 million. It was also formally added to the Russell 3000 Index. And it locked in MOU’s for feedstock agreements covering billions of tonnes of rare earth-bearing material from sources across Wyoming, Appalachia…

Oil price movements since the start of March this year have become the topic of dozens of discussions. Many have been puzzled by futures prices and why they haven’t gone through the roof given the severe disruption in Middle Eastern supply. It appears the reason is sheer optimism and a bet on market adaptability. However, there is a problem with that. Adaptability has limits. Many commentators like to compare the current oil price—and supply—situation to 2022, when Russia’s incursion into eastern Ukraine prompted an actual…

Modern power grids require a constant, real-time balance between supply and consumption. Unfortunately, the integration of wind and solar energy makes power grids unstable due to the intermittent nature of renewable energy generation. To prevent localized grid blackouts or harmful voltage spikes, utilities are increasingly pairing renewables with battery storage and/or rapid-response natural gas plants to smooth out fluctuating supply. However, Finland has now come up with a rather eccentric method to store excess renewable energy and release it…

Oil prices have just come off a fresh two-month high as the crude oil market has tumbled this week amid signals of de-escalation in the U.S.-Iran conflict. Despite the slump in crude prices and the extreme volatility in the past five months, the refined product market continues to tighten with refining margins at record highs because the supply of petroleum products is much tighter than crude supply. Refining margins held at record highs even as crude oil prices soared last week to $100 per barrel. That’s because global gasoline, diesel,…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 3.296 million barrels in the week ending July 24. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories grew by 2.603 million barrels. Commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR have lost just over 54 million barrels over the last fifteen weeks, with US crude inventories down just 3 million for the year, according to API data, kept in check by draws from the SPR. For the week ending July 24, another 3.7 million barrels left the SPR, bringing the…