Continental Resources, the company founded by shale billionaire Harold Hamm, looks to expand in Vaca Muerta as international companies vie to develop Argentina’s proven prolific shale patch. Continental is set to bid in this year’s bid round for acreage in Vaca Muerta in the biggest auction in the basin in a decade, sources with knowledge of the plans have told Bloomberg. Bids will be opened on August 19. The province of Neuquén, where most of Vaca Muerta is located, has launched the biggest licensing round in the shale play…

China is winning the race for global clean energy dominance. Beijing has outspent every other country on Earth for years now, and controls critical global clean energy supply chains. Over the same time period, the United States has taken a major step back from clean energy objectives under the Trump administration, giving Beijing even more leverage. But while China’s ascension to global energy superpower status may seem like a foregone conclusion against this backdrop, the United States may have a unique opportunity to even the playing field…

Over 1,600 days into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 10-day special military operation and the situation for the Kremlin continues to deteriorate. Since Moscow ordered its troops illegally into Ukraine on 24 February 2022, more than 450,000 of them have been killed, with another 1 million wounded or missing. Ukraine’s extraordinary development of its own military -- including a stunning build-out of its drone capabilities -- now means Russian monthly casualties have reached the critical negative replacement rate -- meaning that there…

Russian crude processing fell to its lowest level in more than two decades in July after Ukraine expanded its drone campaign from refineries to tankers, pipelines and export infrastructure, according to The Moscow Times, citing Bloomberg analysis.  Russian refineries processed an estimated 3.6 million barrels per day in July, the lowest monthly level since May 2002 and roughly one-third below the seasonal average. Between 2020 and 2025, Russian refineries typically processed between 5.3 million and 5.6 million barrels per day during the same…

We are still in the early innings of the earnings season, with roughly a third of S&P 500 companies having returned their second quarter scorecards. And, it’s shaping up to be yet another bumper earnings season: according to FactSet data, 86% of those companies have exceeded Wall Street’s earnings projections while 80% have beaten revenue expectations. The Energy sector is reporting the highest earnings growth clip of all 11 market sectors at 128.2% Y/Y, well above the S&P 500 average at 37.9%, thanks in large part to higher…

Desperate to blunt the threat posed by Ukrainian drone attacks, the operator of Wildberries, Russia’s leading e-commerce platform, is looking to lease warehouse space in neighboring Kazakhstan. In response to a series of recent Ukrainian drone strikes across Russia that have destroyed at least 10 percent of Wildberries’ inventory, representatives of RMB Group, the e-commerce platform’s parent company, are scouring Kazakhstan and are “ready to occupy all available warehouse space in the country,” according…

President Donald Trump demanded that U.S. oil companies immediately lower gasoline prices on Monday after crude futures plunged following his decision to suspend another planned military strike on Iran. In a Truth Social post, Trump instructed producers to “get your consumer (retail!) Oil Prices DOWN, NOW!” Trump singled out Chevron CEO Mike Wirth after the executive appeared on television discussing the company’s business. Trump said Wirth failed to acknowledge the administration’s role in restoring Chevron’s position…

Oil prices fell sharply in early Asian trade on Monday after President Trump called off another round of military strikes on Iran, raising hopes that a diplomatic route to reopening the Strait of Hormuz and averting a broader regional conflict could be found. At the time of writing, West Texas Intermediate futures were trading at $79.77 per barrel, down 5.88%, while Brent futures had fallen to $83.47, down 5.07%. The most recent selloff comes after a very volatile July in which both benchmarks surged more than 20% as renewed hostilities between…

When Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, Saudi Arabia quickly redirected its oil flows to the Red Sea. Now, that route has become dangerous because of the Houthi blockade, so Saudi is rerouting to Egypt—and two LNG tankers in the Egyptian port of Damietta just got struck by drones. OPEC’s number-one is running out of options to reroute its oil exports. In early March, after Iran effectively paralyzed vessel traffic via the world’s biggest oil chokepoint, every Gulf state that could redirect export flows did so. In the case of…