Author: Stu

Continental Resources signed a memorandum of understanding with Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) on September 16 to operate and develop the Ayacucho 2 Block in Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt, marking the Oklahoma independent’s first move into the country and adding another U.S. operator to a rapidly expanding slate of post-sanctions oil deals.

The MOU is not a final development contract. Continental and PDVSA said they intend to convert it into a long-term Contrato de Participación Productiva (CPP) in the coming weeks. Once that agreement is signed, Continental would operate the block with a 100% working interest. The announcement was made in Houston during the G20 energy ministers […]

Russia Extends Diesel Export Ban Through October. The EU About to Get Hit by the Saudi Oil Crisis

Moscow is keeping diesel at home through the end of October. That decision lands on a European market that has already lost its old Russian supply line, is watching Saudi crude and product routes seize up, and is about to hear from the Bank of England on interest rates. The combination is not a single […]

Why Banning Diesel Exports Will Hurt the US Rather Than Help

Diesel prices in the United States have smashed through records, topping $6.31 a gallon nationally as of September 16, 2026. Truckers, farmers, and households feel it immediately. Heating oil, chemically similar to diesel, is following the same path. With midterms weeks away, the political pressure is intense. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he is […]

The EIA Snapshot: Crude Draws, Products Build, Distillate Still Tight

Commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR fell 640,000 barrels to 423.4 million barrels. That was a third consecutive weekly draw, but smaller than Wall Street expected. Analysts in a Wall Street Journal survey had looked for a 1.4 million-barrel decline. Commercial crude is now about 1% above the five-year average for this time of […]

Why Alaska Matters, Energy Independence, Critical Minerals, and National Security

Bernadette Wilson, Alaska Republican for Governor, stops by the Energy News Beat Podcast. Alaska is not a remote afterthought. It is one of the United States’ most strategically important resource bases for energy security, defense-critical minerals, and food supply. For two decades, its oil output declined as legacy North Slope fields matured and new projects […]

South Korea’s Hyosung Heavy Industries has locked in ₩386.5 billion (about $277–$287 million) in ultra-high-voltage transformer contracts with two unnamed U.S. Big Tech companies for new AI data centers—one in the South and one in the North.

The award is smaller than some of Hyosung’s earlier 2026 utility mega-deals, but it is strategically important: hyperscalers are now buying grid hardware directly, and Hyosung is one of the few firms that can deliver 765 kV equipment from a U.S. factory. The split is ₩220 billion of 765 kV transformers for the southern site […]

Russia is pushing more crude onto the water just as Saudi Arabia’s last reliable bypass around the Strait of Hormuz goes dark.

The question in Washington is whether President Trump will treat that extra Russian oil as a problem to sanction—or as barrels he can use to keep gasoline and diesel from becoming a midterm disaster. That is the market story of September 15, 2026. It is also a political story. Prices jumped because Saudi’s safety valve […]

Oil Executives Say the Fuel Crisis Is at Hand

American oil executives have spent months warning that a prolonged disruption of the Strait of Hormuz would eventually produce a fuel crisis rather than a simple crude shortage. They now say that moment has arrived. Commercial inventories of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel have been drawn down for more than six months. Strategic crude reserves […]

Aramco Refinery Fires via Satellite: Saudi Export Lifeline Under Strain After a Month of Attacks

NASA fire-detection satellites and open-source thermal data captured two intense fires at the Aramco complex in Yanbu on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, each radiating roughly 40 megawatts of heat—far above the 5–10 megawatts typical of a routine flare. The detections, highlighted in reporting shared by Chris Martenson quoting Mario Nawfal, come as Yanbu has […]

EPA poised to scrap power plant carbon standards: a reliability and energy-security reset as demand surges

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Administrator Lee Zeldin is expected to formally rescind the Biden-era carbon pollution standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants, completing a multi-year rollback of greenhouse-gas rules that the administration argues threatened grid reliability and raised costs. Reports indicate the announcement is timed for a G20 energy ministers meeting in Houston […]