The nation’s largest power producer aims to add as much as 2,000 megawatts of data center capacity during the period to meet rising demand for AI and cloud-computing services, Chief Financial Officer Yupapin Wangviwat said during a video conference with investors on Thursday. The company and its partners currently operate facilities with a combined capacity of about 200 megawatts.

“We see AI and cloud computing as major growth opportunities for our company,” she said. “Our strong footprint and expertise in the power business give us a significant advantage as we expand into these areas.”

The company’s shares jumped as much as 5.8% to a record on Thursday, set to push their gain for the year above 61%.

The move reflects a growing race across Southeast Asia to build the computing power needed for AI. Technology companies are pouring billions of dollars into data centers as they seek more capacity for AI tools and online services, creating new opportunities for energy and infrastructure providers.

After consolidating his power and telecommunications businesses into Gulf Development last year, Sarath — whose net worth stands at $18.3 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index — has been steering the company into new areas including digital infrastructure, virtual banking and AI-related services as it looks for new sources of growth.

Gulf Development has been strengthening its presence in the sector through partnerships with companies including Microsoft Corp. and Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., as demand for computing capacity accelerates across the region. It also entered into an agreement early this year with Alphabet Inc.’s Google to jointly explore business opportunities. 

The Bangkok-based company expects to fund the expansion through operating cash flow, bond sales and bank borrowings, according to Yupapin. It is in talks with lenders for loans of between $400 million and $600 million, and plans to issue about 20 billion baht of bonds in September. Gulf Development is also considering its first foreign-currency debt sale.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged in March the EU will come up with a new instrument based on 400 million existing allowances in the Emissions Trading System to finance decarbonization projects. The commission plans to spread out sales of permits from the so-called ETS Investment Booster to prevent sudden price moves, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

EU climate and energy policies are at the top of the bloc’s political agenda as fallout from the Iran war compounds fears that the region is losing its competitive edge against China and the US. The commission is seeking to balance its ambitious emissions-reduction goals with concerns among some governments and heavy industry that carbon costs are inflating already high energy prices. 

Benchmark carbon contracts traded at around 79 euros per ton on Thursday. Brussels estimates that the cost of carbon accounts for around 11% of electricity prices on average, with countries relying on clean energy facing a smaller burden. Countries like Poland, where the share of carbon costs in the power bill is as high as 24%, have led the push for a new EU instrument to alleviate the financial strain of the energy transition.

The details of the new ETS-based instrument will be outlined when the EU unveils a review of its flagship cap-and-trade emissions program on July 15. The allowances in the booster will come from a reserve for new entrants in the ETS and from an existing buffer of free permits that can be handed to companies as support of low-carbon investments, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a confidential matter.

The commission was not immediately available for comment.

The new tool is set to become part of the EU Industrial Decarbonization Bank, a broader instrument that is expected to secure 100 billion euro in funding for the energy transition, according to the people. 

Once unveiled by the commission, the ETS review will be discussed by the European Parliament and member states in the EU Council. Each of the institutions has the right to propose amendments in a legislative process that typically takes as long as two years. 

One option under consideration by the commission is to propose fast-tracking a part of the reform to bring forward permit sales under the booster, helping to accelerate the industrial shift to cleaner energy.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Brent traded around $97 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate was near $96 after rising almost 10% over the first three sessions of the week. The agreement hinges on “a complete cessation” of fire from Iran-backed Hezbollah, according to a joint statement from Israel, Lebanon and the US.

Washington and Tehran have sketched out a framework to extend their truce by two months and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but negotiations are stalling and sporadic fighting has resumed. Iran warned it could target sites inside Israel if attacks on Beirut continue, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency, which cited the country’s foreign minister. He also said little tangible progress has been made in the talks.

Oil prices have recovered from last week’s decline as renewed clashes damped hopes for a sustained ceasefire and a reopening of the key shipping route. At the same time, global supply buffers are shrinking. US figures on Wednesday showed crude inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma — the delivery hub for WTI — fell for a sixth straight week, nearing minimum operating levels.

Even if an Israel-Lebanon ceasefire caps some near-term price gains, risks remain elevated while the strait stays effectively closed. Brent could climb as high as $130 a barrel in the fourth quarter as inventories tighten, said Robert Rennie, head of commodity research at Westpac Banking Corp.

“The market is asleep at the wheel, even as we drive rapidly toward aggressive tightening in crude and product markets,” Rennie said.

President Donald Trump said the Strait of Hormuz would reopen “immediately” if Iran signs a memorandum of understanding to halt hostilities, adding that some areas in the waterway would need to be cleared of mines. He downplayed the threat those pose to commercial shipping.

The strait remains the market’s central focus. Roughly a fifth of global crude supply typically passed through the chokepoint prior to the war, and its near-closure has pushed energy prices higher, raising concerns about a spike in inflation and slowdown in economic growth.

The conflict in the Middle East has pushed observable oil-product inventories below a five-year average, and crude prices could “skew higher” as US-Iran talks falter, Citigroup Inc. analysts including Eric Lee said in a note.

Separately, the Republican-led House voted to halt the US war with Iran, underscoring growing concern within Trump’s party months ahead of midterm elections. The measure is unlikely to immediately affect military operations, as the Senate would still have to pass the resolution, and provisions in the 1973 War Powers Act that the House invoked are legally controversial anyway.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Not merely from traders or geopolitical commentators, but from multilateral agencies, trading houses, and global institutions whose job is to understand physical markets and economic risk.

Last week, the heads of the International Energy Agency, International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organization issued an unusually stark joint warning following a high-level coordination meeting. Global oil inventories, they said, are being drawn down at a rapid pace in response to the supply shock triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. If shipping flows fail to normalise, continued depletion ahead of peak northern hemisphere summer demand would pose rising risks to fuel security, market conditions, and broader economic resilience, they said.

The IEA this week sharpened that message further. Toril Bosoni, head of its oil markets division, warned that commercial inventories could fall towards critical or historic lows if current draws continue. Even under a best-case diplomatic scenario, she cautioned, reopening Hormuz and restoring normal flows could take six to eight months. Emergency stock releases are merely a temporary stopgap and cannot resolve supply losses of this scale, Bosoni said, implying that any lasting adjustment would ultimately have to come from the demand side.

The private sector is sounding similar alarms.

Tom Baker, Vitol’s managing director for Bahrain, warned that the market may be underpricing the risks from the Iran war and Hormuz disruption. Crude supply may eventually recover, he argued, but refined products could remain structurally tight for the rest of the year. His most telling observation may have been that the real stress point arrives when buyers need physical barrels and “the physical molecules just aren’t there to buy.”

Goldman Sachs has shifted the spotlight to refined products, warning of a potential diesel squeeze in the US by August as refiners tilt yields towards jet fuel during the summer travel season. Even if crude balances stabilise, product markets may not.

Global inventories are approaching “unheard of” lows, ExxonMobil Senior Vice President Neil Chapman warned recently. Once inventories approach operational minimums, crude could spike towards $150-160/barrel, he said.

The common thread is difficult to ignore. This is no longer merely a story about lost supply. It is a story about shrinking buffers and a market running down its last line of defence.

Commercial as well as strategic reserves are being depleted at pace. Product balances are tightening. Yet futures markets continue to swing between alarm and complacency, still highly responsive to each round of “deal imminent” rhetoric emerging from Washington and Tehran.

Yet the louder the warnings grow, the more puzzling the muted policy response becomes.

Who exactly are these warnings directed towards?

Market participants, certainly. Refiners, importers, shipping companies, and industrial consumers need to hear them and adjust procurement strategies, supply chains, and contingency plans accordingly. For many, the menu of workable options is already narrowing, and the cost of waiting is rising.

Traders, too, should pay attention. Whether they will is another matter. The current crisis has curiously seen markets remain attached to narratives even though fundamentals are moving in another direction. At least one major trading house now openly argues that oil is underpriced relative to the physical risks confronting the market.

But perhaps the real audience is governments — especially those in net oil-importing countries.

And if so, why does the response still appear muted?

One possibility is denial — a head-in-the-sand syndrome born of disbelief that the global economy could genuinely be facing a supply shock of this magnitude and duration.

Another is miscalculation. Policymakers may believe strategic and commercial inventories can cushion the blow for longer than they actually can. That assumption deserves scrutiny. The current crisis has already crossed the threshold where running down inventories at an unprecedented pace looks less like a strategy and more like a desperate gamble.

A third possibility is that governments are allowing themselves to be guided by Washington’s persistent messaging that diplomacy is progressing and a deal is around the corner. Markets have repeatedly reacted to assertions that peace may break out any day and the Strait of Hormuz could soon reopen.

But even if such a deal materialises, there appears to be a dangerous leap in logic — namely, assuming that reopening Hormuz automatically means a rapid return to normal oil flows.

It does not.

Shipping patterns, insurance, security clearances, damaged infrastructure, and physical confidence take time to rebuild. Even Bosoni’s six-to-eight-month timeline for flows to normalise after the Strait reopens could prove optimistic. While a preliminary US-Iran deal would likely reopen Hormuz and launch talks on the more sensitive nuclear issues, that process could prove fraught and leave the recovery in Gulf flows vulnerable to renewed hostilities and interruptions if diplomacy falters.

Then there is politics.

Governments know the uncomfortable reality staring them in the face: if supply remains impaired and inventories keep falling, the only meaningful balancing mechanism left may be higher end-user prices and lower consumption.

That is rarely an attractive political proposition.

Asking citizens and industries to conserve fuel, curb discretionary travel or absorb higher energy costs is politically painful. Leaders understandably prefer to wait for better options to emerge.

But waiting could backfire.

The world is in uncharted waters. A supply disruption of roughly 15 million barrels per day — and one lasting months rather than days — has no precedent in living memory.

Yet the absence of a playbook is a poor excuse for failing to plan.

If Hormuz remains shut for weeks longer, governments and markets alike may have to confront an increasingly unavoidable truth. Demand will have to contract to match lost supply.

The only remaining question is whether that adjustment happens through deliberate and realistic planning and transparent policy, or through panic, shortages, and price spikes forcing the outcome anyway.

The EU’s revised Energy Efficiency Directive and minimum energy efficiency standards for data centres are in line with the bloc’s 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% compared to 1990, it said in a statement. The European Commission said it would develop minimum ⁠performance standards for both new and existing data centres, with a “needs assessment” ​due by 2027, Reuters reported.

The EU is ​also working on ⁠a sustainability label for data centres, covering criteria including water use and clean energy supply, which large facilities would have to make public, it said. Officials told Reuters the Commission ​is ⁠still debating issues including how to assess data centres powered by nuclear energy.

The new EU rules imply strengthening incentives for data centres to improve energy efficiency and sustainability, and improving transparency and comparability by building on the reporting and rating framework under the Energy Efficiency Directive so that performance standards can be defined and enforced consistently across EU countries, the Commission said.

“If not ​tackled at EU level now, these challenges could grow considerably and become harder to ‌solve in ⁠the coming years, as the energy consumption of the sector is expected to increase further,” the Commission said.

The move comes amid projections that EU data centre capacity will more than double to reach 28 gigawatts by 2030 from 12 GW ​in 2025. That expansion will lift their share of EU electricity consumption ​beyond the current 2.5%, according to Reuters.

“Energy efficiency is a central pillar of the EU’s energy and climate framework, as well as being a key policy for delivering energy savings, improving affordability, and strengthening the competitiveness and resilience of the European economy on its path to climate neutrality,” the Commission said in a statement.

Data centres are expected to drive 20% of the growth in electricity demand in advanced economies by 2030, according to the International Energy ​Agency.

The Commission said it is also developing a post-2030 energy efficiency framework to help shape EU energy efficiency rules for the decade ahead, which is scheduled for publication later this year.

According to Reuters, the plans are part of a broader ⁠EU tech ​package aimed at boosting domestic cloud and ​AI capacity and reducing reliance on Big Tech. Other measures include using generative AI to speed up permitting for new energy projects ​and funding AI tools to help manage Europe's power grid.

Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), said the licensing round will begin after the completion of this year’s commercial bid process. 

Eyesan added that Nigeria is already seeing a rise in oil investments as production increases. 

Licensing rounds are key to bringing new exploration and developments to the market, and Nigeria is keen to lure fresh investments and restore investor confidence following years of regulatory uncertainty. 

“So, we are in the process of finalising the 2026 launch, which will happen latest by the third quarter,” Eyesan said, adding that this is the “make or break point and we want to make sure we make it.”

An attempt at transparency 

Last year, Nigeria introduced consequential amendments to its Petroleum Industry Act, which aim to reduce bureaucratic delays and accelerate investments across the oil and gas chain. 

If the amended bill passes, the formal authority of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector would transfer to NUPRC and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), changing hands from NNPC Limited. 

This means that regulatory requirements are now “integrated operations” where oversight will be coordinated for shared upstream-midstream operations. 

Approvals for contracts, financing, and dispute resolutions could become more efficient, experts have said. For oil and gas companies operating in the region, this could mean faster approval cycles, more predictable schedules, and fewer contract bottlenecks. 

This also means better cooperation between regulators, which could translate into fewer and more efficient steps for oil and gas companies. 

Following the proposed 2025 amendments, Nigeria has also reduced costs associated with licensing rounds and opened them up to independent authorities to increase transparency. 

Investors prepared for changes

Canada’s Meren Energy, which has invested heavily in Nigerian oil, has welcomed the licensing round. The company’s Group CEO, Dr Oliver Quinn, said that Nigeria's new reforms have “inspired the company to increase its investments” in the West African state.

“We have operated in Agbami, Akpo, and Egina world-class fields. I think till date, in 20 years, about $11b in capital from our side has gone into these assets, and about $4b has gone to tax and royalties,” he added. 

Nigeria’s commercial bid will conclude ahead of the commencement of NOG Energy Week. 

Taking place from 5-9 July at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre in Abuja, the exhibition and conference will highlight the importance of Nigeria’s upstream performance as fundamental to national energy security, while looking at ways to drive investment to increase energy production. 

Strategic panel sessions will aim to answer key questions about this year's licensing round. They will examine the role of the 2026 bids in unlocking new capital, how they will accelerate exploration, how the new policies and regulations can strengthen investments, and how market conditions can enhance investor confidence. 

Bilateral discussions with Modi “will involve the full spectrum of India-Venezuela relations and explore avenues for further cooperation in the areas of energy, trade, investment, pharmaceuticals and health care,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on Tuesday.

Rodríguez’s June 3-7 visit coincides with India’s renewed effort to broaden its sources of crude after the Iran conflict blocked the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which almost 40% of the country’s oil supplies flowed before the war. The nation imports about 90% of the crude it consumes.

India received a parcel of Venezuelan oil in April after a yearlong hiatus as Washington eased sanctions on the OPEC producer. 

The shipments climbed to about 283,000 barrels a day in April, the highest since March 2020, according to data compiled by Kpler. The data analytics firm estimates June arrivals could increase to about 380,000 barrels a day in a sign of Venezuela’s growing importance in India’s energy mix.

Reliance Industries Ltd. has been among the largest buyers of Venezuelan crude after it signed a term agreement in 2012 to source as much as 400,000 barrels a day from Petroleos de Venezuela SA. The billionaire Mukesh Ambani-controlled company is among the few Indian refiners capable of processing the South American country’s heavy, sulfur-rich crude. 

“Venezuela has the potential to become a longer-term supplier to India, particularly as refiners seek cost-competitive alternatives to Middle Eastern grades,” Sumit Ritolia, modeling and refining manager at Kpler said. “However, Venezuelan production remains relatively constrained and is unlikely to materially alter India’s overall import requirements.”

Exports of Venezuelan crude oil eased in May, marking the first slowdown in growth since the ouster of strongman Nicolas Maduro, as oil prices swung amid volatility triggered by the Iran war. A massive infusion of cash is needed to nurse oil production back to peak levels from 50 years ago, after decades of mismanagement and a dearth of new investments.

State-run ONGC Videsh Ltd. is seeking to expand its presence in Venezuela. The overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corp. holds stakes in the San Cristobal field and the Carabobo-1 block. ONCG Chairman Arun Kumar Singh said last month the company expects to receive a license under Venezuela’s new regime and is hopeful of increasing production from the assets.

For Caracas, deeper engagement with one of the world’s fastest-growing oil consumers offers an opportunity to rebuild its economy after years of isolation.

This will be Rodríguez’s sixth visit to India and her first since becoming acting president after the US captured and ousted Maduro in January. She will be accompanied by several cabinet ministers, including those in charge of foreign affairs, economy and finance, science and technology, communications, and transportation, Jaiswal said.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

European, US and domestic developers including Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Cox Energy, BlackRock Inc. and Grupo Mexico have signed deals totaling about $4 billion in recent weeks to expand the nation’s power output and fortify the grid. Billionaire Carlos Slim is exploring a foray into battery storage. And Mexican infrastructure investment manager MIP Real Assets is seeking to invest more than $12 billion for projects involving renewable energy and highways.

In the 20 months since Sheinbaum’s swearing in, the pace of promised electricity investment has already eclipsed the total under predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s six years in office, according to the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness. It’s the first sector to attract significant capital in Mexico’s broader struggle to revamp its infrastructure.

While the pledged investments fall well short of the $56 billion that Sheinbaum says Mexico needs for the grid, they mark a clear shift from the years under AMLO when the flow of capital into the sector all but evaporated. Nonetheless, it remains far from certain the nation can attract the money it needs with laws in place requiring the government to retain majority control of energy assets.

“It’s been a roller coast ride for the last seven years in the energy space, and now, the biggest change has been an openness and receptiveness toward the private sector,” said Carlos Barrera, chief executive officer at Atlas Renewable Energy in Miami. “We’ve gone from cautious, to cautiously optimistic, to cautiously bullish on Mexico.”

One of Mexico’s key impediments to attracting private power-sector investments is a law requiring state-owned Comision Federal de Electricidad, or CFE, to maintain at least 54% ownership of the nation’s electric plants. It’s shaping up to be a point of contention in negotiations to extend the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. 

“The main concern that’s been expressed in preliminary trade talks is that Mexico is giving CFE favor in electricity dispatch,” said Jose Maria Lujambio, a partner at Cacheaux, Cavazos & Newton in Austin, Texas.

Sheinbaum is trying to entice investment in Mexico’s blackout-prone electricity sector with $23.4 billion in government spending on transmission and generation projects. For every dollar of state funds, the president’s plan foresees almost $1.40 in additional investment from the private sector.

The Western Hemisphere’s fourth-largest economy operates on an electrical grid that isn’t keeping up with booming demand. The manufacturing, automotive and tech industries are in expansion mode in Mexico, lured by cheaper labor costs and proximity to the US market. 

Electricity consumption is forecast to grow around 3% per year on average across the country, according to Mexico’s energy ministry. Even so, in some places, like the tech hub of Queretaro, that figure will be closer to 6%, according to Mauricio Reyes Caracheo, director of that state’s energy agency.

As it stands now, the Mexican grid is prone to seasonal blackouts, especially along the sweltering Gulf Coast and in the northern desert. The system has less than half the backup capacity as neighboring Texas.

Almost a century of strict state control of the energy sector discouraged international investment, leaving responsibility for power generation and transmission in the hands of sclerotic bureaucratic institutions.

Although that structure remains largely intact, the dam began to break in April when the government published new regulations outlining how private electricity generators can sell power. The rules are part and parcel of Sheinbaum’s broader energy reforms aimed at boosting private participation while preserving the prerogatives of state-owned Comision Federal de Electricidad.

CFE is planning more than 100 power generation projects and 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) of new power lines, according to the energy ministry. Those public projects, along with private investment and joint ventures to be tendered later this year, could add nearly 30 gigawatts of capacity to Mexico’s roughly 100 GW grid by 2030, according to BloombergNEF.

The government has already received more than 70 proposals for public-private ventures since January, and approvals for many of the projects are expected within months, Energy Minister Luz Elena Gonzalez said at a May event.

“We are monitoring the strategic plan for the electricity sector on a daily and weekly basis to ensure that investments are carried out according to schedule,” Gonzalez said.

That sense of urgency is different from the previous administration’s lackadaisical approach, according to Daniel Bustos, chief executive of midstream company Esentia Energy Development. 

“They respect the deadlines, and that changes everything,” Bustos said in an interview. “Consistency is what private companies look for.”

Other challenges remain. Mexico is heavily dependent on US natural gas, which currently fuels about 60% of the grid, a dependency Sheinbaum is trying to change. Meanwhile, sluggish growth in the broader economy, strained fiscal accounts, and a heavily indebted Pemex sparked a May credit ratings downgrade from Moody’s Ratings.

For Oscar Ocampo, an analyst at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, those challenges make Sheinbaum’s goals and deadlines extremely ambitious.

“Whether they reach that goal or not, they’re very clear about the need for private investment,” Ocampo said. “They’re awakening investors’ appetites and that’s very important.”

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The British, Dutch and German consortium announced plans on Tuesday to expand its enrichment facility in Eunice, New Mexico. Urenco aims to have its plant update operational in six years, helping address concerns of possible fuel shortages at US nuclear sites amid a ban on Russian uranium.

“This expansion reinforces our commitment to a resilient US nuclear fuel supply chain focused on meeting the long-term needs of our customers as well as supporting US energy security,” Chief Executive Officer Boris Schucht said in Tuesday’s statement.

Urenco’s expansion plans come as the Trump administration pushes to quadruple output from US nuclear plants, which will require a leap in uranium fuel production to meet that challenge. The US has been racing to provide huge amounts of electricity for AI data centers, with nuclear power emerging as one of the big winners.

Still, the Energy Information Administration said last September that owners and operators of US reactors face possible uranium shortages over the next decade. While Russia dominates the global market for the nuclear fuel — the nation supplied around a fifth of US demand two years ago — the US banned imports of Russian uranium in 2024, though there are allowances for limited waivers until 2028.

Urenco’s investment will fund the expansion of its New Mexico facility, with the first of 24 sets of centrifuges used to enrich uranium expected to be operational from 2032. The firm said the expansion will add 2.1 million separative work units of new enrichment capacity to the facility. The plant already has an existing annual capacity of 4.3 million SWU, which is roughly a third of current US demand.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Just two inbound commercial transits were observed on Tuesday morning, following two outbound ships on Monday, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. 

Shipowners had recently become more optimistic about a pickup in traffic with guidance from the US, and Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency on Tuesday said 24 vessels transited the waterway over the past 24 hours after obtaining permission from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The figure is difficult to confirm independently because electronic interference and tracking gaps suggest the total may bundle smaller coastal craft with large commercial ships.

President Donald Trump is still hopeful the US can reach an interim peace deal with Iran soon, after the Islamic Republic threatened to suspend talks because of Israel’s escalating attacks in Lebanon. Officials in Tehran are discussing their “final text” to send to the US, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported, citing a person close to the negotiating team. The report reiterated that the country’s negotiators were wary of the US, saying it had breached previous pledges.

An Iranian fuel carrier and a Chinese oil products tanker entered the Gulf on Tuesday, after an Iranian liquefied petroleum gas carrier and a Turkish bulker exited the waterway on Monday.

Regional shipping patterns remain disrupted by the US blockade of Iranian vessels in the Gulf of Oman. On Monday, American military officials reported that a total of 121 commercial ships have been rerouted.

Persistent AIS interference continues to obscure vessel movements, with transit counts likely to be revised as ships reappear beyond high-risk waters.

The US naval presence may also be distorting the observations. Iran-linked vessels entering or leaving the Gulf could be switching off AIS signals to avoid detection, making it harder to track flows in real time.

Even before the US barred movement to and from Iranian ports, it was common for Iran-linked vessels to “go dark” when approaching Hormuz. Signals were often not restored until well into the Strait of Malacca — around 13 days’ sailing from Iran’s Kharg Island.

NOTES: 

Because vessels can move without transmitting their location until they’re well away from Hormuz, automated positioning signals were compiled over a large area covering the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea to detect those that may have departed or entered the Persian Gulf.

When potential transits are identified, signal histories are examined to determine whether the movement appears genuine or is the result of spoofing — where electronic interference can falsify the apparent position of a ship. 

Some transits may not have been detected if vessels’ transponders haven’t been switched back on. Iran-linked oil tankers often steam from the Gulf without broadcasting signals until they reach the Strait of Malacca about 10 days after passing Fujairah in the UAE. Other ships may be adopting similar tactics and won’t show up on tracking screens for many days.

This tracker will be published during heightened tensions involving Iran, and aims to capture traffic for all classes of commercial shipping.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

“Rationally, our deployment should not be a community issue,” Chief Executive Officer KR Sridhar said in an interview with Bloomberg News in San Francisco. “It’s a business opportunity right now because nobody else is community friendly.”

Bloom’s shares have risen by more than 200% since the start of the year on the back of investor enthusiasm over demand for its technology to power data centers. Its fuel cells generate electricity from natural gas through a chemical reaction, rather than burning the fuel. The company says they require little water and generate less air pollution and noise compared to gas turbines.

Sridhar views those as key advantages making the systems popular with data center developers facing increasing hostility from local residents over their negative environmental and economic impact. 

“The national backlash is very real. You’re seeing local communities come and push back a lot,” Sridhar said. “Which of us wants a power plant in our backyard?”

He pointed to two recent deals with companies that are opting for Bloom equipment, in part because of the environmental advantages.

One of San Jose, California-based Bloom’s largest projects is in New Mexico, where it’s supplying 2.5 gigawatts of capacity to power an Oracle Corp. data center. 

Initially, Oracle planned to power the campus — dubbed Project Jupiter — with more traditional gas turbines from Siemens Energy AG. The project met intense protests from locals largely concerned about environmental impacts, and the software company announced in April that it would power the site with Bloom systems.

Dutch-owned AI cloud provider Nebius Group NV. also opted to swap plans for gas turbines for Bloom’s technology, Sridhar said. Nebius said in May it had selected Bloom due to its fast delivery time and “clean, virtually non-polluting technology.”

Bloom has spent time in New Mexico recently, Sridhar said, meeting with locals and explaining its technology. And he said some people have been won over, including a local newspaper that had initially opposed the Oracle project.

Still, not everyone can be convinced. “Nothing is NIMBY-proof,” he said, “because NIMBY-ism is not rational.”

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Brent for August delivery traded below $95 a barrel after adding 4.2% in the previous session, while West Texas Intermediate was near $92. Prices surged Monday on a report that Tehran was halting talks with Washington in protest against Israel’s attacks in Lebanon, before paring gains after President Donald Trump said negotiations were continuing. 

The US leader said a memorandum of understanding with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could happen over the next week, according to a telephone conversation he had with ABC News. Washington still had “to get a few more points” before a deal, he said.

The lack of clarity over the potential extension of the current ceasefire — and the future of flows through the Strait of Hormuz — has buffeted oil prices, which fell last month on optimism a deal could be reached. The report by Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency also said that Tehran and its regional proxies have placed on their agenda the complete closure of Hormuz, as well as the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea — a crucial alternative for oil exports.

“As long as flows through Hormuz have not fully normalized and the US–Iran negotiation process remains uncertain, oil prices are likely to stay elevated and volatile,” said Linh Tran, a market analyst at XS.com in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Adding to the confusion, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered differing accounts of a call about the fighting in Lebanon. A US-brokered ceasefire between Tel Aviv and Iran-backed Hezbollah should be extended from Beirut to include the entirety of Lebanese territories, with more negotiations taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Lebanese presidency said in a post.

The primary focus for oil market remains the vital Strait of Hormuz, which handled about one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas in peacetime. Visible commercial traffic through the waterway remains constrained as the renewed strains in US-Iran diplomacy add to shipping uncertainty.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

LNG deliveries to China rose to 4.9 million tons in May, marginally higher than a year ago, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s a stark reversal from the year-on-year contractions seen in previous months. April’s imports fell to the lowest level in eight years as higher prices triggered by the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz weighed on demand.

The Iran war has choked shipments from the Gulf, which typically accounts for a third of China’s supply. The drop in LNG deliveries from Qatar has been offset by an increase from exporters including Canada, Malaysia, Oman and Russia, according to vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. 

Declining gas inventories and the prospect of a hot summer this year have also compelled companies to buy more from the spot market, according to traders. State-owned Cnooc Ltd. last month bought several cargoes for June delivery while second-tier firm Zhejiang Energy International Ltd. purchased a cargo for July.

China’s increased appetite could tighten global supply as competition between Europe and Asia heats up for spare cargoes ahead of winter restocking requirements. Europe is so far lagging, with its 30-day moving average for deliveries down 13% year-over-year, according to the ship-tracking data.

China’s imports have remained soft over the past year as buyers have shied away from expensive LNG to rely on cheaper pipeline gas, as well as other substitutes such as coal and renewables. Still, a surge in domestic prices over the past months has pushing importers to look at importing more of the super-chilled fuel. 

On the Wire

China’s yuan has strengthened to its highest level in nearly four years versus a basket of trading-partner currencies, underscoring the appeal of Chinese assets as a regional haven during the Iran conflict.

The recent Shanxi coal mine gas blast, which killed 82 workers, could become a catalyst for a broader consolidation push in China’s coal industry, said Bloomberg Intelligence.

Kazakhstan said the first phase of a new $15 billion Chinese-built aluminum complex will start up in 2028, expanding domestic processing of the country’s vast mineral resources.

BYD Co.’s total vehicle sales rose for the first time in nine months in May, buoyed by strong international demand as high oil prices spur the switch to electric cars.

This Week’s Diary

(All times Beijing)

Tuesday, June 2

• SNEC PV+ conference in Shanghai, day 1

Wednesday, June 3

• RatingDog’s China services & composite PMIs for May, 09:45
• SNEC PV+ conference in Shanghai, day 2
  • Solar, battery & hydrogen exhibitions, day 1
• CCTD’s weekly online briefing on coal markets, 15:00

Thursday, June 4

• SNEC PV+ conference in Shanghai, day 3
  • Solar, battery & hydrogen exhibitions, day 2

Friday, June 5

• China’s weekly iron ore port stockpiles
• SHFE’s weekly commodities inventory, ~15:30
• SNEC PV+ solar, battery & hydrogen exhibitions in Shanghai, day 3

Saturday, June 6

• Nothing major scheduled

Sunday, June 7

• China’s foreign reserves for May, including gold

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The decision, which will have little impact on international fuel markets, comes after drone strikes on refineries pushed Russia’s crude-processing rate to the lowest in more than 16 years. In an effort to curb the flow of petrodollars into the Kremlin’s coffers, Ukraine has targeted a wide range of energy assets including sea ports and pipelines. 

“The goal of the decision is to ensure a stable situation in the domestic fuel market,” the government said on its website.

Russia isn’t a major player on the world’s jet fuel market. Last year, it exported an average of 30,000 barrels a day, or less than 2% of the global supplies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from analytics firm Vortexa Ltd. Daily average exports slipped to 28,000 barrels in the first four months of 2026, with Turkey being the main buyer, the data show. 

Russia is entering its summer vacation season, when demand for fuels typically rises. The Energy Ministry had already reimposed a ban on most gasoline exports from April 1, keeping more fuel for the domestic market. 

Rising prices at the pump can be a concern for the authorities, with costly gasoline triggering protests in the past, most recently in 2018. 

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

In an exclusive interaction on the sidelines of AVEVA World in Milan, Caspar Herzberg spoke to Energy Connects on what this “race to resilience” means for the future of industrial policy. Challenging the conventional wisdom that sustainability and heavy industrial resilience are at odds, Herzberg highlights how the push for diversified, redundant energy grids is driving sustainable outcomes. From the challenges of rapid localisation to the high-stakes deployment of digital twins and industrial AI, he outlines a realistic vision for the future of the world’s most complex energy infrastructure.

You have spoken extensively about the “race to resilience”. With nations treating energy security as synonymous with national security, what does this mean for global industrial policies? Do you believe this will drive localisation, globalisation, or a mix of both?

It will definitely spark more localised investments. We are going to see companies and governments investing in everything they can – from generation plants to processing plants, and generally moving toward multiples of industrial assets.

A clear hypothesis is emerging, and we’ve already observed it in the United States as a matter of policy. However, we’ve also seen the inherent challenges of rapid localization – specifically, that the necessary skills and human capital are often missing because capabilities have regressed over time. There simply aren’t always the people around locally to build these complex types of plants right away.

While there is a lot of talk about globalisation being rolled back, the world has been highly globalised before – such as before the First World War – and while it rolled back then, it was never totally dismantled. Because of modern data connectivity, global migration, and how interconnected we are, I don’t believe we will truly see a completely disconnected world.

Instead, resilience is going to be the defining imperative. But to execute resilience properly, it means implementing significantly more sustainability than we have had in the past.

That is an interesting connection. Usually, sustainability and heavy industrial resilience are viewed as being at odds. How do they align?

They align because everyone is going to invest into multiple, diversified sources of energy to prepare for the moment they are cut off from one. Look at what happened to Germany: they relied heavily on Russian gas, made a massive effort to pivot to Qatari gas, and now they must make another huge effort to truly diversify beyond gas toward every possible option. Even nuclear energy is now being considered as part of a broader European approach for Germany. Previously disregarded capabilities are making a major comeback.

We’ve seen this clearly in China. China is a much more sustainable place today than it was 10 or 15 years ago. That change didn’t happen because they focused purely on sustainability for its own sake; it happened because they wanted to be resilient. When you build highly diversified, redundant, and self-sufficient energy systems to achieve resilience, sustainability improves as a natural byproduct.

Furthermore, from a supply chain perspective, these hyper-thin, hyper-optimised global supply chains have always worried me. If you have all your eggs in one basket very far away, you are exposed. Doubling down on redundant local capabilities is simply good business and good grid resilience.

How do digital twins and artificial intelligence figure into this race for industrial resilience? Which sectors see the most critical need?

When we talk about a digital twin, we are talking about a digital representation of a physical asset. That can span from a 3D physical representation to a process-driven twin fueled by real-time operational data.

In a volatile world, you cannot afford to work in an environment where an unexpected shortage leaves you scrambling. This is where the digital twin and the ability to collaborate in the cloud become revolutionary. By utilising AI on top of a digital twin design, companies can significantly reduce engineering and design times, push that twin out, and collaborate seamlessly across the supply chain to build assets in fractions of historical timeframes.

We are seeing a doubling down on redundant capabilities across the board – whether in refineries, ports, shipping, pipelines, or nuclear power stations. Instead of seeing fewer complex plants in the future, we are actually seeing a lot more complex plants being commissioned to secure supply cushions.

Regarding AI, there is nothing inevitable about the way it will develop. We are all subjected to a relentless marketing machine from technology companies, but the reality is that the industrial sector is figuring out what works and what doesn't. In a process industry like refining, an AI model that works 99.5% of the time is not good enough; a refinery or a nuclear plant running on that margin would be forced to close.

Our mission at AVEVA is to safely mobilise industrial data. It’s about combining operational technology (OT) data with broader business data, planning systems, and supply chains into a unified view so that companies can deploy best-in-class AI analytics tools securely.

At the same time, disruption is evolving from physical to cyber-physical. Energy infrastructure is now a contested domain where digital intrusion, misinformation, and automated attacks intersect with kinetic risks. Energy security is thus less about reserves, contracts, or infrastructure and more about detection speed, system intelligence, and real-time response capacity. 

AI is therefore arguably shifting from an optimisation tool to a foundational layer of energy security, emerging as a general-purpose technology comparable in systemic importance to electricity. In an environment of continuous disruption, energy security is increasingly determined by AI.

This implication is structural: energy systems are no longer exposed to sequential failures, but to coordinated, multi-layer attacks.

AI is therefore arguably shifting from an optimisation tool to a foundational layer of energy security, emerging as a general-purpose technology comparable in systemic importance to electricity. In an environment of continuous disruption, energy security is increasingly determined by AI. 

Chokepoints and global spillovers: the Strait of Hormuz

A small number of physical chokepoints continue to anchor global energy stability, and none is more consequential than the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly 25% of seaborne global oil trade transits this narrow corridor, alongside significant volumes of LNG and other strategic commodities. This geographical concentration creates a structural vulnerability that becomes acute under geopolitical stress.

Recent tensions in the Middle East show how even limited disruptions to shipping trigger immediate global repercussions. European gas markets react almost instantly through Dutch TTF pricing, while Asian importers, particularly Japan, South Korea, and China, face rising LNG spot prices and shipping premiums. These effects are not gradual but rapid system-wide responses, reflecting tightly coupled energy markets.

The scale of risk is well established. The 2019 attacks on Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq facility removed around 5.7 million barrels per day (mbd) or nearly 5% of global supply, driving a nearly 20% price spike in a single trading session, one of the largest intraday increases in modern energy markets. The lesson is not only about the costs of energy system exposure, but also about limited system adaptability. This gap between disruption and response is where AI is beginning to play a critical role.

The cyber-physical threat: hybrid warfare and infrastructure targeting

Energy infrastructure is increasingly targeted across multiple vectors simultaneously, including cyber intrusions into operational technology systems, AI-enabled phishing, and physical sabotage of pipelines, terminals, and grid assets.

This shift is measurable. Cyberattacks on energy utilities have tripled over the past four years, partly driven by AI that has increased the scale and precision of attacks. This trend has exposed the vulnerability of industrial control systems, with Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) networks and sensor data susceptible to manipulation through false telemetry injection or compromised operator interfaces.

Recent incidents and threat assessments show growing exposure to concurrent disruptions across digital and physical layers. The expanding digitalisation of energy infrastructure has widened the attack surface, increasing risks to both IT and operational systems. Institutions such as the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology warn that adversaries can alter control processes and mislead monitoring systems through data manipulation, while the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity warns that phishing and social engineering are the primary entry point risks. This implication is structural: energy systems are no longer exposed to sequential failures, but to coordinated, multi-layer attacks.

AI as the shield for predictive resilience

Traditional models of energy security are inherently reactive, focused on restoring the system after disruption. AI shifts this paradigm toward predictive resilience, enabling early detection of anomalies in grid behaviour, market signals and cyber intrusions before they escalate into system-wide failures.

Machine learning models trained on historical operational data can identify deviations in load balancing and system performance within milliseconds, reducing response times that previously took hours. Evidence from grid operators shows that AI can reduce outage durations by 30-50% while also improving utilisation of existing grid infrastructure. This marks a structural shift from failure response to failure prevention, where AI is no longer an efficiency layer but a core mechanism of risk containment.

Agentic AI and real-time threat neutralisation

The emergence of agentic AI marks the next phase in energy system resilience. Unlike conventional systems that depend on human intervention, agentic AI operates autonomously within predefined constraints, enabling real-time detection, decision-making, and response. In operational terms, this allows systems to isolate compromised grid nodes, reroute electricity or gas flows, and pre-emptively shut down vulnerable components before cascading failures occur. Evidence from simulated grid environments suggests that AI-enabled control and rerouting significantly improve fault containment by accelerating detection and response time, reducing the propagation of local disturbances. This shifts energy infrastructure toward a dynamic, self-adaptive operating system in which stabilisation and recovery are automated. In the context of hybrid warfare, such autonomy is critical as resilience is no longer just a recovery function but an embedded system capability that continuously adapts as threats unfold.

Digital twins: simulating disruption before it happens

Digital twins are emerging as a central component of energy system resilience. By replicating physical infrastructure in real time, they allow operators to simulate and analyse disruption scenarios before they occur, using continuously updated operational data from assets such as refineries, pipelines, LNG terminals, and electricity grids.

Companies such as Shell and Equinor have already deployed digital twins at the asset level, achieving measurable gains in efficiency and reductions in unplanned downtime. At the system scale, they enable scenario modelling for infrastructure loss, cyberattacks, and geopolitically driven supply disruptions.

In the context of market instability, this allows European and Asian operators to simulate LNG rerouting, stress-test supply shocks, and adjust operational strategies in advance. The result is a shift from reactive crisis management to anticipatory system design, where disruption is modelled and mitigated before it materialises.

Decentralisation: reducing systemic vulnerability

Conventional energy systems are highly centralised, relying on large-scale generation and long transmission networks. While efficient, this structure concentrates risk in critical nodes, where disruptions can cascade across entire systems.

AI is enabling a shift toward decentralised energy systems built on distributed energy resources, smart microgrids, and local balancing systems. These reduce dependence on single points of failure and enhance overall system resilience. AI thus functions as the orchestration layer, continuously balancing supply and demand, optimising storage, and managing load flows in real time. The result is a structural transition from rigid, hierarchical systems to adaptive networks better able to absorb both physical and geopolitical shocks.

Technology as a stabiliser of energy markets

Beyond infrastructure, AI is becoming a stabilising force in energy markets. As global systems grow more complex and volatile, accurate forecasting and logistics optimisation are more critical than ever. AI-driven predictive analytics are now used to anticipate demand shifts, optimise LNG shipping routes, and improve price signalling across interconnected markets.

During periods of volatility, these tools reduce forecasting errors and improve decision-making for utilities and industrial consumers. This enhances planning certainty and lowers price volatility, hedging costs, and exposure across supply chains. In a world where geopolitical shocks transmit rapidly through markets, data-driven stabilisation becomes a core pillar of energy security.

Resource AI: maximising existing supply

AI is also reshaping supply dynamics by improving the utilisation of existing energy assets. Rather than focusing solely on capacity expansion, it enhances efficiency via predictive maintenance, drilling optimisation, and reservoir modelling, increasing output while reducing downtime. At scale, these incremental gains translate into significant supply-side improvements, particularly in constrained markets. Platforms such as ADNOC’s ENERGYai — an agentic AI solution to improve decision making and operational efficiency — exemplify this approach by integrating demand forecasting with upstream optimisation to maximise asset performance and resource utilisation.

Case study: building the energy– AI nexus

The integration of AI across energy systems is already visible at the national level. In the UAE, ADNOC’s Energyai project has deployed AI across predictive maintenance, demand modelling, and digital twin applications in its refining operations, leading to efficiency improvements, reduced downtime, and enhanced responsiveness to market volatility.

Similar trends are emerging across Europe, particularly in systems with higher shares of variable renewables. Grid operators in Germany and the Nordic region are increasingly using AI-driven forecasting and optimisation tools to manage intermittency and maintain system stability.

AI, energy demand, and a new geopolitical layer

AI is not only securing energy systems but also reshaping them. The rapid expansion of AI-driven data centres is creating a major new source of electricity demand, rising from around 415 TWh in 2024 to nearly 945 TWh by 2030 — just under 3% of global electricity use. Growth is driven by AI workloads, with specialised servers expanding at around 30% annually, though efficiency gains in hardware and cooling are helping to contain overall demand. According to the International Energy Agency, electricity demand from data centres grew at 17% globally in 2025. In the United States, data centres accounted for around 50% of total electricity demand growth.

This introduces a new geopolitical dimension to energy security. Countries able to provide reliable, scalable, low-cost electricity will gain a strategic advantage in deploying AI. Energy security is increasingly tied to digital competitiveness, blurring the line between the energy and technology sectors, making them not just complementary but interdependent.

Risks and limitations of AI in energy systems

Another critical factor to consider for the long-term outlook on the AI-energy nexus is that integrating of AI introduces risks that extend beyond operational performance into system design and governance. As AI becomes embedded in real-time grid control and forecasting, it expands the cyber-physical vulnerabilities, exposing energy systems not only to conventional cyber intrusion but also to manipulation of data inputs, training processes, and model outputs, with cascading effects on dispatch accuracy and grid stability. These risks are amplified in renewable systems, where volatility requires rapid automated responses.

AI performance is also constrained by uneven data quality, limited interoperability, and fragmented legacy infrastructure, which can embed bias and reduce predictive accuracy. The use of opaque “black-box” models raises governance and accountability concerns in safety-critical grid operations where decisions must remain understandable and traceable.

In addition, AI infrastructure itself is resource-intensive and requires significant electricity and water for data centres, exacerbating competition for resources. With these numbers set to grow further in the coming years, one of the most critical challenges for the energy sector is balancing the power demand growth with AI’s pivotal role in securing the future of energy in an age of disruption.

Conclusion: AI as the new energy resource

The current instability in the Middle East reflects structural shift in the global energy landscape rather than an isolated disruption. Physical chokepoints remain exposed, infrastructure is increasingly targeted, and market responses are both immediate and amplified by interconnected systems – where speed, scale and the complexity of disruption are the defining factors. 

With the critical ability to enable predictive action, autonomous system management, and real-time asset optimisation, AI and digitalisation can therefore alter how energy systems manage risks and pave the way for a more robust energy future. AI is no longer a tool for efficiency, but a system-level capability in a world where energy security is no longer defined solely by access to resources but by the capacity to process information, anticipate shocks and respond dynamically. In this framework, AI becomes a core strategic asset, functionally analogous to an energy resource in its ability to sustain system stability under conditions of persistent disruption 

• This Market Outlook report was produced as a part of ADIPEC’s Energy & Geopolitics series. For more information and coverage, visit: https://www.adipec.com/press-media/insights/

According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Investment 2026 report, the current supply shock — linked to disruption of flows through the Strait of Hormuz — has heightened concerns over energy security and the reliability of trade routes, prompting a rethink of investment priorities.

The scale of the disruption is significant. “We are in the midst of the largest energy security crisis the world has ever faced,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. The supply shock “is expected to leave a lasting imprint on future investment priorities.”

Capital reallocated

How investment is allocated shows a clear trend toward reinvestment. Rather than expanding supply, more funds are now directed to projects that strengthen energy systems, such as grid upgrades, alternative transport routes, and domestic energy sources.

The IEA notes growing efforts to diversify supply chains and fuel types, with investments in renewables, nuclear, and fossil fuels where needed to ensure reliability.

Despite the disruption, overall capital flows into the energy system remain resilient, reaching new highs: global energy investment is projected to reach $3.4 trillion in 2026, with around $2.2 trillion allocated to electricity systems, including grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, nuclear, and renewables. 

Meanwhile, around $1.2 trillion is set to be invested in oil, natural gas, and coal, underlining the continued role of hydrocarbons in the global energy mix.

Within fossil fuels, investment trends are also changing. 

Oil spending is set to decline for a third consecutive year falling below $500 billion despite higher prices, while natural gas investment is rising — $330 billion projected — driven by a new wave of LNG projects aimed at strengthening supply flexibility.

Across the whole system, electricity is becoming the main focus for new investment. More money is being invested in power infrastructure to support electrification, improve networks, and connect different energy sources, reflecting the growing importance of secure, reliable electricity systems in an increasingly complex energy landscape.

Diversification and resilience

The IEA said countries are responding to the current crisis by intensifying efforts to diversify trade routes and energy sources.

Its findings point to a shift toward projects designed to reduce exposure to geopolitical risks and strengthen energy security throughout the system.

The bloc adopted a dynamic mechanism last year to ensure that the price cap is automatically set every six months at 15% lower than the average market rate for Russian Urals crude. The current price threshold is $44.10 per barrel and is due for review later this summer.

Under the cap, European firms are banned from providing services such as insurance and transportation involving oil sold above the threshold.

Oil prices have soared as a result of the Iran war and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The next price cap review in July would likely see the level rise to at least $65, higher than the previous $60 threshold set collectively by the Group of Seven, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. 

The freeze would keep the price cap at the current rate, thereby limiting the windfall Russia is pocketing from current high oil prices. Other options under consideration include suspending dynamic and automatic increases until the end of the year in light of the exceptional circumstances in the Middle East, or capping any rise to $60 back in line with the G7 level, the people said.

The move would be part of the EU’s latest sanctions package, the bloc’s 21st since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The EU aims to finalize and formally propose a package of new measures in early June. Member-state envoys were briefed on the plans last week. 

Other measures under discussion for the new sanctions package include targeting more banks, oil traders, refineries and crypto operators in third countries used by Moscow to circumvent the bloc’s restrictions. As well, about 20 additional tankers would be sanctioned in the covert fleet of vessels that Russia depends on to move its oil, and eventually that regime would be extended to ships carrying liquefied natural gas, limiting the Kremlin’s ability to create a shadow fleet for LNG.

The EU has so far sanctioned hundreds of vessels and intends to also target ships providing services to the tankers, the people said.

However, the new sanctions are unlikely to include a full ban on maritime services. Several member states continue to oppose that option due to the volatility in the Middle East, and unless the measure is backed by the wider G7.

The main goals of the new package, the people said, are to further tighten the screws on Russia’s energy revenues and its financial sector, as well as starving its military industry of essential supplies. Sanctions require the backing of all member states before they’re adopted, and plans could change before that. Maritime nations such as Greece have often bristled at price-cap changes, while other capitals are particularly sensitive toward what they say are their energy and trade interests.

Other proposals for the next package include trade restrictions on some critical minerals, metals and ores used in Russia’s aerospace sector and to develop the drones it uses to bomb Ukraine’s cities, as well as technologies such as jamming.

The bloc is also considering export controls on about two dozen firms, including companies in China, India, Turkey and Central Asia, that are allegedly still supplying Russia with restricted goods found in weapons or needed to make them.

The EU is also in the early stages of assessing ways to help the clearing house Euroclear Ltd. after a Moscow court judgment allowed for the Central Bank of Russia to potentially seize its assets. That came after the EU approved the use of emergency powers to indefinitely extend a freeze on as much as €210 billion ($245 billion) in Russian central bank assets immobilized. Most of those funds are held through Euroclear.

The EU intends to keep the assets immobilized until the war ends and Russia pays reparations to Ukraine. Several member states, including Belgium, have opposed all efforts to seize the assets outright.

Discussions on introducing a visa ban on former combatants are continuing as well, the people said.

Spokespeople for the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm that coordinates the EU’s sanctions efforts, declined to comment. 

(Updates to reflect EU declined to comment in final paragraph.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

He took the task to heart. Employees say Manifold was immediately demanding, delving into the nitty gritty across the company and putting staff on the spot, at times unpleasantly so. He clashed with Chief Executive Officer Murray Auchincloss, and then was involved in removing him. But the blunt Dubliner also won the backing of one of BP’s biggest investors and most influential critics: activist Elliott Investment Management.

Just months later, the former building-materials boss is out, fired after the company abruptly issued a statement referring to “governance standards, oversight and conduct” — but left investors and analysts guessing about what exactly he’d done. 

People close to BP have offered a range of different reasons for the exit and broader tensions, alleging that it received multiple complaints against him of bullying and aggressive behavior; that he used a personal device for sensitive company information; and that he sought to control the relationship with Elliott while alienating other investors. 

Manifold quickly hit back, issuing a 773-word statement attacking what he said were “lies” being spread about him, defending his efforts to cut costs, and making implied jabs about the spending habits of his fellow directors. A representative provided further detailed comments for this story, reiterating that he was never told about any complaints about his conduct before he was removed, saying he encouraged and facilitated meetings with Elliott for colleagues, and that the use of an external email address was a company-sanctioned workaround to technology malfunctions at BP. 

The sudden firing of a non-executive chairman, followed by Manifold’s very public and spirited rebuttal, has transfixed the London business community as a rare example of ugly boardroom acrimony spilling out into the open at one of Britain’s most-storied companies.

“It’s hard to think of a situation like this; precedents are quite scarce,” said Larry Cunningham, the head of the Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. “I don’t think they owe us a detailed explanation, but it does leave us all to put the dots together.” 

As the details trickle out, the turmoil risks becoming a badly-timed distraction for BP’s leadership just as the company was finally finding its feet after a long period of underperformance. Faced with pressure from one of the world’s most aggressive and successful activist investors, it has been cutting costs, selling assets to reduce a huge debt pile and refocus the business back on oil and gas after a failed pivot to renewables. 

The psychodrama raises questions about the functioning of the board, which has presided over a revolving door of leaders, and received a black eye from shareholders just last month when investors rejected two resolutions at its AGM and penalized Manifold in a protest vote. The result came as a shock to the company, people familiar with the matter said. 

Manifold’s departure has also put the spotlight on two powerful women as BP seeks to reassure investors the turnaround will remain on track: lead independent director Amanda Blanc, a City of London stalwart who runs UK insurer Aviva Plc, is known for her uncompromising style, and was responsible for hiring him last year; and Meg O’Neill, the new CEO handpicked by Manifold himself, who has been in the role for barely two months.

This story is based on conversations with nearly two dozen people familiar with the matter, most of whom asked not to be identified discussing private information. 

“As we have made clear our former chair was removed as a result of unacceptable conduct,” BP said in response to questions. “We have a duty of care to protect all our employees and as such we will never comment on specific people or situations.”

A spokesperson for Manifold said: “Albert was never told — not once, not informally, not by HR, not by the senior independent director, not by any board member — that any complaint had been made about his conduct before he was removed. He had no opportunity to respond because nothing was ever put to him.”

Scandals and Missteps

Manifold’s dramatic departure caps a prolonged leadership upheaval for the company that once rivaled Exxon Mobil Corp. at the turn of the century for the title of the world’s largest publicly traded oil company. 

Today, BP is less than a fifth of the size of its American rival. The company has spent years struggling to emerge from a series of scandals, crises and missteps — most recently the failed strategy to refocus on green energy led by then-CEO Bernard Looney, who was forced to resign in 2023 after failing to fully disclose past relationships with colleagues. 

When Manifold was named as chairman last July, the company was floundering. Looney’s successor Auchincloss and then outgoing chairman Helge Lund had struggled to convince investors even after unveiling a new strategy to refocus on oil and gas. Elliott, Paul Singer’s activist hedge fund, had built a roughly 5% stake in the company and was pushing for faster changes to reverse years of underperformance.

In 11 years as CEO of Irish building materials firm CRH Plc, Manifold oversaw a more than fourfold increase in the company’s shares. People who knew him at the time described him as brash and hard-charging, with one person saying that at times he kept such long hours that some other executives were exhausted keeping up with him. 

A top-five investor in the company at the time described him as a straight talker, but said he was one of the best CEOs he’s worked with. Manifold’s drive was crucial to CRH’s rapid growth, said Claus Bering, a senior adviser for CRH in the Nordic region who worked closely with him. 

“A lot of people find him very demanding, very direct, very precise,” Bering said. “But he was never disrespectful. Some people could call him a bit brutal, a bit demanding, but I’m a Dane. I like it a lot.”

The recruitment process for the new chairman was overseen by Blanc, and run by executive search firm Egon Zehnder, which declined to comment. In the months running up to the appointment, better known UK business figures including former BHP Group Chairman Ken Mackenzie were touted as potential chairs for the 117-year-old BP, but the company eventually turned instead to the lower-profile former executive whose only non-executive director experience was on the boards of LyondellBasell Industries NV and Irish engineering firm Mercury.

Blanc herself has pulled off an impressive turnaround at Aviva since taking over as CEO in 2020. She exited non-core markets, made select acquisitions including a £3.6 billion deal for car insurer Direct Line, and managed to appease Cevian Capital AB, Europe’s largest activist firm. She is from a working-class background — both of her grandfathers were coal miners in Wales — and people who know her well describe her as an efficient and demanding executive.  

When Manifold started in October, he threw himself into a review of BP’s business. He was so engaged in the details that some employees joked about him being an executive chairman. The company’s culture and priorities immediately changed, some people said, particularly with an aggressive push away from renewables and green investments. His demanding and abrasive approach took its toll on staff, some employees said. 

“The board is responsible for setting the strategic vision of the company as set out by the management team,” Manifold’s spokesperson said. “In order to understand the business in depth, a chair must spend time sitting with the company looking at all parts of the business in detail.” They denied that Manifold personally criticized individual employees. 

Manifold hit it off with representatives from Elliott, who were supportive of the direction he was taking the company, people familiar with the matter said previously. The hedge fund has yet to lay out its position in the wake of Manifold’s exit. Elliott didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

But he had confrontations with then-CEO Auchincloss — a BP insider who succeeded Looney — before abruptly removing him and appointing O’Neill as the company’s first external boss and the first female CEO in Big Oil. The former head of Australia’s Woodside Energy Group Ltd., O’Neill is an Exxon alumnus who is known for her no-nonsense approach. 

Auchincloss didn’t respond to requests for comment about his relationship with the former chairman.

BP did not comment on whether the board held conversations to clarify their respective roles, given Manifold’s hands-on approach. But O’Neill told people close to her at the time that she and Manifold were aligned, including on the need for difficult decisions around personnel and the structure of the business, one of the people said. 

By the time she took up her post on April 1, BP was showing signs of stabilizing — the balance sheet was finally being addressed, share buybacks were suspended in February to free up cash and low-returning asset disposals were advancing to help pay down debt. Plus there was a new tailwind: profits were rising on the back of elevated oil prices due to the Iran war. Its shares have outperformed BP’s American rivals at times in 2026. 

O’Neill and Manifold regularly attended meetings with investors and advisors together, and one person who attended said there were no signs of animosity between them. By mid-April, two of BP’s biggest investors told Bloomberg they were supportive of the leadership team, with one noting that Manifold’s capital allocation expertise would complement O’Neill’s operational strength. Speaking this week, one top-40 investor who meets with BP regularly described the combination of Manifold, O’Neill and Elliott as a dream trio for other shareholders. 

And O’Neill quickly made her presence felt, announcing that the company would restructure along more traditional lines, in a move that continues the reversal of changes made under Looney. 

But there were also signs of trouble brewing. 

BP angered a number of investors by refusing to include a resolution from activist climate investor group Follow This in its AGM materials, claiming that it didn’t meet the legal requirements — a position the group disputed. A number of other investors criticized the company and proxy adviser Glass Lewis recommended shareholders vote against Manifold’s election at the meeting because of the concerns raised over transparency and corporate governance. 

The company received a significant protest vote at the meeting — two of its own proposals that would have allowed fully virtual annual meetings and revoked previously approved climate related disclosure obligations were rejected. Just under 82% of shareholders voted in favor of Manifold’s election — a clear rebuke as directors typically receive approvals close to 100%.

BP was surprised by the results of the vote, and Manifold appeared angry with the outcome, some people said. Tensions in the board appeared to increase after the AGM, they said. Manifold’s representative denied this. 

People close to BP described a recent clash between Manifold and company secretary Ben Mathews, who is currently on leave. They didn’t specify what the confrontation was about, but the company secretary’s role includes advising the board on process and corporate governance as part of its deliberation and decision making. 

A spokesperson for Manifold said: “Mr Manifold did not clash with Ben Mathews. They spoke almost every day, worked closely together and had a strong professional relationship. Mr Mathews publicly expressed his support of Mr Manifold in his role on a number of occasions, including to third parties in recent weeks.”

A person who worked in a previous role with Mathews described him as highly competent and a consummate professional, who made sure there were no surprises at board meetings, and was able to deal with big egos. 

In meetings with shareholders this week, Blanc and interim Chairman Ian Tyler said that the company received a serious complaint about Manifold’s behavior last week, which triggered the process that resulted in his removal, but gave little other detail, one investor said. They said they knew going in that Manifold was brash and hard-nosed but that the situation had gone too far. 

On Tuesday, the board decided unanimously to remove Manifold, the company said in its statement. Director Ian Tyler was named interim chair and the company will start a process to find a permanent replacement. 

Manifold has hired law firm Mishcon de Reya, a person close to him said. The spokesperson said on Saturday that he hasn’t made any decisions about legal action. 

The risk now is that the public spat becomes a distraction for BP’s leadership as it seeks to turn around the troubled company. 

Bloomberg spoke with five of BP’s top 40 investors this week, who almost uniformly said they were focused on the company’s strategy and execution. Most said they didn’t expect that would change as a result of Manifold’s exit, although at least one expressed concern about whether his loss would leave a hole. 

“We like Meg O’Neill,” said Brian Kersmanc, a portfolio manager at GQG Partners, which says it holds over 290 million shares in BP. “Her focus is on cost cutting and restructuring initiatives regardless of changes at the chairman level.”

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

At least two shipowners, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive information, said they were in touch with American military forces, which advised them on how best to navigate the waterway. A spokesperson for the US Central Command said US military assets aren’t escorting ships, but the command continues to provide advice to commercial vessels in the region.

One person with knowledge of a transit said a group of vessels was approached by suspected Iranian fast boats during the journey. The boats were turned away by helicopters that suddenly appeared nearby, allowing the person’s vessel to continue away from Hormuz, they said.

Chevron Corp. Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth told Bloomberg TV on Friday that some vessels transiting Hormuz have recently come under attack. On the same day, the US affirmed that deals with Iran to safely sail through the Strait of Hormuz — even those which don’t involve paying a toll — are prohibited.

Some of the ships that have crossed belong to companies that hadn’t transited Hormuz since the war began, according to several people involved in shipping markets. Two people said some ships were entering the Persian Gulf as well as leaving. 

If sustained, the increase in transits could signal that more shipping companies are willing to make the journey, boosting the flow of everything from oil and gas to consumer goods. Until now, transits had largely been limited to vessels operating under bilateral government arrangements or owned by the small group of more-daring shipping executives willing to accept the risks of sailing through Hormuz. 

Regional countries, including the state oil company of the United Arab Emirates, have also sent ships through, while Qatar is quietly exporting liquefied natural gas to key buyers. 

Some of the vessels that crossed in recent days did so with their satellite transponders switched off and have yet to turn them back on. It’s a sign that conventional vessel-tracking methods may understate how many vessels are making the voyage. 

Ship-tracking data show that at least a quarter of the non-Iranian ships stranded in Hormuz since the conflict began have made their way out.

The White House has repeatedly sent conflicting messages on the prospects for a deal with Iran, a pattern that continued on Friday. A fresh agreement between the two nations could potentially open the door for a broader reopening of shipping through Hormuz. 

Owners privately said they hope the agreement would allow for a resumption of Hormuz flows, but that uncertainty remained until its full details were known. Some said that until that agreement was reached, while it might be possible to get vessels out of Hormuz, many owners would remain reluctant to enter. 

TotalEnergies Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said Friday his company would want indications of lasting peace before sending vessels back into the Persian Gulf. 

A sustained resumption to shipping also has the potential to boost oil tanker earnings that are already the highest in a generation in the short-term, if a peace emerges that leaves shipowners comfortable to transit. 

“We would expect, if you like, a frenzy phase to start with,” once Hormuz reopens, Gerasimos Kalogiratos, Chief Executive Officer of Capital Tankers Corp., said on an earnings call this week. He added that tanker costs would stay high in the longer-term as global oil inventories refill barrels lost to the war. 

(Adds new details on US stance in paragraphs 4 and 10)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Just a couple of years after a historic boost to the nation’s fossil fuel exports over Ukraine war-related sanctions against Russia, demand for Norway’s resources is set to persist with another war, in the Middle East, again heightening security of supply worries.

Successive governments on both sides of the political spectrum have pledged to reduce Norway’s dependence on oil and gas — highlighted by experts as a priority for more than a decade to diversify and crisis-proof the economy for a time when those reserves have run out. 

The Nordic nation, which first discovered oil in 1969, has been relatively successful at reducing carbon emissions at home, with pioneering electric-vehicle adoption or carbon capture initiatives. At the same time, it’s exposed to claims of war profiteering over its role as a major fossil fuel exporter.

While Norway has been more prudent than most other resource-rich nations by investing the fossil fuel revenue in its $2.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund, it’s struggled to foster a broad basis of industries to underpin its economy.

Combined oil and gas shipment volume has declined from its 2004 peak, yet petroleum is still the dominant export sector in Norway: oil and gas made up 57% of Norway’s goods sold abroad in 2025, and monthly crude sales revenue reached a record after the outbreak of the Iran war. 

Norway’s economic diversity, meanwhile, keeps declining, underperforming that of its Nordic peers. Increasing trade protectionism and the krone’s recent strengthening to multi-year highs are likely to make export diversification even tougher. 

An index of economic complexity shows Norway’s gap with the rest of Nordics has widened already since the early 2000s. The measure, developed by the Growth Lab at Harvard University, explains why wealth developments differ across countries.

With oil and gas providing more than a fifth of Norway’s total gross domestic product, services account for most of the remainder, dominated by health, education and public administration. While the fishing and aquaculture industry is a strong contributor to exports, its share of GDP is at around 3%.

Initiatives on wind power, green hydrogen or battery production have faced various difficulties in past years. Earlier this month, Morrow Batteries ASA, which manufactured cells for energy-storage installations, filed for bankruptcy. It was the latest battery venture in Europe to fail following the much-publicized demise of Swedish group Northvolt AB last year.

While the previous government of Labor Premier Jonas Gahr Store set an aim in 2021 to increase non-oil exports by 50% by the end of the decade, the progress toward that goal has largely reflected the effect of inflation and of weak currency, while only a quarter of the target is achieved if adjusted for those effects.

Cuts in this year’s budget are undermining these efforts, the country’s National Export Council, an advisory body set up to support that goal, said in a report at the end of last year.

Earlier this month, the Energy Ministry announced that it will award 70 new blocks in the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea to its annual licensing round covering the most mature exploration areas on the continental shelf. It also approved plans to reopen three gas fields, with production planned to start in 2028 and continue until 2048.

Anders Opedal, chief executive officer of energy giant Equinor ASA, said in February — before the onslaught of the Iran war — that the company has “a very high bar” for new investments in offshore wind. In April, Equinor halved its stake in local renewables developer Scatec ASA in a further realignment toward its core hydrocarbon business.

Asked whether he is worried about global trends delaying Norway’s transition away from producing oil and gas, Store on Friday referred to how his nation provides more than 30% of Europe’s gas, saying that “for Norway to say we can deliver on that for the coming years is a stabilizer.”

The green transition “will be accelerated after what's happening around the Gulf because countries will say ‘we must be less dependent on something that can be so unstable,’” he added. “We fully support that transition.”

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) voted to give up as much as $4 billion worth of free allowances to oil refiners and other industrial polluters to help them comply with greenhouse gas limits imposed by the state’s 13-year-old carbon market, called Cap-and-Invest. 

Economists and environmentalists said the change may lead to higher emissions and lower prices on the carbon market, which is key to meeting a state mandate to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. That would slash billions of dollars in revenues that pay for other initiatives to reduce emissions as well as for safe drinking water, affordable housing and wildfire resilience programs. 

But in the wake of Iran war-fueled inflation, New York, Massachusetts and other states have also tempered their climate ambitions. 

“It's no secret that climate policy is at a crossroads, under attack by an openly hostile and well-funded opposition and upended by global economic upheaval,” CARB Chair Lauren Sanchez said Thursday. “Moving forward shows that we can be responsive to affordability concerns.”

More than 200 people queued up to speak at the two-day meeting, underscoring divisions over the future of California’s landmark climate policy, which has influenced other states and nations’ actions to reduce carbon emissions. 

Representatives of petroleum companies, utilities and other industries spoke in support of the carbon market revision, while environmentalists denounced it as a “major handout to Big Oil.”  The mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco opposed the amendments as regional transportation and air quality officials expressed worries that the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in carbon market revenues for public transit and zero-emission programs would increase pollution in low-income communities. 

“Eliminating these programs could impair our ability to build affordable housing and improve transit in San Francisco, which will help reduce GHG emissions,” said Silvia Solis Shaw on behalf of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie. 

California sets an annual limit on industrial greenhouse gas emissions that account for about 80% of the state’s carbon pollution. The cap declines each year and oil refiners, cement manufacturers and other companies must acquire allowances, each equivalent to one metric ton of carbon dioxide, to cover their emissions. Polluters can either buy allowances at quarterly auctions or use free ones that CARB gives corporations as an incentive to remain in California. 

In January, CARB proposed further tightening emission limits by removing 118 million allowances from the market to keep the state on track to meet its 2030 targets. That meant oil refiners, for instance, would have to either further reduce emissions or likely pay more for allowances. As California’s already-high gasoline costs soared above $6 a gallon during the war, oil industry executives told officials that would further increase prices at the pump and prompt an exodus of refiners from the state. 

Some state Democratic legislators echoed those concerns and pressed CARB to make changes. The agency subsequently issued a revised proposal that offset the removal of the 118 million allowances with the creation of 118 million new free allowances worth $4 billion. Those allowances would be issued to oil companies and other industrial companies to pay for decarbonization projects through 2035. The amended rule also included an additional $800 million in support to help “ensure no additional cost passthrough at the pump.”

An analysis by economist Meredith Fowlie of the University of California at Berkeley found that “a qualifying refinery could receive free allowances well in excess of its GHG emissions.” That in turn could lead to a rise in emissions and lower carbon prices, she wrote. 

A report from the state Legislative Analyst’s Office concluded the additional allowances would “reduce certainty” that California would hit its 2030 emissions target.

CARB pushed back against those projections at the meeting. The change, said carbon market staffer Michael Turgeon, “doesn’t weaken the integrity of the program. It simply makes it more affordable.”

The Legislative Analyst report said the revision would halve annual auction revenues from about $4 billion on average to $2 billion. CARB executive Rajinder Sahota said Thursday that any revenue drop would be much smaller as only a certain percentage of free allowances would likely be used in any given year.

Under legislation enacted last year, $1 billion of yearly carbon market revenues must be reserved for California’s decades-delayed high-speed rail project. 

An analysis by economists at the University of California at Santa Barbara concluded there could be significantly less money left over to finance many of the climate programs currently funded by the carbon market. 

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The Treasury market rally trimmed yields across maturities by nine to 12 basis points since last Friday’s close. Through May 27, the Bloomberg Treasury Index gained 0.7% on the week, on course for its best weekly performance since Feb. 27, the day before the war started. Two- to 10-year yields declined to weekly lows Friday after US President Donald Trump said a meeting “to make a final determination” on Iran was under way. 

The gains partly eroded after the New York Times reported that Trump left the meeting without a decision having been made. 

“It’s pretty evident they’re going to get a deal done sometime in the next week or so,” Raghav Datla, an interest-rate strategist at Citigroup Global Markets, said. “That builds confidence that you might not see a second-order impact from these oil prices into core inflation.”

Earlier in the session, the 30-year yield touched 4.96%, the lowest level since May 11. 

The weekly moves represent a turnaround from earlier this month, when global bonds tumbled on concern about the war’s impact on the world’s economy. The moves were driven in large measure by elevated oil prices because of a war-related supply shock. Traders, who before March were pricing in two Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts this year, wagered on an increase by mid-2027. 

Less than two weeks ago, the US government’s longest bond yield had reached almost 5.20%, the highest level since 2007. Shorter-maturity Treasury yields reached their highest levels since early 2025 earlier this month.

Over the past week, however, tentative indications that the US and Iran are nearing an agreement that would restore Middle East supply sent benchmark oil prices to the lowest level in six weeks, and Treasury yields retreated.

Residual Risk

“There’s still some residual rate-hike pricing risk, but once a deal is finalized, most of that will be priced out,” Datla said, referring to the roughly 15 basis points of Fed tightening priced into swap contracts linked to the Fed’s policy rate at the end of the year. 

While the market will have difficulty resuming pricing in rate cuts for this year, it has scope to wager on them during the next two years, he said. That’s based not only on oil prices, but also on actual inflation data including the price indexes for personal consumption expenditures released earlier this week for April.

While the 3.8% year-on-year increase in PCE prices was the highest since 2023 and has exceeded the Fed’s 2% target since 2021, the monthly increases were smaller than economists estimated.

This week’s gains for Treasuries also had technical underpinnings. Friday was the last day of the month, in which $324 billion of notes and bonds were sold. Those joined the Bloomberg Treasury Index at 4 p.m. New York time, and index funds and other passive investors conventionally buy them on or around that time in order to match the performance of the index.

Month-end index additions are larger in February, May, August and November, when Treasury auctions are biggest. About $240 billion of notes and bonds were added to the index at the end of March and April.

Index Rebalancing

The index rebalancing spurred heavy trading in Treasury futures, where aggregate volumes for the main contracts in the 10-minute period around it were at least double 20-day average levels. Prices rose to levels short of their intraday highs. 

The weekly advance may fully offset the market’s losses through the end of last week, leaving it close to flat on the month. 

Higher Treasury yields and anticipation of Fed interest-rate increases also are unfolding amid a pattern of upside surprises by US economic activity gauges and record highs for US stocks — including on Friday, suggesting it may take more than lower oil prices to sustain the bond market rally. 

“The US economy remains broadly resilient and supply side price pressures are still working through the inflation data,” Monty Gandhi, an interest-rate strategist at SMBC Group, said in a report. “As a result, we think it will be difficult for a sustained rally in yields without either a concrete geopolitical resolution or signs of labor market deterioration.”

The US Labor Department is slated to release May data on June 5. Economists estimate it will show a slowdown in job creation, to 85,000 new nonfarm jobs from 115,000 in April.

(Adds month-end index activity and updates yield levels.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

In the week ended May 26, money managers switched to a net-short position of 11,316, across seven US benchmark Henry Hub contracts, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In the prior week, investors had a net-long position of 15,270. 

Short-only positions rose 19,639 lots to 437,598, the highest in more than two years, according to the data. 

Prices for benchmark Henry Hub gas have dropped about 10% this year as mild weather dented demand for the heating and power-plant fuel. Robust US production has also pushed inventories above historical averages.

US natural gas has been an outlier in global energy markets this year. While the Iran war has driven up prices for other fuels and oil, America has been flooded with gas supplies. Amid higher crude prices, Texas drillers have increased their oil output, but that’s also meant more gas production as a byproduct. Supplies have been so plentiful in West Texas that local prices have been trading in negative territory. 

Still, in recent days, benchmark US gas prices jumped after a government report showed domestic stockpiles last week increased by a smaller amount than analysts expected. That forced some hedge funds to unwind short positions, pushing prices higher. July gas futures climbed about 10% for the week. 

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

West Texas Intermediate fell nearly 2% to settle around $87 a barrel, while global benchmark Brent settled near $92.

President Donald Trump said he will make a “final determination” on a preliminary deal to prolong the truce with Iran. His statement came after uncertainty over the status of an agreement that would extend the current truce by 60 days, during which Iran and the US would discuss the future of Tehran’s nuclear program, a person with knowledge of the matter said. 

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said no final understanding has been reached yet. Message exchanges between the Iran and the US are continuing, spokesman Esmail Baghaei told the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

Crude has weakened in May on speculation some form of accord would be reached, although the warring parties have hailed progress before, only for the stalemate to drag on. 

Several vessels transiting through the strait have been attacked in recent days, underscoring the “very real” risks that remain for shipowners in the Persian Gulf whether or not a peace accord is signed, Chevron Corp. Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth said. 

“There still has been kinetic activity this week, some of which has been reported in the media — some of which has not,” Wirth said on Bloomberg TV on Friday. “We see risks very real still in that environment.” 

But Wirth added that oil traders seem to be betting that the conflict is nearing a resolution, keeping price gains muted.

“The psychology of the market has been this is closer to the end rather than beginning,” he said.

While the effective closure of Hormuz — which is subject to blockades by Washington and Tehran — has curbed global energy supplies, a range of solutions, from bumper US exports, a slowdown in Chinese imports and emergency reserve releases have quelled the worst of the market impact. 

Roughly one-quarter of the non-Iranian large oil tankers trapped inside the Persian Gulf at the outbreak of the Iran war have managed to slip out.

At this stage, it remains unclear how sticking points in the negotiations — including the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, Iran retaining control over Hormuz, and sanctions relief — stand to be addressed. The waterway’s reopening and Iran turning over highly enriched uranium were Trump’s “red lines” necessary for any pact, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.

Even if a truce extension is agreed, multiple hurdles stand to impede the resumption of oil flows. Among them, mines in the Hormuz waterway must be removed, shut-in fields may take months to restart, and damage to energy infrastructure from drone and missile strikes needs to be repaired. In addition, vessels would take weeks to reach importing nations.

“Iran will have to abide by all agreements, and that in itself is a large ask for the market,” said Dennis Kissler, head of energy trading at BOK Financial Securities Inc. “While a pickup in the Strait of Hormuz traffic is promising, we will need to see that stabilize for a while to justify WTI prices in the mid- to low-$80/bbl area.”

Data this week highlighted growing tightness in the US as the crisis dragged on. Among the figures, distillate stockpiles sank to the lowest in more than two decades, and holdings of crude at the Cushing, Oklahoma, hub fell for a fifth week to 23 million barrels, pushing them closer to the 20-million-barrel mark that’s generally seen as the minimum operating level.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The deal for Prevalon, a joint venture of Mitsubishi Power Americas and EES, will be paid with a mix of cash and stock, Fremont, California-based Nextpower said Thursday in a statement. 

“It’s not just bringing us into the battery-energy-storage business, this brings us into the data-center power-supply business,” Nextpower Chief Executive Officer Dan Shugar said of the transaction in an interview.

Nextpower stock climbed as much as 19% to touch $163.13, the highest since it began trading in February 2023.  

“The acquisition moves Nextpower beyond solar trackers toward an integrated generate, store, control and operate platform, with AI data-center storage as the strategic prize,” KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Sophie Karp wrote in a research note. 

The purchase adds to a flurry of deals as power companies reposition themselves to meet a surge in electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence. Last week, NextEra Energy Inc. agreed to pay about $67 billion in stock for Dominion Energy Inc., the industry’s largest-ever acquisition. Overall, electricity demand from data centers will likely more than double over the next decade, according to BloombergNEF. 

Nextpower said the purchase of Prevalon will allow it to raise its 2027 revenue guidance to a range of $4 billion to $4.4 billion from $3.8 billion to $4.1 billion. It also boosted its 2027 adjusted profit range to about $845 million to $930 million from $825 million to $900 million. 

Nextpower has made a string of acquisitions to expand beyond solar trackers into clean-power system-development services, including electrical wiring and power conversion. The move into energy storage comes as data-center developers deploy batteries to bring facilities online faster and handle rapidly fluctuating power needs. The global battery market is forecast to grow to 10 times its 2025 size by the end of 2036, according to BNEF. 

Prevalon has more than six gigawatt-hours of battery storage installed and 1.3 gigawatts of supply contracts for AI and data-center deployments, Shugar said. Nextpower plans to operate the business as a wholly owned subsidiary, he said.

“While Prevalon serves traditional utility-scale needs such as renewable-energy shifting, frequency regulation and grid stabilization, it is uniquely positioned to serve the AI and hyperscaler data-center market,” TD Cowen analyst Jeff Osborne said in a note. 

(Updates with share move in the first paragraph, analyst quote in the fifth and last paragraphs.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Energeticky a Prumyslovy Holding AS, or EPH, owns about 4.2% of TotalEnergies after receiving almost €7.5 billion ($8.8 billion) of share in exchange for a 50% stake in gas and biomass power stations and battery projects in Italy, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and France. Kretinsky owns 50% plus one share in EPH.

“You never know what opportunities one situation may open up,” Kretinsky said on the Everything Starts Today podcast released on Thursday. “The benefit of this position is that it is actually scalable.” 

The self-proclaimed francophile — whose net worth is $12.5 billion — built a conglomerate across industries ranging from electricity generation to natural gas transmission and storage. Kretinsky’s wealth stemmed from a bet more than a decade ago that it would take Europe longer to wean itself off fossil fuels than its green strategy envisaged.

EPH, which is barred from selling the TotalEnergies shares for 12 months under the terms of the agreement, could add to its stake, according to Kretinsky, who said he was comfortable with the French company’s risk profile.

“Given that we currently own a stake of less than 5%, if we felt the need to further diversify, we could continue increasing our stake in Total,” he said on the podcast. “Total is particularly attractive in this respect because its market cap is enormous, which means you can allocate additional value there.”

EPH’s stake could also climb if it doesn’t participate in buybacks undertaken by TotalEnergies, according to Kretinsky.

“My basic idea is that we should be strategically diversified,” he said. “Our current position already has very significant value. Of course, it is still only a certain percentage of the whole company, but it’s becoming interesting.”

See Also: Billionaire Kretinsky Sets Sights Beyond Europe With Total Deal

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The plan sets guidelines for the issuance of green, social and sustainability financing instruments, including loans and bonds, to fund new and existing projects with environmental and social benefits, the National Treasury said in a report published on its website. It also outlines criteria on which financing decisions will be made.

Among projects that would be considered are hydrogen manufacturing, hydropower, geothermal electricity and bioenergy, the framework states. Money may also be raised for electricity transmission, distribution networks for renewable and low-carbon gases, and the development of energy-efficient technologies for industries and households.

“This initiative aims to align the country’s funding strategy with its sustainability objectives, attracting sustainable finance to support South Africa’s decarbonization commitments in a just and inclusive manner,” the Treasury said in the document.

South Africa has been criticized for its slow pace in seeking funding from investors keen to back sustainable and climate-friendly development even as it plans significant expenditure on infrastructure and needs to adapt from its heavy reliance on coal to comply with global climate-change commitments. The framework comes more than five years after the government first said it would outline plans for green bonds.

Meeting South Africa’s environmental targets under international accords including the Paris Agreement on climate change will cost about 250 billion rand for implementation and 3.47 trillion rand for mitigation strategies between 2026 and 2035, the framework states. That’s an average of 372 billion rand a year.

The country aims to raise about 160 billion rand a year from international climate-finance institutions by 2030, with the remainder coming from private-sector lenders and spending.

While the framework aims to address South Africa’s key sustainability challenges, achieving the full environmental benefits of green projects under the program may be constrained by the country’s high reliance on coal for electricity generation, S&P Global ratings said in an assessment published together with the plan.

“The framework’s financing of projects linked to healthcare, education, employment, and food security will help tackle social challenges and strengthen South Africa’s development path,” S&P said. Still, the “broad scope, typical for a sovereign issuer, creates uncertainty regarding future environmental, social, and climate risks and benefits of specific projects,” it added.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The Indian Gas Exchange, the country’s largest gas-trading platform, sold 4.5 trillion British Thermal Units to power firms from April 1 through May 26, according to data shared by the company. That’s an almost 350% jump from the same period a year earlier. 

Large swathes of India have suffered from blistering heat waves this summer, with sweltering temperatures around-the-clock pushing peak electricity demand to new highs during the days and nights.

The nation has used gas-fired power capacity to help meet the demand surge during the hot nights, although the war in Iran has pushed up prices and made the fuel harder to buy than in previous years. That has resulted in supply shortfalls of as much as 5 gigawatts during peak night-time hours, data from Grid Controller of India show.

Natural gas still accounts for just 2% of India’s electricity mix. The country has about 20 gigawatts of gas-fired capacity, which is mostly used as a reserve to meet demand surges in the evenings. This summer, less than half that capacity has been utilized due to shortages of gas.

The entire volume sold to the power sector this summer is regasified liquefied natural gas, said Rajesh Kumar Mediratta, the chief executive officer of the exchange. Companies paid an average 1,769 rupees ($18.55) per million Btu to buy the fuel from the bourse during the April-May period, about 64% more than a year earlier, IGX data show.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.