“Key elements of the oil refining plant and technological equipment were damaged” in the strike, the Main Directorate of Intelligence at Ukraine’s Defence Ministry said in a Telegram statement.

Bloomberg could not independently verify the statement. Russian gas producer Novatek PJSC, which owns the Ust-Luga facility, did not respond to a request for comments.

Ukraine has been carrying out near-daily attacks on Russia’s energy and port infrastructure in a bid to reduce the Kremlin’s commodity-export revenue and its ability to supply the domestic market with oil products. Attacks on Russia’s oil-processing facilities have hit a record, causing another wave of gasoline shortages across the nation.

The Ust-Luga facility produces naphtha, jet and marine fuel, as well as gasoil, from stable gas condensate, a liquid mixture of hydrocarbons. The plant has an annual processing capacity of around 8 million tons.

Amid tight domestic fuel supplies, Russia’s government over the weekend extended its ban on diesel exports through September, adding pressure to global supplies already strained by the Middle East conflict.

Ust-Luga, a key gateway for energy and commodity exports, loads crude oil and petroleum products as well as coal, fertilizers and grain. The port has been targeted in several Ukrainian attacks, most recently just weeks ago, when a strike damaged the Novatek plant. Earlier attacks on Ust-Luga’s oil terminals also caused temporary halts in loadings.

A total of 52 drones were downed over the coastal Leningrad region, with the attack causing a fire at the Ust-Luga port, local governor Alexander Drozdenko said in a Telegram statement on Tuesday morning, without specifying which facilities were affected. The fire has been extinguished, with no casualties, Drozdenko said in a separate statement later. 

Attacks by Ukraine and Russia on each other’s facilities in the Black Sea also pushed wheat prices to a three-year high last week. The region accounts for about a quarter of global shipments.

(Updates first paragraph with statement from Ukraine)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Ahead of the country’s October vote, both President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and right-wing rival Flávio Bolsonaro are making multibillion-dollar data centers and the AI investment that comes with them central to their pitches to bolster Latin America’s largest economy.

It’s a sharp contrast with the US, where voter anger over electricity bills and water use is putting politicians on the defensive even in data-center strongholds like Virginia and Texas.

Lula has evoked data sovereignty, the promise of jobs and increased foreign investment while pushing lawmakers to advance legislation that slashes taxes on information technology equipment for data centers. The bill is scheduled for a Senate vote on Tuesday, and is expected to accelerate megaprojects like the $65 billion Rio AI City development planned for Brazil’s second-largest city. 

“We could see a substantial inflow of money to build data centers here in Brazil,” Lula said last week. 

State and municipal governments from Rio de Janeiro to Ceara, in northern Brazil, are vying to attract US and Chinese hyperscalers for projects that will cost tens of billions of dollars. Bolsonaro has also supported cutting taxes on imported computer chips and equipment to make projects more attractive. 

At stake is Brazil’s bid to become Latin America’s hub for the computing power for AI, ahead of rivals Argentina and Chile that are offering incentives and building infrastructure to compete for the same investments. 

Data centers have faced protests, particularly from Indigenous groups. But opposition hasn’t exploded like in the US, where roughly 70% said they were against local construction of the facilities in a March survey from Gallup.

“People think about it as the development of technology and growth, totally the opposite of the US,” said Andrei Roman, the chief executive officer of polling firm AtlasIntel. “Most of the jobs are unskilled, so people won’t associate them with an immediate threat to their income.”

Still, Brazil risks missing out on the global boom despite abundant renewable power and favorable public opinion. 

The industry is waiting for the promised tax breaks. Transmission lines need to expand to carry wind and solar power to data centers. Brazil is already behind Chile in grid-scale batteries, and two licensing rounds were pushed back from April to December. 

Political Tensions  

The main obstacle to getting Rio AI City and other projects is delays in approval of the bill to cut taxes, said Osmar Lima, Rio’s municipal secretary for economic development.

The lower house of Congress approved the legislation, known as Redata, in February. But it stalled in the Senate during a months-long dispute between Lula and Davi Alcolumbre, the upper chamber’s leader. They’ve since smoothed over ties, and Alcolumbre named a supporter of the bill as its rapporteur ahead of the vote.

“If the legislation happens, the investment will come,” Lima said in an interview.

Even if it passes, there are signs that some hyperscalers are waiting for elections to conclude before committing to major investments. 

Tensions between Lula and Donald Trump, who imposed tariffs in July, have left some US technology companies wary of major commitments to Brazil before its vote. The Trump administration also considers AI a national security priority, and has sought to keep investment into the technology in the US.

I Squared-controlled Elea Data Centers expects its Rio AI City development to accelerate after the election and US midterms in November. 

“Companies may be more cautious about making high-profile commitments and exposing themselves to the political debate,” said Alessandro Lombardi, founder and chairman of Elea, which plans to break ground on the 1.5-gigawatt project as early as this year. “The Brazilian elections just need to pass.”

Little Backlash

Local officials promote the Rio AI City project as a way to turn the beachfront metropolis into a global data center hub, and pushback from locals has been minimal. 

A nearby condo complex highlights the data center as a “landmark for innovation and technology” in a brochure for prospective residents, placing it alongside Rio’s beaches, sports stadiums and nightlife as an attraction.

Last year, Tapestry, a project within Alphabet’s X moonshot lab, partnered with Rio to help prepare the power grid for the data center build out. Existing infrastructure can support the project’s initial 1.5 gigawatts, Page Crahan, Tapestry’s general manager, said.

In the US, surging demand from data centers and strained power grids are spurring a new wave of natural gas generation and putting Big Tech’s climate commitments under pressure. Brazil, meanwhile, is already curtailing surplus wind and solar power and has a large pipeline of renewable projects that could be developed alongside new data centers.

Brazil’s abundant renewable power is Rio’s biggest advantage, according to Crahan. “It’s incredibly unique globally in any economy,” she said.

The US, where data centers barely registered as an issue a few years ago, is a testament to how quickly public sentiment can change. But analysts expect them to grow in Brazil no matter the election result.

Aurora Energy Research, a UK consulting firm, projects Brazil’s data center capacity will more than quadruple to over 4 GW by the early 2030s. 

The pipeline of large projects seeking grid connections is even bigger. Grid operator ONS expects their electricity demand to reach 5.7 GW on average by 2030.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Solar capacity reached 1,286 gigawatts at the end of July, accounting for 31.5% of total installed power generation, China Central Television reported, citing the National Energy Administration. The China Electricity Council had earlier flagged that solar was just 1 gigawatt behind coal at the end of June.

China remains the dominant player in the global solar supply chain, with investment in the sector expected to top 2 trillion yuan ($298 billion) over the next five years, the report added. Solar generation rose 15.5% from a year earlier to 802.4 billion kilowatt-hours in the first seven months of 2026, about one-eighth of the country’s total. 

The solar milestone is happening even as China’s record pace of renewable installations has slowed significantly this year, after a policy overhaul ended guaranteed revenue for wind and solar projects. The country added 86 gigawatts of solar in the first seven months of 2026, after installing 93 gigawatts in May 2025 alone, the last month before the new policy went into effect.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The pact — which has drawn criticism from hard-liners and opposition forces in Venezuela — will ensure supply of low-cost crude to the US, according to a White House factsheet released on Monday. It was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The potential flows of crude to the US, underpinned by an expected surge in Venezuelan production, will be used to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, according to the release. It also stands to boost business for US refineries and oil field-equipment makers.

“This deal secures our energy dominance for the next century — all at zero cost to the United States,” the White House said. The agreement will forge “robust, strategic and defensible supply chains in our hemisphere,” effectively pushing out Russian and Chinese companies, it added.

Here’s a look at the key points in the factsheet on how the agreement will be structured, what it may mean for the US and Venezuela, and how it is supposed to fit the administration’s plans to extend its influence in Latin America.

How the Deal Is Structured:

• Venezuela’s interim authorities have granted North American Blue Energy Partners, NABEP, a privately-held company, 100-year concessions for 17 oil fields with proven reserves of approximately 65 billion barrels.
• In turn, NABEP granted the US Office of Strategic Capital a 35% equity stake in its corporate parent. That represents “up to hundreds of billions in value and dividends for the United States,” according to the factsheet.
• NABEP also granted the State Department the right to purchase, at production cost, 20% of the off-take from all current and future fields that NABEP operates. That crude oil could help to refill the SPR.
• The State Department also has the right of first refusal to buy the remaining 80% of NABEP’s production. That could provide a “guaranteed source of energy in our hemisphere in emergency situations,” the White House said.
• The US has veto power over the appointment of NABEP directors, a majority of whom must be US citizens. The agreement is governed by US law, and subject to the jurisdiction of the its courts.

What It May Mean for Venezuela:

• NABEP plans to boost production by investing up to $100 billion in new oil infrastructure. That’ll help to drive economic growth, support thousands of jobs in Venezuela, and underpin broader activity, the White House said.
• NABEP’s concessions are governed by Venezuela’s new hydrocarbons law, which was introduced with US support. Over the first quarter century, it is expected that NABEP will pay $200 billion in royalty and tax payments.
• For access to potential funding, NABEP “will be able to raise private American capital to fund capital expenditures”.
• US oversight, “will ensure tax and royalty payments are spent in the interests of the Venezuelan people.”

And the Hemisphere:

• President Trump has re-established the Monroe Doctrine, according to the release, referring to an approach from Washington that warns other powers against seeking to interfere in the so-called Western Hemisphere.
• The majority of the fields to be operated by NABEP were previously controlled or operated by Russian and Chinese firms, or by associates of former Presidents Nicolás Maduro and Hugo Chavez.
• The US is constructing robust, strategic and defensible supply chains in the hemisphere to support its manufacturing and energy.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague handed a victory to Islamabad as it said that the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty remains in force despite India’s decision last year to put the agreement “in abeyance.” 

The ruling, which India has categorically rejected, adds another source of friction between the nuclear-armed neighbors. The two countries came close to fighting a full-blown war last year following an attack in India-administered Kashmir where tourists died. 

In a statement on Monday, India reiterated that its move to suspend the treaty remains in force. 

India “has consistently maintained that the very establishment of this alleged arbitral body constitutes a grave violation of the Indus Waters Treaty,” it said. “Accordingly, India has never appeared before this body and has refused to take any cognizance of its earlier pronouncements.”

“Its pronouncements, now or in the future, will have no effect on India’s actions in connection with the projects being undertaken by India.”

The Indus Waters Treaty, brokered by the World Bank, governs the use of six rivers flowing through India and Pakistan and had previously survived repeated wars and periods of intense hostility between the South Asian rivals. 

It largely gives India rights over three eastern rivers while Pakistan has rights over the western Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. India is allowed to use the western rivers for purposes including certain hydroelectric projects.

India put the treaty on hold after last year’s military conflict. New Delhi called the killing of mainly Indian tourists a terrorist attack and accused Pakistan of involvement — allegations denied by Islamabad.

Pakistan’s population and economy are heavily dependent on Indus waters, with nine in 10 Pakistanis living in the river basin. More than 90% of the country’s crops including wheat, rice and cotton use waters from the system — with agriculture representing about a quarter of Pakistan’s gross domestic product.

The arbitration panel rejected the grounds advanced by India for suspending or terminating the agreement, saying the country remains bound by its obligations. These include rules governing the design and operation of hydroelectric projects on rivers allocated primarily to Pakistan. 

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on X that his country “welcomes” the unanimous court ruling.

“The award vindicates Pakistan’s consistent position that a binding international treaty cannot be unilaterally suspended or set aside,” Dar said. “India must fully comply with its obligations under the treaty.”

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

In LNG, time really is money. A modern liquefaction facility can easily cost $30-40 billion and take three to five years to build.  Once operational, every week of delay can cost tens of millions of dollars.

Trump pushed for a blockbuster move after growing frustrated that private oil companies, including ExxonMobil Holdings Corp. and ConocoPhillips, weren’t moving quickly enough to boost production in Venezuela, according to people familiar with the matter. By starting a new venture directly controlled by the US, his administration is seeking to give producers more confidence to commit to developing the 17 oil fields involved in the deal.

But the White House hasn’t explained where the $100 billion in expected investment for the deal is supposed to come from. While Trump has been explicit that it won’t be from taxpayers, the private operator working with the US on the deal, North American Blue Energy Partners, isn’t large enough to put that kind of money in by itself. 

All those questions point to deeper concern that the deal may meet the same fate as some of Trump’s other major initiatives — including the Gaza peace plan and an Iran ceasefire — that have yet to come to fruition. 

“It depends on who signs, if they are actually going to invest and, of course, what type of contracts are we talking about?” said Francisco Monaldi, director of Latin American energy policy at Rice University in Houston. “Most of these are not properly proven reserves.”

The gap between the deal’s immediate political value and its likely effect on oil supply is particularly important with November’s midterm elections approaching, with the Trump administration under pressure to lower gasoline prices. The agreement gives Trump an energy win he can claim now, even though increasing Venezuelan output will require years and substantial capital, said Rebecca Bill Chavez, president and chief executive officer of the Inter-American Dialogue.

“The political narrative is running well ahead of what Venezuela can deliver at the pump in the near term,” Chavez said.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Vice President JD Vance said Monday that rising production in Venezuela is one reason crude prices have not risen more recently. 

“They’re obviously higher than they were a few months ago,” Vance told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “But they’re sort of much more stable, in part because of what we see coming out of Venezuela.”

To be sure, the US is finding some demand to develop other oil fields not involved in its own venture. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright is set to visit Caracas later this week, when officials are expected to showcase more than a dozen oil and gas agreements, including previously signed contracts and memorandums of understanding that could be completed during the trip, according to people familiar with the plans. These will be separate from the direct US stake Trump unveiled last week.

Wright’s visit is intended to show that investment in Venezuela’s capital-starved oil industry is picking up after an expected wave of projects failed to materialize following the capture in January of strongman Nicolás Maduro. The push is motivated more by US domestic politics than developments in Venezuela, with members of the Trump administration under growing pressure to demonstrate results, according to one person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing confidential talks.

Disruptions to supplies through the Strait of Hormuz have pushed up US fuel prices ahead of November’s midterm elections. The flurry of deals the Trump administration is pursuing is intended in part to show progress in Venezuela and deliver a political and market win as the war in Iran drags on, the people said.

Chevron Corp., the only US oil major operating in Venezuela is negotiating to add two heavy-oil fields to its existing operations there, while Bogota-based oil and gas producer GeoPark Ltd.’s plans to take over the Bare field in the Orinoco Oil Belt, according to people familiar with the deals.  

Hunt Oil Co., a privately held Dallas-based producer, has already signed an agreement to develop the Caro and Carisito fields. In a speech televised on Venezuelan state TV, acting President Delcy Rodríguez also named Chevron, Repsol, Eni SpA, Shell Plc and BP Plc as companies expected to participate in additional oil and gas agreements.

Rodriguez wants to increase production past 1.5 million barrels of oil a day, which is about 30% higher than current levels. Even then, it would be less than half the nearly 3.5 million barrels a day the country was producing in the late 1990s, before Chavez nationalized the industry. And the challenges are vast. 

Many of the 17 fields the US is pushing to develop have little infrastructure and unreliable electricity. It could take billions of dollars to fix them, with repairs dragging beyond Trump’s term, which ends in January 2029.

The political and legal uncertainties are daunting, too. It’s unclear whether whoever succeeds Trump in the White House will stick to his strategy in Venezuela. And in Caracas, there’s no guarantee that whatever leader comes after Rodríguez’s will remain as cooperative with the US.

Hence oil companies, especially large ones, are moving with caution. 

“We see limited appetite among US energy majors to deploy capital in Venezuela at the scale or pace targeted by the US administration,” Bloomberg Intelligence’s Vincent Piazza and Justin Teresi said. “Unresolved legacy claims and deep investor anxiety will continue to cap near-term capital commitments from US operators.”

Even so, a visible pipeline of projects could help convince markets that more Venezuelan crude will eventually become available, supporting the administration’s effort to reassure markets about future supply.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Profit after tax jumped to 30.3 billion rand ($1.9 billion) in the year through March, compared with 14 billion rand in 2025, Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. said in a statement on Monday. Power cuts ended in May last year as the company improved its performance and cut spending on costly diesel-fired turbines used to bolster generation by 10.6 billion rand.

“We must not declare the turnaround complete,” South African Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said at a results presentation in Johannesburg. “The next task is to ensure that Eskom’s recovery becomes durable, self-sustaining and resilient in a changing electricity market.”

The period included only 13 days with power cuts. Despite the utility improving the reliability of its mostly coal-fired plants and increased prices, sales volumes dropped 6.2% — highlighted by a 23% decline in industrial usage. That marked a decade-long trend of sales dropping about 2% annually.

As power cuts intensified in previous years, South Africa introduced reforms to end the state-owned company’s monopoly and open the electricity market to private producers and traders. While Eskom Chief Executive Officer Dan Marokane accepts a migration by some customers to rooftop solar, he sees the biggest consumers of power as a key market that the utility is well placed to serve. 

“In the last few months, we’ve been working hard to reignite demand from the industrial sector in particular,” Marokane said in an interview. The company reached a deal earlier this year to keep ferrochrome smelters run by Glencore Plc and Samancor Chrome Ltd. supplied with cheaper electricity.

Eskom is also focusing on an emerging customer base that’s “driving new demand in the area of data centers, electric vehicles, charging stations,” and is in “advanced discussions” with the regulator about selling power to crypto miners, he said.

The utility will use its profits to help fund its capital expenditure program, which envisages 343 billion rand being invested across the group over the next five years. It launched Eskom Green earlier this year, a clean-energy unit that will take on the private producers which typically use renewable technologies.

Eskom continues to face challenges from unpaid municipal bills that reached 119 billion rand in June. That figure may reach 358 billion rand by the 2031 financial year “if decisive intervention is not implemented,” it said.

Debt securities and borrowings declined to 356 billion rand by the end of the financial year, and eased further to about 320 billion rand by the end of June, Eskom said.

Cost reductions were partially offset by wage increases of 7% and a growing number of staff.

“Eskom will continue to optimize its cost base by driving higher productivity across the workforce and improved organizational performance, while aligning rewards with operational and financial outcomes,” the company said.

Eskom also announced Chief Financial Officer Calib Cassim’s retirement. The board intends to choose a replacement to take over the role by the end of the year.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Deliveries are estimated at around 5.2 million tons in August, 18% lower than the same month last year, according to the data from Kpler. That’s a stark contrast from the year-on-year jumps seen over the previous three months, which were supported by a push to refill inventories to meet peak summer demand.

Asian LNG prices averaged around $21 per million British thermal units this month, compared to $12/mmbtu last August, which has led to “significant demand destruction among price-sensitive industrial users,” said Nelson Xiong, senior LNG analyst at Kpler. 

Spot prices hit a five-month high earlier in the month as the conflict between the US and Iran dimmed the outlook for flows resuming in the key Strait of Hormuz. Visible LNG traffic through the strait, which had accounted for about a fifth of the world’s shipments, has essentially halted over the last two months. Crude oil flows, conversely, have proven more resilient. 

The Arabian Gulf normally supplies about a third of China’s LNG, and the prolonged disruption has prompted the nation to seek more volumes from elsewhere, including Russia and Malaysia.

A drop in demand from one of the world’s biggest buyers could provide relief for importers in Europe, which are under pressure to replenish below-average inventories ahead of the winter heating season. 

Factors that might boost Chinese demand include a colder-than-expected winter, or a slower recovery in domestic gas production, as well as a resolution to the US-Iran war, said Xiong. 

The nation’s total 2026 imports are expected at around 61.3 million tons, he said. Last year, deliveries totaled 68.4 million tons, according to Chinese customs.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Chemicals profits more than doubled and international trading helped drive a 50% jump in marketing profits, PetroChina said in an exchange filing on Sunday. While that was a fairly small part of an overall 22% increase in first-half profits, it shows new avenues for growth as the accelerating shift to electric vehicles and higher crude prices erode demand for gasoline and diesel.

PetroChina has invested heavily over the last few years in petrochemical facilities to convert oil byproducts into everything from fibers to plastics, areas where it expects demand to keep rising even as fuel consumption shrinks. Its ability to source feedstock domestically helped it outperform Sinopec, which lost money in its chemicals business in the first half.

Sinopec's growth

Sinopec, China’s largest oil refiner and PetroChina’s sister company, said last week that the US-Iran War and the country’s own clean energy innovations had probably helped tip oil demand into decline, with the country’s consumption likely peaking last year. 

Overall net income for PetroChina rose to 103.9 billion yuan ($15.5 billion) for the six months through June, compared to 85.2 billion yuan in the first half of last year. Revenue climbed 5.3%.

Much of that was due to higher oil prices caused by the Iran war. Brent crude averaged about $87 a barrel from January through June, compared with around $71 in the same period in 2025. The global benchmark touched a four-year high above $126 a barrel in late April, but has since given up most of its gains. The outlook remains uncertain though, given the conflict has now been going six months with no sign of ending.   

Refining, Trading

PetroChina also operates a large refining operation. For that unit, higher oil prices translate to more expensive feedstock costs. The company wasn’t able to pass those along to consumers, as the government curbed fuel exports and capped domestic prices to curb inflation.

Still, the oil major was shielded from some of the impacts of global volatility, as its robust domestic production network meant it wasn’t as exposed to higher freight and insurance costs linked to shipping disruptions, Morgan Stanley analysts including Jack Lu said in a note. 

PetroChina itself marked a 5.8% drop in fuel sales in the first half of the year and shrunk its fleet of gas stations. 

It has also become a more nimble international trader. Investments in clean energy as well as oil and gas storage have allowed the country to become more flexible in terms of imports, and PetroChina has been particularly aggressive at re-selling its liquefied natural gas cargoes to other markets when prices are advantageous.

The company’s shares rose as much as 2.1% in Hong Kong on Monday.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The global energy landscape is navigating an era defined by transformation and unprecedented supply uncertainties. As the world grapples with the dual challenge of meeting rising energy demand while building a resilient energy future, the conversation around global energy security has shifted. 

“One of the things I am going to do with the Venezuelan Oil is fill up the Strategic National Reserves,” Trump said in a Truth Social post, in which be blamed Joe Biden, his predecessor as president, for emptying the reserve. 

“The ‘topping out’ process will begin very shortly, and is a Gift from Venezuela to the People of the United States,” Trump said. 

The more than 700 million-barrel US reserve currently holds 289.7 million barrels of oil, or roughly 40% of its capacity, following massive drawdowns by both Trump and Biden. 

Trump said Friday that the US was taking control of 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s proven reserves in partnership with private businesses, a move that US officials said would create the world’s second-largest private oil company by reserves and secure American petroleum supplies for decades to come.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The government this week struck a deal with regional leaders that appeared to allow Queensland and Northern Territory to avoid the renewables requirement. The two states had opposed the original proposal, with Queensland arguing it should choose how to supply electricity to data centers as it owns the whole power system.

“There will be nationally consistent standards which apply to Queensland and the Northern Territory,” Bowen told reporters Saturday in Sydney. “There is no carve out for Queensland or the Northern Territory. There is no card that they can play to say we don’t have to comply with these rules.”

Bowen said Queensland will be able to apply for an exemption if the state thinks it can provide data center energy cheaper than renewables but the decision on the exemption will be made by the federal government not the state.

The government’s concern is that the huge power demands from data centers will drive up prices, he said.

“Our modeling is very clear that if you had an open slather, let-her-rip approach where data centers could do whatever they want in Queensland, wholesale prices would go up 13%,” he said. “We’re not going to let Queensland lead a race to the bottom, that remains the case.”

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Two supertankers were recently observed conducting an unusual ship-to-ship transfer off Balboa port on Panama’s Pacific Ocean coast, according to vessel-tracking data, traders and shipbrokers. The process allows one of the tankers to shuttle back and forth through the canal to ensure the steady flow of liquefied petroleum gas to Asian customers, traders said.

The Iran war has diverted more traffic through the canal, while authorities tightened restrictions on how much cargo vessels can carry along with the number of ships that can cross due to drier conditions triggered by El Niño. Waiting times for vessels that haven’t made bookings in advance to transit the waterway have grown in recent months and some operators are paying millions of dollars to jump the queue. 

There are currently 14 ships waiting near the canal without reservations, while there’s a total of 115 scheduled to transit, a canal spokesperson said Friday. Of the 14 vessels without bookings, those seeking northbound passage face a maximum wait of 8 days, while those looking to go south have to wait as long as four days, the spokesperson said.

The biggest impact has been on wider Neopanamax vessels, which are typically used to ferry LPG from the US Gulf Coast to Asian customers. Rates and wait times for the narrower Panamax tankers, which go through a separate set of locks, haven’t increased as much, according to traders.

Off Balboa, the Panamax Energia Grandeur is transferring its cargo to the Eneos Wisdom, a Neopanamax tanker. The Energia Grandeur was previously carrying LPG across the Pacific toward Japan before U-turning. The move suggests its charterer saw more value in deploying the ship to shuttle gas through Panama, rather than tying it up on a month-long journey to Asia, traders said.

The two supertankers were chartered by TotalEnergies SE. The French oil and gas major, along with Eneos Holdings Inc., which owns a stake in the ship manager of Eneos Wisdom, declined to comment. MOL Energia Pte., the owner and ship manager of Energia Grandeur, did not respond to a request for comment. 

Separately, the Panama logjam has prompted another supertanker, Gas Scorpio, to embark on a rare voyage around South America in order to load a cargo in the US, a costly trip that adds around a month of transit time. The vessel is currently off Chile. A similar voyage was last made in 2023, after low rainfall snarled traffic through the waterway.

“The global LPG market is already stretched thin from Strait of Hormuz tensions, and the Panama Canal is one more disruption it simply couldn’t afford,” said Julian Renton, lead analyst covering natural gas liquids at East Daley Analytics. “It’s a vivid illustration of how geopolitics, climate, and energy security are colliding in real time.”

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The Houston-based company is negotiating to add two new oil fields to its operations in the country, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the talks aren’t public. Other US energy companies are also in discussions to make new investments in the sector, they said. Chevron declined to comment.

The talks come as the Trump administration negotiates with Venezuelan leaders about taking a significant stake in the nation’s oil fields, which are among the largest in the world. Leases as long as 100-years on several oilfields being discussed, according to people familiar with the matter.

The potential deal - which has little or no historical precedent - comes after US forces seized Nicolás Maduro in January and effectively handed control of Venezuela to his former vice president Delcy Rodríguez, who has since become allied with the Trump administration. In the months following, President Donald Trump has pushed for US companies to rebuild the nation’s oil industry.

It remains to be seen, however, how quickly Venezuelan production can grow as Chevron and other producers prepare to sign new oil deals. While the nation has some of the world’s largest reserves, producers will have to contend with degraded infrastructure, unreliable electricity and legacy environmental liabilities. Analysts and industry experts say it could take more than a decade to restore production to the roughly 3 million barrels a day Venezuela pumped before its oil industry began a decades-long collapse.

Meanwhile, some prominent Venezuelan figures — including Harvard University professor and ex-Venezuelan minister Ricardo Hausmann — are questioning the constitutionality of a foreign power taking control of the nation’s reserves.

Chevron already has joint ventures with Venezuela’s state oil company and is the only US oil major active in the country. 

The company currently accounts for around a fifth of Venezuela’s oil production. It has been in the country for decades, remaining after the government expropriated assets belonging to ExxonMobil Holdings Corp. and ConocoPhillips in 2007.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Chevron was in talks to expand in Venezuela. The newspaper also said other companies were nearing deals to invest in Venezuela and that Halliburton Co. is in talks to bring oil equipment there.

US officials are discussing leases lasting as long as 100 years on several Venezuelan oil fields, according to people familiar with the matter.

Gaining greater access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves would boost US supplies at a time of intense market volatility caused by the war in Iran, and Tehran’s efforts to choke commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. It could also help as the US struggles to refill its depleted Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which stands at roughly 41% of capacity, its lowest level in more than four decades.

Since the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Washington has controlled Venezuelan oil sales while easing sanctions to allow US companies and oil field contractors to do business in the country. Venezuelan oil production has already increased by nearly 300,000 barrels a day since Maduro’s ouster, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

More production could be unleashed after foreign producers finalize new contracts with the Delcy Rodriguez administration. Oil field giant SLB and independent producer Hunt Oil Co. signed contracts with the Venezuelan government this month.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Ships hauling cargoes from Saudi Arabia to China were pulling in a record $656,000 a day on Friday, more than ten times the rate a year earlier, according to Baltic Exchange data. There are signs that export volumes within the Gulf are rising, adding to a clamor for ships to pick up oil inside the Strait of Hormuz. Few owners and crews are willing to risk the journey, meaning huge premiums for the companies that do. 

The rate began to climb late last week when Sinokor Group, the world’s largest supertanker player, told market participants that it hired out ships at elevated rates, according to people involved in the market. Earlier this year the company, led by Ga-Hyun Chung, embarked on the biggest oil tanker bet ever, buying dozens of ships before the Iran war began and hiring them out at heightened rates. 

The Iran war has roiled the world’s main oil tanker benchmark as the number of ships entering and exiting the Gulf has become increasingly opaque. Before the conflict, shipowners and commodity traders relied on it as a proxy for global supertanker earnings, with substantial sums of derivatives also tied to the marker. 

Moving barrels through Hormuz effectively comes with two shipping costs. There is a lump sum to get a ship through the waterway itself and then, once the cargo is switched onto a different tanker outside Hormuz, a lower rate based on an onward to China.

The cost of hiring a ship to sail from Oman to China is currently about $220,000 a day, compared with $131,000 a month ago.

“Looking at what we thought was the strongest market we’ve ever seen in 2004, we’re now twice that almost,” Lars Barstad, Chief Executive Officer of Frontline Management AS, one of the world’s largest supertanker operators, said on an earnings call on Friday, adding that average tanker earnings are skewed by soaring rates inside the Gulf. “We’re way beyond what we’ve seen in previous years.” 

TotalEnergies SE Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said earlier this week that it costs about $20 million to move barrels through Hormuz. Two tanker market participants said that amount had risen further throughout the week.

In addition to higher volumes of oil moving out of the Gulf, other shipping disruptions are also boosting earnings. Attacks on Saudi tankers by Yemen’s Houthis have seen the kingdom redirect some exports north, through the Mediterranean, and thousands of miles around Africa. That generally adds about 30 days to a journey to Asia.

The fact that ships are transferring cargoes onto waiting ships outside Hormuz is also disrupting the supply chain and making deliveries take longer.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

A handful of new reports show how, by dramatically raising fossil-fuel prices, the conflict has also been pushing governments, companies and consumers towards renewable energy, with a clear set of winners and losers emerging. 

Global fossil fuel importers have paid more than $330 billion in extra costs — an amount equal to Finland’s 2025 gross domestic product — since the war began on Feb. 28, according to data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Helsinki-based nonprofit. Meanwhile, higher energy prices have been a boon to a handful of oil and gas producing countries outside the war zone.

Economies that had moved to ditch fossil fuels prior to the war have withstood the crisis better, too. In China, for example, renewable energy projects added since 2020 allowed the country to avoid nearly $8 billion in fossil fuel imports between March and July, CREA estimated.

These transformations could eventually have an effect on the environment: Overall, global greenhouse gas emissions were relatively contained during the first half of the year, inching up just 0.2% compared with the same period a year earlier, according to an early analysis of emissions through mid-year 2026 by the nonprofit Climate Trace.

“Renewables continue to grow. That does seem like good news,” says Ting So, lead analyst for Climate Trace. But he added that the volatility of disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz makes it hard to predict long-term trends.

Clean tech and non-Gulf fossil-fuel producers benefit 

China has emerged as a beneficiary of the realignment, leveraging its dominance in green technology manufacturing at a time when soaring oil and gas prices are boosting interest in solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles.

Since the start of the conflict, China has logged five consecutive months of record clean tech exports measured in dollar terms, according to BloombergNEF. In July, Chinese carmakers sold more than half a million EVs and plug-in hybrids to overseas markets, a roughly 150% increase from a year earlier.

Oil and gas producers in North and South America have also reaped windfall profits. As buyers shunned Gulf suppliers, fossil fuel companies in the US, Canada and Latin America ramped up production.

While a ceasefire could erode wartime supply premiums, researchers expect some of these market shifts to persist. “The boost to Latin America’s mining sector could remain,” said Rafael Rabioglio, a BNEF analyst, in the report. As high fuel costs accelerate global electrification, demand for critical minerals such as copper and lithium will benefit major producers including Chile and Peru in the long term. 

Import-dependent regions most affected

In the Arabian Gulf, drone strikes and explosions have damaged key facilities, including Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery and a key liquefied natural gas export terminal in Qatar. Coupled with shipping bottlenecks, initial export losses across the Gulf averaged nearly $2 billion per day in March, according to an estimate from Rice University. Beyond lost revenue, the war also damaged as much as $58 billion worth of energy infrastructure, which requires costly repairs, according to an April estimate by consulting firm Rystad Energy.

The conflict also threatens to stall the region’s transition into a greener economy. “The war has driven up the cost of debt in the region, undermining clean power project economics in the near term,” BNEF analysts said in their report. Import-dependent economies like Japan and South Korea, meanwhile, are suffering collateral damage. The two Asian nations, which depended on shipments through the Strait of Hormuz for most of their oil supplies prior to the Iran war, had no choice but to absorb higher fuel prices.

In Africa, where many countries are net importers of refined oil products, the soaring prices have fueled a broader economic crisis. Ethiopia, for instance, recently experienced currency selloffs, forcing the country to draw down billions of dollars in its foreign exchange reserves to defend the weakening birr. 

Accelerated transition

The burden of higher energy prices has fallen disproportionately on developing economies. Poorer nations spent an additional 1% of their GDP absorbing the price shock, CREA found. That’s more than double the economic drag experienced by wealthier states.

As they seek to break up with fossil fuels, African nations are scrambling to add renewable energy. The region as a whole imported 37% more solar equipment from China in the first half of 2026 than in the same period last year, BNEF data showed. The current boom has spread across the entire continent, from South Africa to Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo and Egypt.

“In countries where consumers are not being well shielded from higher fuel prices, they are moving very quickly to adjust their energy consumption pattern,” said Ethan Zindler, a BNEF analyst.

That same trend is also happening across developing Asia. For instance, in the Philippines — where initial fuel shortages prompted the government to mandate a four-day workweek to save on energy — demand for solar products has surged. In March, the country’s imports of Chinese solar equipment jumped 262% year-over-year.

EV adoption has accelerated, too. Monthly EV sales almost doubled in the Philippines and Indonesia in June and July compared to the same period in 2025, according to BNEF. In India, monthly passenger EV sales reached 30,000 units in those two months, up from fewer than 20,000 units last year.

In the first half of 2026, slight emissions reductions by China and the US, the world’s largest polluters, were balanced out by increases in India and Brazil, the Climate Trace analysis found. 

At the same time, fears that this year’s energy-market disruptions would lead to a major near-term increase in coal-fired power did not become a reality, according to the results. Instead, over the first six months of the year, renewable energy actually expanded more quickly, So says.

“That's a positive development that maybe not everyone thought” would happen, he says. 

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The deals add almost 200 megawatts of electricity, and once fully operational Amazon will have nearly 1 gigawatt of supply in Sweden, it said in emailed comments. The four farms are developed by Eolus AB and OX2 AB, which is owned by private equity firm EQT AB. 

Amazon and other hyperscalers are ramping up electricity purchases and investing in their own capacity as demand for cloud and AI services grows. The e-commerce giant alone plans to add another 2 million Nvidia graphics processing units to its data-center fleet in 2027 and 2028, on top of 1 million it previously said would begin being installed this year.

The 1 gigawatt of wind energy capacity is enough to power the equivalent of more than 350,000 households annually, the company said, without providing further details on the latest deals. 

In 2025, Amazon was the largest corporate buyer of fossil-free energy in Sweden. Globally, Amazon has invested in more than 700 such projects, with a portfolio exceeding 40 gigawatts. In Europe, the US company says it has invested in more than 260 projects, providing over 10 gigawatts of new carbon-free energy capacity.

The wind farms Boarp, Dållebo and Fågelås are already operational while the largest, Fageråsen, is currently under construction. Amazon’s existing Swedish operations include data centers in Eskilstuna, Katrineholm and Västerås. 

As demand continues to grow, “capacity will be added across all three locations,” Amazon said.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Admiral Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command, said in the three-and-a-half-minute video released Thursday night that “over the past few months, our forces meticulously and quietly” cleared the international shipping lanes of mines. The work was carried out by Navy divers and SEALs, as well as aircraft.

“The circumstances were challenging and dangerous, to say the least, but we got the job done,” Cooper added in the video, which included a detailed map and a diagram. “Bottom line, today, international shipping lanes are open and momentum is building.”

US allies, however, have privately warned that the strait, a key thoroughfare for Middle East oil, natural gas and fertilizer, was still likely mined. The dangers posed by mines and attacks on commercial vessels have severely curtailed shipping in the strait since the US and Israel began the war with Iran in late February.

The US is likely to have made some progress, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because they were discussing internal assessments. But they believe that operations haven’t cleared all of the estimated 80 to 150 mines laid by the Iranians.

American officials rejected that assessment. One person familiar with the US position, who also asked not to be named, said those figures were outdated.

On Wednesday, Trump called Hormuz — which links the Gulf to global markets — “a very functioning strait,” while repeating his claim that no mines remained.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US had guided 130 million barrels of oil out through Hormuz over the past 14 days, according to a post on X. Bessent is leading an effort to try to isolate Iran’s economy with a wave of sanctions and curbs in a bid to force Tehran’s capitulation.

The Islamic Republic has insisted throughout the conflict it controls the strait, and the status of the waterway has been a key sticking point in on-off talks with the US. Earlier this week, Iran’s military said it reached a revenue-sharing deal on Hormuz with Oman, which sits along the artery’s southern edge.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

As demand for secure and reliable energy continues to grow, LNG is playing an increasingly important role in supporting the global energy transition. Mario Azar, Chairman and CEO of Black & Veatch, discusses the growing importance of flexible infrastructure, the rise of floating LNG, supply chain challenges, and the technologies shaping the next generation of LNG projects. 

What are your thoughts on the critical role of natural gas in securing the global energy future?

Natural gas remains indispensable to a secure global energy future because it is the most practical and scalable source of reliable intermediate and base-load power available today. While renewables will play an expanding role in the energy mix, they require energy storage to deliver base-load reliability at scale. Natural gas power is highly flexible and dispatchable to service ancillary market needs, filling the role of long-duration energy that no other technology can currently fill.

Natural gas is available at scale today and can be deployed quickly to meet growing energy demand while maintaining reliability and affordability. Stable, affordable, and resilient power systems create the conditions for economic growth, investment, and stronger global trade. Natural gas provides that foundation, helping nations meet rising demand while supporting long-term prosperity and resilience.

How are buyers navigating geopolitical supply chain shocks, and are nearshore and floating LNG (FLNG) solutions taking priority over traditional onshore projects? 

The jellyfish, which forced some reactors to shut down at the site earlier this month, have now affected at least three reactors, while workers are due to strike from Friday at the separate Chinon nuclear plant. The disruptions are adding to uncertainty over nuclear power availability and this week helped push French month-ahead contracts to their highest level since January last year. 

France’s electricity market is particularly sensitive to changes in atomic output because its 57 reactors generate most of the country’s power, while neighboring nations also rely on its exports. The fleet has faced significant disruption this summer with heat waves forcing EDF to curb production at some plants that use river water for cooling.

While temperatures across France have eased following a series of extreme heat waves, unusually warm conditions are lingering in surrounding waters. Elevated marine temperatures can cause jellyfish populations to bloom. Coastal nuclear plants such as Gravelines rely on seawater for cooling, leaving their pumping systems vulnerable to swarms of marine life.

The latest disruption began on Wednesday, adding to existing outages for maintenance and repairs at Gravelines. Four out of the six 900-megawatt reactors were fully offline, while output at two units were reduced as of 1 p.m. Thursday, according to grid data. Gravelines, on France’s northern coast, faced similar problems last year when swarms of jellyfish clogged its filter drums.

The disruption highlights climate change challenges faced by energy producers such as EDF. The state-owned utility earlier this year signed an accord with fishermen for tracking jellyfish swarms and taking them away when they approach sea water intakes of reactors.

This comes as Europe’s weather has broken a long sunny and warm spell with more covered and cooler conditions. Solar output has suffered, with output around midday in France on Thursday around a third lower than it was at the same time just two weeks ago according to data from RTE.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The climate-research company, basing its estimates on Chinese exports of solar panels to Africa in the year to June, forecasts that a record 17 gigawatts of solar power will be installed across the continent in 2026. Notably, South Africa’s role as the dominant importer will shrink as installations accelerate in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe and Zambia. 

Still, Ember said in a report published Thursday, three-quarters of the growth is in the form of distributed solar, primarily panels installed on rooftops, which is hard to track and makes it difficult for governments to plan their own grid expansions. 

“Across Africa, distributed energy resources are rapidly expanding and in many cases overtaking grid capacity,” Joel Nana, a research director at African Tech Futures Lab, said in the report. “This transition is chaotic and disruptive and far from the orderly model planned in national strategies.”

Falling costs are driving rapid adoption of solar power in Africa, where about 563 million people, or more than four-fifths of the global total, lack access to electricity. The World Bank and African Development Bank are leading a push to bring power to 300 million people by 2030.

The $2.4 billion spent across Africa on panels in the year through June is equivalent to what it would have traditionally cost to run diesel generators for three months, Ember said. It’s also about the same amount imported by the Middle East and just under purchases by Latin America.

While South Africa, which has the continent’s largest utility-scale solar industry, accounted for 52% of imports from China in 2023 that proportion fell to 20% in the latest period. 

Even though Ember estimates that 36 of Africa’s 54 countries will install record amounts of solar in 2026, South Africa will remain the biggest buyer, with 3.3 gigawatts expected to be added. 

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The application was submitted Thursday through Nucore Energi, wholly owned by Fortum and established for the project. The reactors would be built adjacent to the existing nuclear plant in southeastern Sweden, which is operated by Uniper SE and in which Fortum is a significant minority owner.

Sweden’s nuclear new-build push sits at the heart of the government’s energy agenda. It has designed a comprehensive support package that includes a minimum electricity price, state-backed construction loans and a mechanism for sharing project risks.

Fortum is planning a facility with capacity ranging from 1.2 gigawatts to 3.4 gigawatts, Nucore Energi Chief Executive Officer Laurent Leveugle said in an interview. The eventual size will depend on the technology, expected demand growth and the terms of any risk-sharing arrangement with the state, he said.

“In order to justify such a project, we really need to eventually agree with customers on offtaking the electricity and to make sure that it will be used,” he said. 

The technology will be selected from three potential candidates, two large-scale reactors and one small modular reactor, from suppliers including Westinghouse Electric Co., Electricite de France SA and GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy.

The new capacity may come online in the second half of the 2030s at the earliest, Leveugle said, adding that “some discussions” have been held with Uniper regarding the site. The German company has said that it has no plans to invest in new nuclear in Sweden. 

Johan Svenningsson, Uniper’s Sweden head, reiterated that point and said by email that the company is looking forward to continuing the dialogue with Fortum about the potential project. 

The site houses Sweden’s biggest reactor, the 1,400-megawatt Oskarshamn-3, as well as two older units that were decommissioned in 2015 and 2017.

Fortum has been assessing options for new nuclear power in Sweden since 2022. The application doesn’t constitute an investment decision, but formally starts discussions with the Swedish state over potential support for the project.

If the plan goes ahead, Fortum would eventually look to be a minority holder. 

“Even though we are a major utility in the Nordics, these projects are just too big for us to take alone, even at 51%,” said Leveugle. 

Other firms including Videberg Kraft AB, Blykalla AB and Studsvik AB have also applied for state aid for new nuclear. 

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Brent traded near $87 a barrel, and is down more than 7% this week, while West Texas Intermediate was near $82. Crude rose Wednesday on a report that Russian President Vladimir Putin was planning an escalation of the war in Ukraine, before reversing those gains after Iran’s military said it reached a revenue-sharing agreement with Oman on Hormuz.

Oil has slipped this week on optimism over the agreement between Iran and Oman and after US economic measures against Tehran and its trading partners weren’t as harsh as anticipated. Prices are still up more than 40% this year after the six-month conflict crimped flows from the Gulf.

“The market has started pricing in the possibility of another ceasefire emerging,” said Saul Kavonic, senior energy analyst at MST Marquee, referring to talks between Oman and Iran that are seen as a precursor to an agreement between Tehran and Washington. 

But crude is now in a holding pattern as traders await confirmation that a deal can be reached, he said. “There have been many false starts to ceasefires already, so the market is hesitant to move prematurely.”

Tehran has repeatedly said an agreement on navigation would not equate to an immediate re-opening. Nevertheless, crude appears to be flowing from the Gulf, with US President Donald Trump claiming that 10 million barrels of oil had exited Hormuz on Tuesday. 

Satellite images show Saudi Arabia appears to be ramping up oil loadings inside the Gulf. That’s a sign the world’s largest crude exporter is reorienting shipments amid threats from Yemen’s Houthi militants to its Red Sea exports.

Still, risks remain. A tanker was hit by an unknown projectile in Hormuz, the UK Maritime Trade Operations said. The incident, reported on Aug. 25, is being investigated by local authorities, it said. 

Meanwhile, an escalation in the Russia-Ukraine conflict may further threaten global energy supplies. Recent strikes by Kyiv on refineries and ports have prevented Moscow from diverting crude into exports, compounding disruptions from the Iran war. 

“Frequent attacks on Russian oil and refining infrastructure are starting to make a dent in overall Russian oil supply by up to around 10%, with an even larger impact on refined products,” Kavonic said. 

Signs of a broader fuel squeeze are also evident in the US, where diesel supplies have fallen to the lowest seasonal level ever, according to the Energy Information Administration. The situation in Europe is so tight that the region has tapped Mexico for the workhorse fuel for the first time in seven years.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The Southeast Asian nation aims to generate 60% of its electricity from clean energy sources like solar, wind and hydro in 25 years time, said Energy Minister Akanat Promphan. That’s double the previous goal. The targets will be officially announced in an updated 25-year national power plan to be released in October, Akanat said.

“The ongoing conflict in the Middle East demonstrates that we must urgently reduce imports of LNG and other fuels,” he said in an interview at the Thai parliament late on Wednesday. “We need to build a cleaner and more self-reliant power system.”

Thailand currently generates more than 60% of its electricity from natural gas, most of which is imported, leaving it exposed to events like the Middle East conflict that spurred a surge in the price of seaborne liquefied natural gas. Increasing renewable capacity — around 15% of the power mix at the moment — would curb the need for imported fuel and also support the nation’s goal of getting to net zero by 2050.

The doubling down on renewables — which will require a rapid buildout — comes as Thai power demand is expected to increase sharply. The country has attracted billions of dollars of investment in data centers, cloud computing and advanced manufacturing. The government has been taking steps to ensure it has enough generation capacity to accommodate the rising demand to limit the impact on household power bills.

“The next wave of investment — from data centers to advanced manufacturing — will require enormous amounts of electricity,” Akanat said.

The new power plan will include nuclear energy for the first time, a significant shift in Thailand’s energy strategy, Akanat said. The government has been studying small modular reactors as a potential source of stable, low-carbon electricity to complement intermittent renewable, he said. 

Akanat defended a government proposal to spend 200 billion baht ($6.1 billion) on renewable energy, including rooftop solar for villages, in parliament this week.

Thailand last revised its 25-year power development plan in 2023, which was before the Iran war and the artificial intelligence boom.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

The stakes are substantial. China has more than tripled its annual operational capacity since the end of 2024, and now hosts nearly 250,000 tons — over twice that of the rest of the world combined, according to BloombergNEF. Beijing’s latest five-year plan calls for an eightfold increase to 2 million tons a year by the end of the decade.

China is outstripping rivals that have seen major projects shelved due to ballooning costs and anemic demand. Its success hinges on two distinct advantages over places like India and Europe: a massive industrial base that’s proving tough to decarbonize, and a surplus of clean energy that needs to find a home.

“China is making a strategic bet on renewable hydrogen as a way to carry clean electricity into the sectors electrification struggles to reach,” said Muyi Yang, a Sydney-based analyst at energy think tank Ember.

Two hours north of Beijing by bullet train, Chifeng in Inner Mongolia straddles China’s past and future. Home to nearly four million people, the city is dotted with smokestack chimneys. On the outskirts, one square kilometer has been given over to a project that promises to clean up a local economy founded on mining and powered by coal. 

The Envision Group facility — all sharp-angled white facades, floor-to-ceiling glass walls and minimalist interiors — is the world’s biggest green hydrogen plant. At a cost of $2.6 billion, it began operating in 2024, employing electrolyzers that use wind and solar to split water into an element that its boosters say will transform efforts to lower emissions.

China’s extraordinary expansion of clean power has created wind and solar power in abundance, to the degree that an increasing amount is simply being wasted. Diverting the excess to green hydrogen solves the problem of under-utilization. When converted to chemicals such as ammonia, it also allows renewables to be stored for future use, much like a liquid battery. 

The issue has become more pressing for policymakers because wastage undermines the economics of renewables projects at a time when they’re already grappling with excess capacity and fierce price competition.

Projections on how much green hydrogen capacity the world will add have been scaled back in recent years. If plants like Chifeng succeed, it would reaffirm China’s dominance as a clean-tech powerhouse, and offer a path to cutting emissions in the stubbornest industries. But failure would throw into doubt whether green hydrogen can achieve commercial liftoff anywhere in the near term.

The share of electricity in China’s final energy use has risen steadily, reaching 30% in 2025. The government is targeting 35% by 2030. The gains so far have been smoothed by the country’s vast coal reserves, ever-cheaper wind and solar, and the electric vehicle boom. 

The next five percentage points, which also need to take account of the country’s gradual shift from coal to renewables, will be harder to capture without a new approach. Adopting the playbook that delivered its world-beating wind, solar and EV industries, Beijing is focused on shoring up supply first. The hope is that demand will follow.

“With the rollout of China’s new five-year plan, the industry’s growth will increasingly depend on how China, and economies linked to China, can foster demand for green hydrogen,” said Yimin Lou, Envision’s chief product officer and head of its hydrogen business.

But challenges abound. The green version of the fuel is still more expensive than the gray and black hydrogen that comes from gas and coal, and the blue hydrogen that combines fossil fuels with carbon capture.

Green hydrogen producers have access to subsidies from both central and local governments and via national carbon credits. But even combined, the savings fall short of matching gray hydrogen’s cost, BNEF says.

Moreover, the subsidies don’t necessarily feed directly into consumption. “The most important thing is whether demand-side policies can be implemented, and whether they can stimulate some real demand and support the price premium,” said BNEF analyst Kathy Gao.

Pole position

Still, China’s advantages are considerable. 

Its electrolyzers cost about four times less than those made in Europe, according to BNEF. In addition to its lead in clean energy, the country dominates global production of highly polluting industries like steel, cement and chemicals, which have been slow to cut emissions but must decarbonize if Beijing is to meet its climate goals. For other countries to get to the same level on hydrogen, they’d need to invest a lot more and rely on exports for future demand.  

“It’s fair to say that, from virtually every perspective, China is the most favorable market for the development of this industry,” said Gao.

Inner Mongolia exemplifies the opportunity. It boasts some of the world’s richest wind and solar resources, yet electricity demand is concentrated in faraway coastal cities. Grid infrastructure is lagging, which has led to rising curtailments of renewable power.

Hydrogen offers a remedy. At Envision’s facility, nearby wind and solar farms supply all the electricity. The plant’s electrolyzers are specifically designed for the variable levels of power delivered by the wind and sun.

“The key consideration is how to unlock greater demand for renewable energy,” said Envision’s Lou. “Historically, the ability of the market to absorb renewable power, particularly from wind and solar, has been constrained. Products such as green hydrogen and green ammonia create entirely new sources of demand.”

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

Given an edge by its shale revolution that was decades in the making, the US became the world’s leading natural gas producer by volume with an output of 110 billion cubic feet per day and the largest LNG exporter in the first quarter of 2024. 

According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the country exported over 15 bcf/d or 111 million metric tonnes of LNG in 2025, becoming the first ever producing nation to exceed the 100 million-mark in a single year. 

It’s an attractive number for a market that’s servicing an exponential growth in energy demand driven by power-hungry hyperscale data centres, proliferation of artificial intelligence, and rising electrification in the high-growth markets of Asia. 

Asia demands, US supplies

If last year was a record-breaking one for US LNG, this year might turn out to be even better. According to Reuters data, the US has already exported just over 73 million metric tonnes of LNG from January through to July; a 23% increase on an annualised basis.

This is welcome news for Asia’s importers who took in a world leading volume of nearly 170 million metric tonnes last year from global suppliers. The volumes in question are visibly firming up an LNG cargo corridor from the US to Asian markets, gradually shifting American exports from Europe. 

More so, as Asian markets see lower volumes from Qatar in the wake of outages caused by the Iran war and transit disruptions in the key maritime artery of the Strait of Hormuz. Indeed, in a bidding war to secure LNG cargoes, the Asians are more than holding their own.

In particular, South Korea, Japan, India, and China took around 40% all US LNG available in a competitive spot market at the height of the Iran war in March and April, according to trading sources. If anything, the development has amplified the investment case for US LNG.

And everyone wants in given market forecasts indicate the US may account for more than one-third of global LNG supply in the early 2030s, and demand expansion looks set to continue into the 2050s, according to Shell’s 2026 LNG Outlook.

An amplified investment case

EIA data points to the US adding 12.7 bcf/d of LNG export capacity between 2016 and 2024. It is projected to add a further 13.3 bcf/d by 2030. Given that US President Donald Trump’s ambition is to double the country’s LNG production by the end of the decade, many forecasters as well as industry insiders say a trillion-dollar opportunity potentially beckons over the next 15 years.

For instance, S&P Global Energy currently estimates the US LNG supply chain valuation to exceed $1 trillion through 2040, and future export activity to generate more than $2.9 trillion in total revenues for American businesses.

But this ‘made in America’ story has a distinct global flavour that will likely come to the foreground at Gastech 2026 in Bangkok, Thailand. It would not be lost on delegates at one of the world’s leading natural gas industry events that around 80% of peak export capacity from currently operational US LNG export facilities is either financed or backed by foreign equity investors.

Among them are QatarEnergy, Japan’s JERA and JAPEX, Australia’s Woodside Energy, Saudi Aramco, Abu Dhabi’s state-owned energy company ADNOC, and its investment arm XRG. As are European majors Shell and TotalEnergies, with American heavyweights ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Venture Global, and Cheniere Energy joining the ride on their home patch. 

All have partaken in multi-year supply deals and direct investment commitments for projects. Thailand's state-owned energy company PTT might soon become the latest entrant seeking both long-term LNG supply as well as equity investments in export terminals.

Expectations of a benign regulatory climate

Most international and US investors can take confidence from a relatively benign regulatory climate, resulting from the Trump Administration’s candid support.

Since Trump came to power and dispensed with developmental pauses introduced by his predecessor Joe Biden, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has streamlined and improved approval processes for LNG terminals, granted market-based rate exemptions, and reduced red tape.

FERC Chair Laura Swett – who is scheduled to speak at Gastech – may likely allude to this changed approach in Bangkok. An ‘open for business’ sign certainly goes a long way in improving investor confidence. 

As things stand, eight terminals are under construction stateside alongside nine operational terminals. Another dozen projects have FERC approval but haven’t been built and six terminals are awaiting approval.

Of course, the wider price environment will dictate both the progress and viability of these projects, and ultimately the strength of the US-Asia LNG corridor. But the business case remains strong based on medium to long-term market permutations.

Energy security is no longer just about having enough. It’s about having options. Four years after the energy crisis reshaped Europe’s gas market, resilience has increasingly moved from ambition to reality. The focus is no longer just on securing supply, but on building an energy system that delivers security, affordability, and sustainability at the same time. Europe has made significant progress. It has diversified supply sources, expanded LNG infrastructure, strengthened market integration, and improved its ability to respond to disruptions. As a result, the continent is far better prepared to respond to disruptions. But resilience should not be mistaken for certainty. 

“The sort of Silicon Valley model is running into a real-world infrastructure constraint,” Ben Dell, managing partner and co-founder of Kimmeridge, said in an interview on Wednesday at Bloomberg News headquarters in New York.

Kimmeridge holds stakes in natural gas producers and in Commonwealth LNG, a planned terminal to export the fuel from Louisiana. Though US gas demand is expected to climb as new power plants are built to provide electricity for the artificial-intelligence boom, Dell said delays to data-center projects would likely result in cuts to those forecasts.

US gas producers have high hopes that AI will drive up consumption of the fuel, which has traded at relatively low prices domestically for most of the past decade as supply from fracking swamped demand. But investor skepticism over Big Tech’s spending and public opposition to data centers are creating additional headwinds for gas bulls.

While most of the 30 billion cubic feet a day of expected US gas demand growth is from liquefied natural gas exports, Dell said about 5 billion to 10 billion a day could be driven by data centers — though delays could mean AI-related consumption is at the lower end of that range. 

Data centers are rapidly becoming a political issue for the upcoming US midterm elections, and growing pushback and litigation at the local level will add to the risk of postponements or cancellations, Dell said. Bipartisan opposition to data centers is rising in states including Pennsylvania, Texas and Ohio, which were once seen as friendlier to the projects, he added.

In Dell’s view, the ideal data center proposal would be “zero impact,” with no net effect on water usage, land, emissions or power prices, he said.

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That’s where a federally funded field laboratory just began a vanguard test that may show whether fracking techniques used to produce oil can also tap underground heat to produce energy.

At the moment, there are scant places around the globe with the right properties to generate geothermal electricity; the current test, however, could make a case for geothermal plants virtually anywhere.

Kristie McLin, manager of Utah FORGE, the Energy Department field laboratory, said she was excited and nervous as her crew starting pumping water into the ground. “It’s butterflies really,” she said. “With geothermal technology, we have seen that initial liftoff and we’re advancing significantly what we can do economically.”

A new era for geothermal

The new drilling techniques are expensive, the industry is still tiny and the sole public player, Fervo Energy Co., has had a chilly reception on public markets. 

However, if the new strategies work, the upside is immense, proponents say — a gusher of electricity that is cheap, constant and nearly emission-free. And while the Trump administration has severed federal support of solar and wind farms, it is still spending to try to make green energy happen in the Utah desert. 

Geothermal energy is nothing new; engineers have been tapping the Earth for steam for decades, but only in relatively rare regions where they could find underground reservoirs of water. At the moment, there are about 100 geothermal plants in the US, supplying somewhere around 0.4% of the country’s electricity. 

Recently, however, engineers and entrepreneurs have started working on a new approach: using the same drilling techniques for oil and gas fracking to create underground reservoirs where there were none. Water pumped down the well expands little cracks in the rock and then returns to the surface via another well, a so-called closed-loop system, essentially a subterranean steam plant that can spin power turbines up top for extended periods of time, if not indefinitely. 

From pilot to potential

FORGE, which stands for Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy, was launched during the Obama administration, primarily to test the thesis. More recently, Fervo and other startups have joined the push.

Preliminary tests from FORGE and Fervo, which has drilled in the desert nearby, were promising. The goal, according to McLin, is to make geothermal energy possible pretty much anywhere the Earth burbles at 200°C within five or so kilometers of the surface. This would put much of the American West on the map for geothermal electricity, theoretically precluding a host of new fossil fuel plants. 

But McLin and other scientists have a few concerns. The test at FORGE, which may last up to four months, is designed to figure out if the regurgitated water will stay hot for an extended period or cool to the point where it won’t generate electricity. Scientists also fret over whether all the drilling and pumping will trigger earthquakes and how much water will be lost in the process, a sensitive issue given the extended drought in much of the American West. 

Growing geothermal potential in the US

“There’s potential,” said Annick Adjei, a senior research analyst at Wood Mackenzie, an energy analytics firm. “But the risk is really in repeatability. We need a bit more in the way of milestones to see how things will go.”

While there are geothermal hotspots around the world, namely in Iceland and Kenya, the US has two critical ingredients: an abundance of open space and a glut of fracking know-how. The Energy Department reckons there’s enough potential geothermal energy to power the country five times over.

Perhaps because of those things, geothermal is arguably the only renewable energy technology garnering widespread bipartisan support. Since 2020, the government has committed $328 million to FORGE and the Trump administration has kept incentives for geothermal largely intact. 

In part because of that funding, the cost of building new geothermal capacity in the US is now on par with other renewable sources and cheaper than coal plants, offshore wind farms and nuclear, according to a recent report from Lazard Inc.

The AI boom, meanwhile, has improved economics on the demand side, as developers hustle to lock up pretty much any power generation they can get. Geothermal is a less volatile source than solar and wind, a major plus for those in the business of running large language models 24 hours a day. 

Fervo already has an agreement to feed power to Alphabet Inc., though it doesn’t expect to generate any geothermal electricity in Utah until the fourth quarter. Its shares have fallen by nearly 40% since it went public in May on fears revenue may lag expectations.

“Anyone that wants to wait around for other project results is going to find themselves in a very disadvantaged position,” Fervo CEO Tim Latimer told analysts. “Because we have a huge set of customers who are certainly not waiting for any other additional milestones on top of what we’ve already demonstrated.” 

If the FORGE test goes well, McLin said focus will shift to drilling farther into the Earth — where temperatures are hotter — and more efficiently. “Being able to go deeper for cheaper is how I say it,” McLin explained. “Eventually, we could unlock geothermal to be everywhere.”

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.