US oil prices finished higher for the first time in three weeks as US attacks on oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela and airstrikes against militants in Nigeria offset progress in Ukraine peace talks... after falling 1.3% to $56.52 a barrel on peace talk progress last week while the contract price for the benchmark US light sweet crude for January delivery fell 1.4% to expire at $56.66 per barrel, the contract price for the benchmark US light sweet crude for February delivery edged higher in early Asian trading Monday, as geopolitical risk reentered the pricing equation through rising tensions between Washington and Caracas, following the U.S. interception of an oil tanker in international waters off the Venezuelan coast, then traded higher in New York on Trump’s announcement of a “total and complete” blockade of sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers last week, and on less than productive talks between U.S., European and Ukrainian officials in Florida over the weekend, and settled $1.49, or 2.6% higher, at $58.01 a barrel, as traders saw a risk of disruption to oil exports after the U.S. tried to intercept an oil tanker near Venezuela a day earlier, and after Ukraine’s drones damaged two vessels and piers in Russia…oil prices edged lower in early Asian trading on Tuesday, after the US said it might sell the Venezuelan crude it had seized, while increased Ukrainian attacks on Russian ships and ports heightened concerns, but barely moved in later trading on global markets, caught between fears of conflict and forecasts of too much supply, then moved higher during the US session as the market weighed geopolitical risks and stronger than expected U.S. economic growth, and settled 37 cents higher at $58.38 a barrel, as traders assessed stronger-than-expected U.S. economic growth and the risk of disruptions to oil supplies from Venezuela and Russia…oil prices rose slightly during Asian trading on Wednesday, extending gains from the previous session, supported by strong US economic growth and concerns about supply disruptions from Venezuela and Russia, and continued rising on global markets with tensions over Venezuela adding to supply-disruption fears and marking the largest five-day gain since October 27, but failed to hold those gains during US trading and settled 3 cents lower at $58.35 a barrel amid a combination of position-squaring in thin markets, coupled with heightened geopolitical tensions including the U.S. blockade on Venezuela…oil rose slightly during Asian trading on the Friday after Christmas, after the United States intensified economic pressure on Venezuelan exports and carried out airstrikes against Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria, but fell more than a $1 in early afternoon US trading, as traders weighed a looming global supply glut, and eyed a potential Ukraine peace deal ahead of talks this weekend between Ukrainian President Zelensky and U.S. President Trump, and settled $1.61 or 2.7% lower at $56.74 a barrel following reports of significant progress in Ukraine peace talks, fueling expectations that lifted Russian sanctions could add millions more barrels to an already oversupplied market...oil prices still managed to hold onto a 0.1% gain for the week, while the price of the February contract finished 0.4% higher …
Meanwhile, natural gas prices also finished higher for the first time in three weeks, after serious cold reappeared in the forecasts for the densely populated Northeast for the next two weeks….after falling 3.1% to $3.984 per mmBTU last week on continued forecasts for mild weather until January, the price of the benchmark natural gas contract for January delivery opened 1.9 cents lower on Monday, as pre-market trading was emboldened by a bullish shift to early January forecasts, and slumped to $3.797 by 10:35AM before gradually reclaiming the opening price range and settling 1.9 cents lower at $3.965 per mmBTU, as traders weighed exceptionally mild Christmas week forecasts and record high production against colder midday forecasts…natural gas prices showed early signs of stabilization Tuesday, as weather models diverged, and traders positioned for the expiration of the January natural gas contract, and rose 15.3 cents, or 4% by 08:59 AM, boosted by record gas flows to LNG export plants and forecasts for more demand than had been expected over the next two weeks, then ripped higher to finish 44.3 cents or 11.2% higher at $4.408 per mmBTU, their biggest daily gain in thirty-two months, as colder weather forecasts collided with thinning holiday liquidity….January natural gas futures rose to $4.593 early in the Wednesday session, supported by forecasts for colder weather and robust gas flows to liquefied natural gas export plants, but lost steam and retreated as weather models trimmed heating demand and traders squared their positions ahead of the holiday, and settled 16.6 cents higher at $4.242 per mmBTU, with liquidity and attention shifting to the February contract, which also moved lower ahead of its roll into the front-month position on Monday…natural gas prices opened lower Friday but rose from there, with thin trading of the January contract, as traders closed out their remaining positions and the January contract expired 12.4 cents higher at $4.366 per mmBTU, and thus finished 9.6% higher for the week, while the more actively traded natural gas contract for February delivery settled 11.7 cents higher at $3.877 per mmBTU and was up 5.8% for the week...
NOTE: after Trump declared December 24th and December 26th to be national holidays, shutting down non-essential government services for both days, the EIA announced that its weekly petroleum status report for the week ending December 19th and its weekly natural gas storage report would be delayed until Monday, December 29th at 10:30 A.M, so we don’t have either of them this week….that also appears to mean we’ll be getting two such reports next week, although nothing specific has been said about the timing of the regularly scheduled reports..
This Week's Rig Count
Due to Christmas on Thursday, this week’s rig count was released on Tuesday December 23rd, so it only accounts for rig changes over four days…Nonetheless, the US rig count was up by 3 over the period ending December 23rd, the 11th increase in seventeen weeks, as the number of rigs targeting oil was up by three, while the count of rigs targeting natural gas was unchanged, and miscellaneous rigs were also unchanged…for a quick snapshot of this week's rig count, we are again including below a screenshot of the rig count summary pdf from Baker Hughes...in the table below, the first column shows the active rig count as of December 23rd, the second column shows the change in the number of working rigs between last week’s count (December 19th) and this week’s (December 23rd) count, the third column shows last week’s December 19th active rig count, the 4th column shows the change between the number of rigs running on December 23rd and the number running on the Friday of the same weekof a year ago, and the 5th column shows the number of rigs that were drilling at the end of that reporting period a year ago, which in this week’s case was the 27th of December, 2024…
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EOG Utica Oil Well Results Increase Interest in Mahoning County Marcellus Drilling News --The EOG Resources-owned Wehr Spring Valley Farm well in Ellsworth may signal a resurgence in the oil and gas industry in Mahoning County, Ohio. Producing 40,489 barrels of oil in its first quarter, the well significantly outperformed neighboring sites, validating predictions that the Utica play would yield oil as it moves north. Regional leaders and attorneys attribute this success to advanced drilling technologies, specifically improved surfactant chemistry and closer fracturing stages. This production spike in the Wehr well has revitalized local interest in mineral rights and spurred infrastructure investments, such as Vallourec’s $48 million pipe mill expansion, highlighting the region’s growing economic potential.
Ellsworth oil and gas well increases interest in Mahoning County — When Youngstown / Warren Regional Chamber President and CEO Guy Coviello was asked if the amount of oil and gas produced in the third quarter of this year by a new horizontal oil and gas well in Ellsworth is good news for the area’s oil and gas industry, he offered two thumbs up. “The numbers are starting to prove what we predicted a few years ago — that the Utica play will move north and be rich in oil,” he said. The EOG Ohio-owned well is called the Wehr Spring Valley Farm and is at the corner of state Route 45 and Leffingwell Road. It generated 40,489 barrels of oil and 203,299 MCF of natural gas during the third quarter of this year, its first quarter of production, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. For comparison, there are 10 other horizontal oil and gas wells in Mahoning County. None of them produced more than 339 barrels of oil in the third quarter, and none produced more than 39,899 MCF of natural gas in the third quarter. Horizontal wells began to be developed in the Mahoning Valley about a dozen years ago. But neither Mahoning nor Trumbull County has seen the kind of high production numbers as Columbiana County wells have seen in recent years. Coviello said the Regional Chamber predicted that good production would come north from Columbiana County because of reports from Cleveland State University and “strategic decisions made by companies like Encino Energy. A lot of this is the result of new exploration and production technology.” EOG in recent months purchased the oil and gas rights in the Mahoning and Columbiana areas that were previously held by Encino. The new Ellsworth well is one of those leases. Coviello added, “This is why we have been focused on helping the industry with favorable public policy, talent expansion and housing. A lake-to-river pipeline along Route 11 and permitting reform are essential elements to maximizing the play.” He noted that the Youngstown-Warren area has “already begun seeing the benefits” of increased oil and gas production in the region with the recent expansion” at Vallourec pipe mill in Youngstown. Last month, Vallourec broke ground on a $48 million investment in a new premium steel pipe threading line to serve the oil and gas industry. Mike Chadsey, director of external affairs for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, was asked about the production numbers at the Ellsworth well and said, “The industry continues to be encouraged by the production reports from Mahoning County and the Mahoning Valley overall. The continued investment and activity show that producers in the area are expanding the area of the Utica.” Nils Johnson of the Law Offices of Johnson and Johnson of Canfield has worked with landowners and energy companies in the Mahoning Valley for many years. He said this week that production numbers at the Ellsworth well and technology improvements have increased interest in Mahoning County oil and gas. That includes property owners and those who want to buy mineral rights. “Our phones are ringing off the hook, as it should be,” he said. In the past couple weeks, property owners have been approached about leasing their mineral rights for oil and gas exploration, he said. Johnson described two ways in which oil and gas companies have improved the ways they hydraulically fracture their horizontal wells in order to improve the amount of oil and gas being produced in wells such as the Wehr Spring Farm well and others in the region. One has been in the “surfactants that make the water more slippery” in the fracking process, Johnson said. He called it the “secret sauce, the frack fluids that are injected to break open the rock, have been improved greatly. If you inject regular water into shale, there are clays in the shale that will swell and clog everything up,” he said. “So there are things called clay stays and surfactants that make the water more slippery that are added. And they adjust these (formulas). And over time they get better and better at it. So they have kind of figured out the secret,” he said. The Richard Wheeler blog on the sunitausa.com website stated in August that the chemistry behind hydraulic fracturing “often gets overlooked,” saying that “Surfactants are key additives that control viscosity, reduce surface tension and improve fluid recovery.” They help unlock hydrocarbons from tight formations and boost well productivity, he said. Johnson said another way gas and oil companies have improved production from horizontal wells is by changing the “spacing” of stages of fracturing. Instead of “completing the wells every 600 or 700 feet, it’s now every 200 for 300 feet,” Johnson said. While the production numbers have soared in Columbiana and other counties to the south, the production numbers from horizontal wells in Mahoning County over the past decade have “kind of condemned Mahoning County” from an oil and gas perspective, Johnson said. Earlier Mahoning County results “weren’t very good. But with the upgrade in technology, a lot of these that seem to have been condemned are springing back to life,” he said. There is a horizontal well in Ellsworth adjacent to the new Wehr Spring Valley Farm well called the Hendricks well. It produced 343 barrels of oil in the third quarter and 6,295 MCF of natural gas, according to ODNR data. Johnson said he believes the results at the Hendricks well historically are among the reasons Mahoning County has not been viewed as favorably as some other areas for oil and gas production. He said he believes the Spring Valley Farm results may be changing that. Johnson said he believes improved methods Hillcorp Energy Co. is employing at horizontal wells it owns in the area helped production numbers at those wells. “This technology — the experimentation with what frack fluids to use and and how close do you put the stages of the frack process — everybody is upping their game, and that always happens when you move into a new basin and start trying to develop a new rock,” Johnson said. He said Encino and Hillcorp have been using new methods for several years. He mentioned Encino wells in Hanover and Knox townships in western Columbiana County that have had success using new hydraulic fracturing methods. The wells he referenced produced natural gas of 200,000, 130,000, 179,000, 151,000, 192,000, 155,000, 147,000 and 164,000 MCF of natural gas in the third quarter, according to a ODNR database. Each well’s oil production was in the 11,000 barrels and less range. He said such wells are located near wells whose production was “not very good, but they used new fracks and so forth and did pretty well,” adding “This (Utica / Point Pleasant Shale) is one of the big oil and gas fields in the world.” Johnson said that when a shale play, such as the Utica and Point Pleasant in eastern Ohio, is “developed, it takes time until the geology is understood.” He said, “They run tests and try to determine which frack fluids are going to work best, and that takes a while to work out how much horsepower you need to hit it with,” he said. Johnson showed a map from the EOG website while discussing the distribution of dry natural gas production areas in the easternmost part of Mahoning County and “wet” gas on the westernmost parts of the county. The map shows four regions designated by four colors moving east to west with dry gas first, then a section “starting to make some fluids,” with the next section producing “volatile oil,” and the fourth section having “heavier oil.” Johnson said his advice to property owners considering oil and gas leases is to talk to a knowledgeable attorney and work with neighbors because “that gives you negotiating clout. And if you have a big enough block, they can’t force you to pool.”
June Road well pad fire was brief, contained --The Great Trail Fire District of Malvern was dispatched to a reported explosion with fire on a well pad on June Road at 7 a.m. Dec. 16. Fire units arrived to find an active fire on the well pad. Great Trail Fire District Chief Ralph Castellucci said additional departments were requested immediately upon dispatch as a precaution. Three departments were initially called but were turned around after crews assessed the situation and confirmed all personnel were safely off the well pad. Firefighters coordinated with personnel on site, and information sharing and personnel accountability were established with EOG Resources Inc., which was actively fracking on the pad at the time of the incident. Company protocols shut down the equipment, Castellucci said. The fire was allowed to burn down and was contained to a vapor tank. The wellheads were not involved in the fire and officials reported minimal damage to equipment on the well pad. “The fire largely burned itself out within approximately 15 minutes,” Castellucci said. “Crews were on scene for about an hour to check conditions, conducting overhaul operations and extinguishing a few remaining smoldering areas. Most of the fire had already gone out on its own.” Emergency Management Director Tom Cottis said reports he saw on the internet describing a major explosion or a fire burning for hours were inaccurate. He said the incident was a brief “flash fire” during the fracking process, one of the most vulnerable stages of operations, and that built-in safety systems worked as designed. “There was a flash and there was a visible column of smoke,” Cottis said. “But it was not a major explosion and it was not a prolonged fire.” Cottis said the appearance of the fire was intensified by snow on the ground, which reflected light and made the flames appear larger and brighter from a distance. Lucas said that effect led to additional calls the following night when residents mistook a routine flare stack for another fire. “From where the caller was, it was right on the horizon line, so it did look like something was on fire, when in reality it was a flare stack doing what it’s supposed to do,” Lucas said.
Ohio Tax Commissioner Putting New O&G Pipelines at Risk - Marcellus Drilling News -- Marcellus Drilling News -- The Ohio Tax Commissioner is facing a lawsuit from Rover Pipeline over an aggressive property tax assessment that inflates the project's market value. The dispute centers on the state treating $2.2 billion in weather-related construction overruns and an unrealistic "infinite lifespan" assumption as value-adding assets. Critics argue that this approach violates constitutional principles of fair market valuation, under which taxes should reflect what a willing buyer would pay rather than total development costs.
Tracking oil and gas waste in Pennsylvania is still a ‘logistical mess’ - The Allegheny Front --How much toxic oil and gas waste is produced in Pennsylvania every year, and where does it end up? Despite state efforts to track it, there’s no way to know for sure. For more than a decade, regulators have been aware of significant problems with their tracking system for the large volumes of waste created by Pennsylvania’s booming fracking industry. Eleven years ago, reporters at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette found that nine Pennsylvania landfills had reported accepting tens of thousands of tons of oil and gas waste more than industry operators said were being sent there. Two years ago, a University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University study found the same unexplained gaps, this time totaling more than 800,000 tons. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection promised to investigate the discrepancies and look into updating its reporting standards for companies. But an Inside Climate News analysis of state records from 2017 to 2024 found that the problem persists. The analysis revealed discrepancies totaling almost 1.4 million tons. Some landfills in the southwestern part of the state report receiving far more oil and gas waste than Pennsylvania operators say was sent. Among the handful of landfills required to tell the state how much oil and gas waste they accept, the collective total reported from 2017 to 2024 in their annual reports was 3.1 million tons. That’s around 80 percent more than the 1.7 million tons Pennsylvania oil and gas operators said they sent to those locations. One theory is that some of the discrepancies, especially at landfills in the southwestern corner of the state, could be caused by large volumes of waste coming from Ohio and West Virginia and being disposed of in those landfills. That would not be included in reports from oil and gas operators in Pennsylvania. Another possibility is that Pennsylvania operators are underreporting the amount of waste they are sending to landfills, just as was found in the Post-Gazette’s investigation in 2014 and the universities’ in 2023. The state’s outdated, disconnected and largely unaudited systems mean that no one—including DEP—knows how much oil and gas waste there is or where all the waste is going, said David Hess, who served as the agency’s secretary from 2001 to 2003 and has closely monitored environmental news in Pennsylvania since then. Without accurate tracking, he said, it’s far more difficult to enforce regulations around spills, leaks, transport and dumping on roads or in public waterways. Contaminants in this waste can include radioactive material, heavy metals and carcinogenic chemicals. “It could be dumped right next to somebody’s house and they would not even know,” Hess said. “It is very important to track where this goes.” He added: “If you don’t actually do the audits and find out where this stuff is actually going, if for no other reason than to keep the operators honest, it becomes very difficult to say with a straight face that you’re really effectively regulating this stuff. Because you just don’t know.” For months, Inside Climate News has been asking DEP to clarify how it tracks oil and gas waste. Although a spokesperson, Neil Shader, confirmed that the agency does review landfills’ annual operations reports and audits landfills’ oil and gas waste numbers “as needed,” DEP did not respond to questions about the state’s different systems for tracking this waste or the large volume discrepancies in the records. Shader said that the agency does not regularly audit landfills’ records unless there is an investigation or enforcement action underway. As fracking in Pennsylvania enters its third decade, the volume of waste in the state’s landfills keeps getting bigger. Operators reported producing almost 8.8 million tons of solid waste between 2017 and 2024 and sending about 6.3 million tons of that to landfills in the state. All told, the operators say they’re producing a little over a million tons a year of solid oil and gas waste. For comparison, residents and businesses in all of Allegheny County produce about 900,000 tons of waste annually. Most of Pennsylvania’s oil and gas waste goes to landfills within the state, the weight equivalent of dumping two Empire State Buildings every year. Inside Climate News found the largest discrepancies at Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill, Imperial Landfill and Arden Landfill in the southwestern corner of the state. Together, these three landfills accounted for about 98 percent of the almost 1.4 million-ton total discrepancies. They are close to the borders with Ohio and West Virginia, suggesting that waste from those two states might account for much of the difference.
Twenty years into fracking, Pennsylvania has yet to reckon with its radioactive waste - When John Quigley became the secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in 2015, he knew that he would be busy trying to keep up with the consequences of the state’s rapid increase in natural gas production. But when reports landed on his desk that trucks carrying oil and gas waste were tripping radioactivity alarms at landfills, he was especially concerned. Ten years after the alarms first unsettled Quigley, fracking in Pennsylvania has continued to grow, generating huge volumes of oil and gas waste and wastewater in the process. Seventy-two percent of the solid waste ends up in landfills within state borders, and a truck carrying it sets off a radioactivity alarm every day on average, an Inside Climate News analysis found.Radioactive elements such as radium, uranium and thorium in rocks deep underground come to the surface as a byproduct of oil and gas drilling. Experts have long worried about the potential health and environmental impacts of this waste. Radium exposure is linked to an increased risk for cancer, anemia and cataracts.New research from the University of Pittsburgh suggests that the wastewater created by fracking the Marcellus formation, the ancient gas deposit beneath Pennsylvania, is far more radioactive than previously understood. And there is also evidence that some of it is getting into the environment: Researchers have found radioactive sediment downstream from some landfills’ and wastewater treatment plants’ outfalls.But the state has barely shifted its approach to regulating the waste. “Nothing material has been done,” said Quigley, who left in 2016. “Nothing has really changed.” In 2023, radioactivity alarms were triggered more than 550 times at Pennsylvania landfills because of oil and gas waste, according to an analysis of landfills’ annual operations reports conducted by Inside Climate News. The vast majority of this waste was disposed of on-site; landfills rejected the waste only 11 times. Radium-226 was the most common isotope cited as the reason for the alarm. DEP issued a new guidance document for solid waste facilities and well operators that handle radioactive materials in 2022, with some of the changes specifically aimed at the fracking industry. Landfills have been required to submit a Radiation Protection Action Plan to the state since 2001, covering protocols for worker safety, monitoring and detection and records and reporting, and DEP may require sites to test regularly for the long-lasting radium-226 and radium-228 if they have received large volumes of radioactive oil and gas waste. But DEP has fallen behind on many other aspects of regulating this waste. In 2021, then-Gov. Tom Wolf said the state would require regular radium testing of landfills’ leachate, a liquid byproduct created when rainwater passes through waste, accumulating contamination. Wolf’s announcement came more than five years after DEP had recommended adding radium to leachate testing requirements. But leachate testing results from 2021 through 2024 acquired by Inside Climate News via a right-to-know request do not contain results for radium. In an email, DEP spokesperson Neil Shader said the agency does not currently require landfills to test for it. He did not explain why the policy has not yet been implemented. “DEP is still finalizing a policy around radiological material in leachate,” he said.Understanding the scope of the problem is difficult because Pennsylvania’s tracking of oil and gas waste and leachate remains disorganized and piecemeal, an Inside Climate News investigation found. Landfills are supposed to turn away waste that is too radioactive based on the total volume of waste they have already accepted that quarter. If the volume estimates are inaccurate or misreported, it could mean that some sites are exceeding the allowable amounts.Meanwhile, DEP’s last comprehensive study of radioactivity in oil and gas waste is more than nine years old, even though the agency said at the time that follow-up investigations were needed. DEP confirmed to Inside Climate News that it is studying the radioactivity of landfill leachate but offered no timeline for publication.The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry trade group, maintains that the solid waste and wastewater generated by fracking in Pennsylvania is well managed and poses no health risks to the public or workers. Landfill employees face less danger from oil and gas waste than someone getting a routine CT scan, the group argues, and landfill permits contain restrictions on how much oil and gas waste they can accept in any given year.
The ‘toxic cocktail’ brewing in Pennsylvania’s waterways - The Allegheny Front - Off a back road in the hilly country south of Pittsburgh, a tributary to the Monongahela River runs through overgrown vegetation and beneath an abandoned railroad trestle, downstream from the Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill. On a cool day in late July, it was swollen with rain. Tire tracks through the dense brush were puddled with muddy water. Environmental scientist Yvonne Sorovacu and local watershed advocate Hannah Hohman visit the landfill site regularly to collect water samples and record signs of contamination. The water here, which flows downhill from the landfill’s discharge point, is often coated with stiff globs of foam, Sorovacu said. The water upstream of the outfall is clear.Over the course of more than a decade, as Pennsylvania’s fracking industry took off, the Westmoreland landfill accepted hundreds of thousands of tons of oil and gas waste and wastewater, toxic and often radioactive byproducts that contain elements and heavy metals from deep inside the earth and synthetic chemicals used in the drilling process. That melange can include radionuclides like radium, uranium and thorium as well as harmful substances like arsenic, lead and benzene.After years of violations at Westmoreland, scientists and residents are keeping a close watch on the landfill, monitoring for any signs that runoff has made its way into public waterways. But oil and gas waste is going to landfills across the state, often with far less scrutiny. At least twenty-two other landfills currently take Pennsylvania oil and gas waste, and some also accept it from other states.Oil and gas companies operating in Pennsylvania reported creating nearly 8.8 million tons of solid waste between 2017 and 2024, an Inside Climate News analysis of state records found. That works out to an annual average that tops the waste produced by every resident and commercial enterprise in Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located.According to Pennsylvania oil and gas operators, about 6.3 million tons of this waste went to landfills in the state. But the true amount of oil and gas waste reaching the state’s landfills is likely much larger, an Inside Climate News investigation found.And mounting evidence suggests that this ever-increasing volume is harming the streams, creeks and rivers where Pennsylvanians fish, swim, kayak and source drinking water.In one case, at Max Environmental Technologies Bulger in southwestern Pennsylvania, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified the radioactive element radium, a common contaminant in oil and gas waste, as one of the likely causes of the pollution in nearby creeks. In a 2023 study, scientists from the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University found elevated levels of radium in the sediment downstream of the outfall at five of the landfills taking the industry’s waste.Scientists have also discovered radium build-up in freshwater mussels’ bodies and shells downstream of facilities that have treated oil and gas waste.Four of the landfills taking oil and gas waste are out of compliance with their permits, an Inside Climate News review found.Another seven have been out of compliance with the Clean Water Act for six months or more in the last five years.Thirteen are discharging wastewater or stormwater into waterways the EPA classified as “impaired,”too polluted or otherwise degraded to meet water-quality standards. State regulators have been aware of these issues for years, but little has changed in the way the waste is handled, transported or disposed of. In 2020, then Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced the publication of a grand jury investigation into fracking, which concluded that Pennsylvania had failed in its responsibility to protect the public from the environmental and health impacts of the industry. One of the grand jury’s eight recommendations for the state government called for clearer labeling of fracking waste during transport.“Our government and the shale gas industry currently have no long-term sustainable solution to managing the toxic waste generated by fracking operations,” the panel wrote. “At the very least, the industry should be required to more safely and responsibly transport this waste around the Commonwealth.” In Pennsylvania, contamination from fracking is layered on top of earlier waves of pollution from coal mining, manufacturing and oil drilling. One of the most prevalent sources of contamination is abandoned mine drainage, a type of pollution that comes from coal mines; like a number of other landfills in Pennsylvania, Westmoreland was built on top of a shuttered mining operation. Despite decades of clean-up efforts, more than 5,500 miles of streams in Pennsylvania are still affected by abandoned mine drainage, with devastating consequences for aquatic wildlife. Acid mine drainage, a type of abandoned mine pollution, is the second leading cause of stream pollution in Pennsylvania.There’s been little research into what this jumble of pollutants might mean for the environment.“When you’re mixing these things together into some kind of toxic cocktail, what are the impacts going to be on Pennsylvania’s waters?” said John Quigley, who previously served as the head of both the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. “The cumulative impacts of this could be horrendous.” Westmoreland did not respond to requests for comment. Max Environmental Technologies, which owns two landfills, said in a statement that its Bulger location is currently closed and its Yukon locationis not accepting oil and gas waste right now.When reached for comment about threats to the environment posed by fracking waste, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a gas industry trade group, said that existing state and federal laws as well as companies’ safety practices “have proven to be protective of public health and the environment, and our members remain committed to operating safely, transparently, and responsibly.”Sorovacu and Hohman saw that one side of the stream near Westmoreland was a reddish color on the July day they were collecting samples. “You can see the historic acid mine drainage here,” said Sorovacu, who works for Protect PT, a local grassroots environmental group that has been monitoring the landfill for years. “All of our waterways are impacted by legacy [pollution], but this stream does have drainage from the landfill, so it’s one that we’re concerned about,” she said. “It’s never only one thing.” As if to emphasize her point, the other side of the stream was a chalky white as it poured from a culvert on the opposite bank. Aluminum-heavy drainage from the coal mine beneath the landfill was a likely culprit, she said. The color acted almost like a visual calling card for water coming from the landfill.
Chart Toppers: Frac Spreads Get a Modest December Boost, But the Stocking Isn’t Full --Frac spreads have strengthened modestly so far in December 2025, averaging $2.15/MMBtu—up 13% from November but still 47% below December 2024 levels. Propane remains the largest single contributor at $0.85/MMBtu, followed by natural gasoline at $0.74/MMBtu. While both are down from year-ago levels, they continue to dominate the overall spread. Normal butane and isobutane provide additional support at $0.41/MMBtu and $0.27/MMBtu, respectively. The ethane frac has continued to recover but remains negative, contributing –$0.13/MMBtu. Overall, modest gains in heavier NGL values are supporting the frac spread, but economics remain well below year-ago levels.
Green County, PA, OKs Phase 1 of New Data Center with 910-MW Plant -- Marcellus Drilling News -- The Greene County Planning Commission recently voted 8-1 to approve Phase 1 of “Project Hummingbird,” a massive data center complex proposed for the former Robena Mine site in Monongahela Township. This initial phase focuses on land grading, reclamation, and site preparation for a “power island” featuring two natural gas turbines totaling 910 megawatts (MW) and a water treatment plant. The plant will use Marcellus/Utica gas to power it.
Hochul signs bill to repeal gas subsidies - -- Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill Friday to repeal subsidies for gas infrastructure. The bill signing delivers a minor win for environmental advocates after the Hochul administration sparked their ire by approving a new gas pipeline and delaying implementation of a building electrification law. But the bill was signed with a provision delaying implementation for one year. “It’s simply unfair, especially when so many people are struggling right now, to expect existing utility ratepayers to foot the bill for a gas hookup at a brand new house that is not their own,” Hochul (D) said in a statement. The NY HEAT Act would get rid of the state’s 100-foot rule, which requires utilities to connect a new building to an existing gas main if it is within that perimeter. The cost of the connection is then passed on to all ratepayers.
Trump Pauses 5 Offshore Wind Deals; Connected to Constitution Pipe? -- Marcellus Drilling News -- A big announcement from the Trump Department of the Interior (DOI). Yesterday, the DOI announced an immediate pause on all large-scale offshore wind project leases currently under construction in the United States. There are five such projects along the East Coast, including one off the coast of New York State. The DOI said the decision stems from “national security risks” identified by the Department of War in classified reports, specifically concerning radar interference known as “clutter” caused by massive turbine blades. Trump previously negotiated a deal with NY Governor Kathy Hochul to allow two pipeline projects—the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) project and the Constitution Pipeline—in return for building the offshore Empire Wind 1 project (see White House Claims NY Gov. “Caved” on Pipelines, Hochul Says No). Our immediate thought is to question whether this pullback on the wind project is somehow connected to the pipeline deal.
Indian Chemical Co. Starts Up in W. Virginia Using M-U Butane - Marcellus Drilling News -- Natural gas liquids (NGLs) include “heavier” hydrocarbons that come out of the ground along with methane (CH4). The most prevalent NGL by volume is ethane (C2H6). Another common NGL is propane (C3H8). And yet another is butane (C4H10). Depending on the location, all of those NGLs are produced in abundance in the Marcellus/Utica region. So, it should not come as a surprise that manufacturing plants that use NGLs as feedstock would decide to locate facilities in the region to leverage low-cost NGLs. India-based Thirumalai Chemicals Ltd. (TCL) is moving into pre-commissioning and startup activities at its new manufacturing facility in West Virginia (near Moundsville, Marshall County) and is progressing toward startup operations.
Antero CEO Explains Decision to “Double Down” on West Virginia -- Marcellus Drilling News -- Two weeks ago, MDN brought you the news that Antero Resources, the country’s fifth-largest natural gas producer and largest producer in West Virginia, had cut a deal to buy WV driller and midstreamer HG Energy II for a combined (upstream & midstream) $3.9 billion (see Antero Resources Buys HG Energy II in Deal Worth $3.9 Billion). The deal will add a massive 385,000 net acres to Antero’s existing ~475,000 net core Marcellus acreage position, bringing with it another 850 MMcfe/d in production. The same day we told you that Antero was selling its considerable Ohio Utica assets for $1.2 billion (see NOG & INR Partner to Buy Antero Resources’ Ohio Utica for $1.2B). In an unusual move, Antero CEO Michael Kennedy published a newspaper column to explain the company’s decision to “double down” on WV.
FERC approves changes to Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate route - Pittsburgh Business Times - FERC approved changes in the certificate of public convenience and necessity for Southgate .. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has signed off on significant changes.
FERC clears path for revised MVP Southgate natural gas project -- A controversial proposed natural gas pipeline in North Carolina has passed the latest hurdle to move forward, receiving approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. FERC announced Thursday it has approved an amendment to change the route, pipe diameter and gas-carrying capacity for the Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate project. This means Southgate would extend the pipeline from Pittsylvania County, Virginia into Rockingham County, North Carolina. Opponents to Southgate say the project needed a new application, not an amendment, because the pipeline’s proposed route, size and impact have changed drastically since FERC issued the original Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity in 2020. Jessica Sims, Virginia field coordinator at Appalachian Voices, said Southgate will harm Virginia and North Carolina waterways and communities. “The project necessitated, at the very least, an environmental impact statement. Ideally, this totally revamped project should require a new application to fully consider its impacts,” Sims said. “FERC required neither and has failed impacted communities in its Southgate decision.” Southgate has been a subject of debate since it was proposed in 2018. North Carolina’s DEQ denied a water quality permit for the project in 2020, NC Newsline previously reported. The controversy has continued in recent months. Earlier this year, environmental advocates mounted a challenge to the methane gas pipeline. In October, a FERC analysis found the project potentially redundant. “Right now, people want to see lower electric bills and know their drinking water is safe,” said Steph Gans, assistant director at Clean Water for North Carolina. “This decision does the opposite; it will raise bills and pollute water.” These concerns come about as a rival pipeline undergoes a permitting process at the same time. The Williams Companies expansion of their Transco pipelines, called the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project, expects to receive a decision from FERC on a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity in early February. FERC’s October analysis said the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project could eliminate needs for Southgate, NC Newsline previously reported. “We conclude the Transco System Alternative would be technically and economically feasible and practical,” FERC staff wrote in the document. In the meantime, the North Carolina DEQ’s Division of Air Quality issued permit modifications for two compressor stations associated with the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project on Thursday. Transco plans to upgrade two existing compressor stations along the pipeline — one in Mooresville and one in Lexington. “The leading preference is that neither [pipeline is] built because of the level of emissions that they would bring, and that’s locking us into decades more of fossil fuel infrastructure,” Sims told NC Newsline. “Neither project serves the communities through which it passes.”Shawn Day, a spokesperson for MVP Southgate, said the amended project is necessary to meet public demand for natural gas and its construction and operation will not have a significant environmental impact.He pointed out that in the October environmental assessment, FERC’s “staff analysis here does not consider non-environmental aspects of the project objectives, such as supply diversity and other market issues, which could affect the ultimate viability of the system alternative.” Representatives for FERC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “We look forward to securing all necessary authorizations to build this important project, to provide homes and businesses across North Carolina with the affordable, reliable and lower-carbon energy needed to power modern life,” Day wrote in an email. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality will issue its decision on a clean water permit within the next two months, followed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to the amendment.
North Carolina Grants Water Permit for Transco Gas Pipeline Expansion (P&GJ) — The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Division of Water Resources has issued a water quality certification with conditions for Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. LLC’s proposed natural gas pipeline expansion in North Carolina. The certification covers the Southeast Supply Enhancement Project, which includes upgrades to existing pipeline infrastructure and the installation of new 42-inch-diameter pipe. The project includes about 4.4 miles of pipeline in Rockingham County, known as the Eden Loop, and roughly 24.1 miles in Guilford, Forsyth and Davidson counties, known as the Salem Loop. Because construction will disturb wetlands, waterways and streambanks, Transco applied for a Clean Water Act Section 401 Individual Water Quality Certification, along with riparian buffer authorizations for the Jordan Lake and Randleman Lake watersheds. The authorizations are required where vegetation must be maintained along waterways and would be removed during construction. “Safeguarding water quality and North Carolinians' health remains paramount to the department,” DEQ Secretary Reid Wilson said. “That's why DWR's certification for the pipeline expansion project included conditions to protect wetlands and streams.” According to DWR, the review considered more than 1,000 public comments and testimony from two public hearings held in early September. The certification requires Transco to implement a series of environmental protections during and after construction, including oversight by an environmental inspector, limits on construction right-of-way at water crossings, and restoration of disturbed streams and wetlands to pre-construction conditions. The company must also monitor restored wetlands and streams quarterly for at least three years. While Transco is not required to fully offset all impacts through off-site restoration, it has agreed to purchase mitigation credits to compensate for impacts to riparian buffers in the Jordan and Randleman lake areas. DWR noted that while public comments raised broader concerns about economic need, emissions and pipeline safety, the agency’s authority under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act is limited to evaluating impacts on water quality.
U.S. House Passes SPEED Act for Speedier Permitting of Pipelines - Marcellus Drilling News -- On July 25, 2025, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR) and Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) introduced the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act to streamline federal environmental reviews for energy and infrastructure projects, addressing delays blamed for hindering U.S. construction (seeBipartisan SPEED Act for Permitting Reform Introduced in Congress). The bipartisan bill aims to accelerate permitting by limiting the scope of environmental impact reviews to immediate project effects, excluding downstream impacts like carbon emissions from fossil fuel use, and imposing a 150-day deadline for legal challenges. The bill passed the House last week, although its future in the Senate is far less certain
Cheniere Completes Train 4 at Corpus Christi Stage 3 LNG Project - Cheniere Energy has reached substantial completion on Train 4 at its Corpus Christi Stage 3 LNG project, keeping the multi-train expansion on track as additional units move toward completion in 2026. (P&GJ) — Cheniere Energy has reached substantial completion on Train 4 at its Corpus Christi Liquefaction Stage 3 project in Texas, marking another milestone in the company’s ongoing LNG expansion. Cheniere said Bechtel, the project’s engineering, procurement and construction contractor, transferred care, custody and control of Train 4 to the company on Dec. 19. The Stage 3 project consists of seven midscale trains with combined capacity of more than 10 million tonnes per annum and remains ahead of schedule and on budget, Cheniere said. The company expects the remaining three trains to reach substantial completion in 2026.
US natural gas futures climb on rising export demand --US natural gas futures rose four per cent on Tuesday, boosted by record gas flows to liquefied natural gas export plants and forecasts for more demand than previously expected over the next two weeks. Front-month gas futures for January delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 15.3 cents, or four per cent, at $4.105 per million British thermal units by 08:59 AM ET. Prices ended 0.5 per cent lower on Monday. "The demand for LNG is very strong and they're keeping those numbers near record high. So, that's definitely supporting the market right now," Average gas flows to the eight large US liquefied natural gas export plants have risen to 18.5 bcfd so far this month, up from a monthly record high of 18.2 bcfd in November. On a daily basis, LNG export feedgas was on track to rise to 18.6 bcfd on Tuesday from an average of 18.1 bcfd last week due to increases at facilities including Cameron LNG's two-bcfd plant in Louisiana, Freeport LNG's 2.2-bcfd plant in Texas and Venture Global's 1.6-bcfd Calcasieu plant. LSEG projected average gas demand in the lower 48 states, including exports, would rise from 127.9 bcfd this week to 136.0 bcfd over the next two weeks. The forecast for next week was higher than LSEG's outlook on Monday. Meanwhile, meteorologists forecast weather across the country will remain mostly warmer than normal through January 7, keeping the amount of gas needed to heat homes and businesses lower than usual for this time of year. "We saw the significant sell off due to the warm up that we're experiencing right now. But, as we go to later January, the weather models are turning colder again and that's causing some short covering," Financial firm LSEG said average natural gas output in the lower 48 US states climbed to a record high of 111.1 billion cubic feet per day in December, surpassing November's monthly record of 109.6 bcfd. The Trump administration suspended leases on Monday for five large offshore wind projects that are under construction off the US East Coast over what it called national security concerns. Suspending offshore wind projects reduces expected renewable generation, which means power grids would likely rely more on natural gas for electricity. Dutch and British gas contracts fell earlier on Tuesday, with some weather forecasts indicating a potentially quicker end to a cold spell, and as supply remains stable. Meanwhile, Myanmar is expected to resume liquefied natural gas imports next year after taking delivery of half a cargo last month, ending a more than four-year hiatus in shipments, data and analytics firm Kpler said. (Reporting by Anmol Choubey in Bengaluru; editing by Barbara Lewis)
Bundle Up: Natural Gas Prices Surge Anew — WSJ - Natural gas futures shot 11% higher on fresh forecasts calling for colder temperatures than earlier weather reports had predicted. January gas futures added 44.3 cents per million British thermal units Tuesday to settle at $4.408. The daily gain reclaimed a big chunk of this month's unseasonal swoon and put prices for the heating and power-generation fuel back roughly to where they started the heating season at the end of October. Gas prices took off in November and hit their highest levels since fuel markets spiked following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In early December, forecasts for warmer-than-normal temperatures sparked a selloff. The latest forecasts, however, call for a return to seasonally chilly temperatures in enough places to change the math for energy traders. This time of year they gauge demand by adding up the number of heating degree days, a population-weighted measure of temperatures below 65 degrees Fahrenheit. One weather model that traders watch has added more than 50 heating degree days to its outlook in recent days, though another model predicts warmer weather than that, according to analysts at NatGasWeather.com. "For now, the markets are believing the colder (model) and are up sharply as a result," the trading firm said.
US nat gas futures edge down in volatile trading after hitting high -- US natural gas futures edged down on Wednesday in thin pre-holiday trading, after touching a near two-week high, supported by forecasts for colder weather and robust gas flows to liquefied natural gas export plants. Front-month gas futures for January delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange were down 16.6 cents, or 3.8 per cent at $4.242 per million British thermal units, after hitting their highest level since December 11 at $4.593 earlier in the session. Prices rose more than 11 per cent on Tuesday, marking the contract's sharpest daily rise since October 30. Meteorologists forecast a slight drop in temperatures nationwide through January 8, with heating degree days increasing from 358 on Tuesday to 377 on Wednesday, still below the normal level of 447, but forecasters anticipate colder weather in the days ahead. "The market's a little on edge and that's why it's trading up the last day or so," said Thomas Saal, adding that lower volumes due to the Christmas holiday have contributed to some volatility. Trading volume remains thin at just 19,541 lots so far, reflecting light liquidity in the January 2026 contract during the holiday period. Average gas flows to the eight large US liquefied natural gas export plants have risen to 18.4 bcfd so far this month, up from a monthly record high of 18.2 bcfd in November. "The LNG exports have helped support the market," Saal said. LSEG projected average gas demand in the lower 48 states, including exports, would rise from 127.9 bcfd this week to 136.4 bcfd over the next two weeks. The forecast for next week was higher than LSEG's outlook on Tuesday. Financial firm LSEG said average natural gas output in the lower 48 US states climbed to a record high of 109.8 billion cubic feet per day in December, surpassing November's monthly record of 109.6 bcfd. US energy firms this week added oil and natural gas rigs for the first time in three weeks, energy services firm Baker Hughes said in its closely followed report on Tuesday. Dutch and British gas contracts rose slightly on Wednesday morning amid thin trading ahead of a long Christmas holiday as forecasts of a cold spell are expected to boost demand. In other news, Russia's leading tanker group Sovcomflot received the first Russian-built ice-class tanker for liquefied natural gas from Zvezda Shipyard with plans to get two more next year, Interfax reported on Wednesday, citing the company's CEO.
Back in the Saddle – Gulf of Mexico Oil Production Nears New High, But Will Growth Continue? | RBN Energy --Crude oil production in the U.S.’s portion of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) is poised to top 2 MMb/d for the first time in six years — and only the third time ever. New floating production units (FPUs) and subsea tiebacks keep coming online. And a newcomer to the U.S. GOM, U.K.-based Harbour Energy, just announced a multibillion-dollar deal to acquire LLOG Exploration, a leading Gulf player. As we’ll discuss in today’s RBN blog, a lot is happening in the U.S.’s second-largest oil production area.Way back in January, production started at Shell and Chevron’s Whale FPU (green platform icon in Figure 2 below) in the GOM’s Alaminos Canyon about 200 miles south of Houston. Shell, which operates the project and holds a 60% ownership interest — Chevron owns 40% — discovered oil at the site in 2017 and announced a final investment decision (FID) on Whale in July 2021 (see Last Great American Whale). Shell has said the location has about 480 MMbbl of recoverable reserves, 15 planned wells, and a targeted production peak of 100 Mb/d.Then, in April, Shell also began producing oil at Dover, the second subsea tieback connecting new wells to the Shell-operated Appomattox platform (yellow icon) in the Gulf’s Mississippi Canyon about 170 miles southeast of New Orleans. (Shell holds a 79% stake in Appomattox; a unit of INEOS owns the other 21%.) Wells linked to Shell’s fully owned Dover tieback are estimated to have about 45 MMbbl of potentially recoverable reserves; production from the wells is expected to peak at 20 Mb/d. Also in April — and also in the Mississippi Canyon — Chevron (operator; 60% stake) started production at the Ballymore subsea tieback it owns with TotalEnergies (40%). The three wells that Ballymore links to the Chevron-operated Blind Faith FPU (red icon) are expected to produce up to 75 Mb/d; the recoverable resources at the Ballymore site are estimated to total about 150 MMbbl.Beacon Offshore Energy in July announced the start of production at the Shenandoah floating production system (FPS; light-blue icon), a “regional host facility” it operates in the Walker Ridge area (between the Alaminos and Mississippi canyons) about 150 miles off the coast of Louisiana. Beacon, which shares ownership of the development with Navitas Petroleum and HEQ Offshore, said in October that it had ramped up the output from Shenandoah’s four Phase 1 wells to the targeted 100 Mb/d within only 75 days of first production. Two Phase 2 wells are under development and expected to come online next year.Beacon also has taken FID on Shenandoah South, a nearby resource whose two planned wells — to be connected to the Shenandoah FPS by a 3-mile subsea flowline and riser — are slated for startup in 2028. The FPS’s rated capacity is 120 Mb/d (and 140 MMcf/d) and a 20-Mb/d expansion is planned.Next up for first oil this year was the Salamanca FPU, a newly refurbished platform (orange icon in Figure 2 and photo above; also see February’s Back to Life) in the Keathley Canyon 250 miles southwest of Louisiana that initiated production from the first well at the Leon-Castile fields in September. Four more wells are under development and expected to start up over the next several months. LLOG Exploration is the operator and primary owner of the FPU, whose capacity is 60 Mb/d (and 40 MMcf/d); the co-owners are Repsol and O.G. Oil & Gas. (More on LLOG Exploration and its prospective acquirer in a moment.)A handful of other tieback projects have been completed in recent months or are slated to commence in 2026, each with the potential to add thousands or tens of thousands of barrels a day of additional production in the Gulf. These and the projects we discussed above are expected to help GOM producers offset the natural decline in production from their older offshore wells and maintain the region’s output at or near 2 MMb/d through 2026.Longer-term plans are in the works, too. For example, BP earlier this year initiated construction of its Kaskida floating production platform in the Keathley Canyon (dark-blue icon in Figure 2). The 80-Mb/d facility and the six wells in the project’s first phase are expected to come online in 2029. BP followed up that move by taking FID in September on the nearby Tiber-Guadalupe project (purple icon), which also will feature an 80-Mb/d floating production platform. The recently sanctioned project will include six wells in the Tiber field and a two-well tieback from the Guadalupe field. (Additional wells may be drilled later.) First-phase production is expected to start in 2030.We should note that the Trump administration has taken a number of steps to facilitate expanded oil and gas development in the Gulf. Among other things, Section 50102 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act the president signed into law on July 4 mandates that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) hold no fewer than 30 GOM lease sales by 2040. The first sale, held on December 10, generated just over $300 million in high bids for 181 blocks across 80 million acres in federal waters in the GOM. (The states control the waters near their coastlines.) A second federal lease sale is planned for March 11. More generally, the administration has moved to pare back regulatory hurdles on oil and gas production and encourage the development of energy-related infrastructure.Finally, as we mentioned in the introduction to today’s blog, London-based Harbour Energy said December 22 that it has reached a deal to acquire privately held LLOG Exploration for $3.2 billion — $2.7 billion in cash plus $500 million of Harbour stock. The acquisition, which is expected to close by the end of Q1 2026, would mark the British company’s entry into the U.S. portion of the GOM and complement its assets (most of them under development) in Mexico’s part of the Gulf. (More on that in a moment.) Harbour also owns and operates offshore production assets in Norway and the U.K. as well as onshore assets in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale play.
E&Ps Struggle to Maintain Reserve Life Under the Cash-Return Model | RBN Energy --In the upstream oil and gas world, “reserve life” — calculated via the Reserve Life Index (RLI) — is one of the simplest and most widely cited metrics. The calculation is straightforward: divide a company’s proved reserves by its current annual production and you get an estimate of how long those reserves will last. But behind that neat little ratio lies a web of technical, financial and strategic forces that can make RLI a surprisingly nuanced measure of an E&P’s long-term outlook. In today’s RBN blog, we analyze the reserve-life trends of the 39 E&P companies we cover U.S. Gulf Coast Crude Oil Infrastructure Map. At its core, reserve life starts with the size and quality of the rock. Reservoirs with strong porosity, permeability and pressure profiles generate higher recoveries, while effective secondary and tertiary recovery techniques can stretch reserves for decades. Deep offshore basins, like the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), are notorious for short RLIs because the reservoirs have very high decline rates. That is the primary reason most E&Ps left the Gulf decades ago, although production there is on the rise (see Back in the Saddle). Shale reservoirs also have much higher decline rates than conventional resources. A short RLI creates a reinvestment treadmill that makes it very difficult to manage the capital demands on the company. The recent emphasis on shale production means that 90% of capital investment since 2019 has gone to offsetting declines rather than adding to supply. Conversely, a longer RLI makes the pace of reinvestment more manageable.But geology is not the only factor. The weighting of total proved reserves between proved developed and undeveloped makes a huge difference. (Proved reserves are the estimated quantities of oil and natural gas that geological and engineering data demonstrate — with reasonable certainty — can be economically produced from known reservoirs under existing economic conditions, operating methods, and government regulations as of a specific evaluation date. Proved undeveloped reserves require significant future capital before they can be produced. Companies with vast undeveloped reserves generally have a longer RLI than companies with far fewer undeveloped reserves.) In addition, the pace at which a company develops its acreage is equally important: An aggressive drilling program that drives reserve additions higher will push RLI higher, as reserves are added at a faster clip than production. Conversely, a cash-return model (where E&Ps prioritize generating free cash flow and returning cash to shareholders over production growth) can reduce reserve life as reserves are reduced at a faster rate than production drops. This is illustrated in Figure 1 below, which plots the reinvestment rate and reserve life between 2014-24 for our universe of companies. The RLI (blue bars and left axis) averaged 12.8 years in 2014-15 before gradually falling to 9.9 years in 2024 as the reinvestment rate (orange line and right axis) was reduced from 104% of cash flow in 2014-15 to only 50% in 2024. In addition, commodity prices play a big role. Under Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules, proved reserves must be economic at a mandated price deck. (The SEC price deck is the unweighted arithmetic average of the first-day-of-the-month prices for each month in the prior 12-month period, ending on the reporting date.) When prices rise, more locations qualify as “proved,” reserves expand and RLI increases. When prices fall, marginal volumes fall off the books and RLI is reduced. That means RLI often reflects market conditions as much as operational performance.Then there’s corporate strategy. M&A activity can reshape reserve life overnight. Cost inflation, operating efficiency, infrastructure constraints and reservoir revisions can also tug the metric in one direction or another. In this blog we will review the reserve life and reinvestment rates of our three peer groups: the Oil-Weighted, Diversified and Gas-Weighted E&Ps.
US drillers add oil, gas rigs for first time in three weeks, Baker Hughes says (Reuters) - U.S. energy firms this week added oil and natural gas rigs for the first time in three weeks, energy services firm Baker Hughes said in its closely followed report on Tuesday. The oil and gas rig count, an early indicator of future output, rose by three to 545 in the week to December 23. , , Baker Hughes released the rig count report a few days early due to the Christmas Day holiday. Despite this week's rig increase, Baker Hughes said the total count was still down 44 rigs from this time last year, marking a 7.5% drop. Baker Hughes said the number of oil rigs rose by three to 409 this week, while gas rigs were unchanged at 127. The oil and gas rig count declined by about 5% in 2024 and 20% in 2023, as lower U.S. oil and gas prices over the past couple of years prompted energy firms to focus more on boosting shareholder returns and paying down debt rather than increasing output. Even though analysts forecast U.S. spot crude prices would decline for a third year in a row in 2025, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected crude output would rise from a record 13.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2024 to around 13.6 million bpd in 2025. On the gas side, EIA projected that a 63% increase in spot gas prices in 2025 would prompt producers to boost drilling activity this year after a 14% price drop in 2024 caused several energy firms to cut output for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic reduced demand for the fuel in 2020. EIA projected gas output would rise to 107.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in 2025, up from 103.2 bcfd in 2024 and a record 103.6 bcfd in 2023.
AG files lawsuit against Texas oil, gas well operators - Three Texas men used shell companies to pocket revenues from hundreds of New Mexico oil and gas wells while leaving the state with cleanup costs for abandoned properties, Attorney General Raúl Torrez alleges in a new lawsuit. The suit describes a complex asset-stripping scheme in which profitable wells were placed in certain companies while non-productive wells remained in other companies that filed for bankruptcy. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in 1st Judicial District Court in Santa Fe on behalf of New Mexico and the state Energy, Minerals & Natural Resources Department. The suit names as defendants Everett Willard Gray, Marquis Fred Gilmore and Robert Stitzel, all of Midland, Texas, and 15 "shell companies" they operated. Messages left by the Journal this week at companies owned by the three men were not immediately returned. The 72-page lawsuit asks a judge to require the owners and the companies to plug and remediate inactive wells, set aside money for future remediation and compensate New Mexico for costs already spent to clean up abandoned wells. "Now, unless this civil action is successful, most remaining wells on private and State land will need to be plugged and remediated at the State's expense," the suit said. “New Mexicans are suffering from adverse health risks and bear the brunt of environmental harms caused by these companies failing to uphold their agreed-upon duty to responsibly plug oil and gas wells when they are no longer in production,” Torrez said in a statement. The scheme began when the three men acquired hundreds of low- and non-producing oil and gas wells in New Mexico through Remnant Oil Operating LLC and Remnant Oil Company LLC, the suit alleges. The men "drove Remnant into bankruptcy," then attempted to keep Remnant's best wells, the suit alleges. The three attempted to "dump the worst and their environmental liabilities on the State," it said. After the plan failed, Stitzel and Gilmore created Acacia Operating LLC and Gray created Solis Partners to receive the best of Remnant's wells, the suit alleges. The scheme unraveled in December 2024 when New Mexico sued Acacia Operating LLC, demanding the company plug and remediate six wells on state land, according to the suit. "Right on schedule and according to plan, Acacia filed for bankruptcy soon afterwards and is currently in the process of liquidation," the suit states. The men "are once again seeking to walk away from the plugging and remediation costs for which Acacia is now liable," it said.
South Texas Gateway Achieves Its Largest Weekly Crude Export Volume on Record --Crude oil exports from the U.S. Gulf Coast (USGC) rose to just over 4 MMb/d last week, roughly 200 Mb/d above the 2025 year-to-date (YTD) average. The largest export region in the Gulf by volume - Corpus Christi - is home to Gibson's South Texas Gateway (STG) terminal. As discussed in our Crude Voyager Report, loadings from STG increased 240% to record its highest weekly volume on record of 1.1 MMb/d (far right blue bar on chart below), more than triple the volume seen over either of the prior two weeks. Seven cargoes were lifted from STG, with Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) loading activity up from just one VLCC per week to four.While week-to-week volatility in export volumes is not unusual, the recent spike coincides with a notable infrastructure development. Gibson has completed a new connection between the South Texas Gateway terminal and Plain's Cactus II Pipeline, which transports crude from the Permian Basin to Corpus Christi. Although official flow data from T-1 reports will be released at a later date, Gibson has indicated that the connection is designed to improve terminal connectivity and provide up to 700 Mb/d of incremental supply, a development that could support higher and more consistent crude export volumes.
U.S. oil output rose to record high in September - – U.S. oil production rose by 44,000 barrels per day to a record 13.84 million barrels per day in September, driven by a sharp increase in New Mexico and Alaska. The 0.3% rise represented the fourth consecutive month of record output, Energy Information Administration data shows. Production also showed growth in Oklahoma but remained flat in Texas and other key producing states, as oil prices remain low. The price Wednesday of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude oil was at $59.46, down 12.3% from $67.79 a barrel at the beginning of 2025. U.S. crude oil output is up by 407,000 barrels, or 3.0%, since the beginning of the year, driven by technological advancements and efforts by the Trump administration to immediately increase domestic energy production. The U.S. has been the world’s top crude oil producer since 2018. The average price of a gallon of regular grade gasoline on Monday was $3, about 5 cents lower than a year ago, according to AAA. In New Mexico, the second-ranked oil producing state behind Texas, output in September reached 2.351 million barrels per day, representing 17.5% of all U.S. production in the month. New Mexico oil production rose by 50,000 barrels a day, or 2.2%, in September, the data shows. Over the first nine months of 2025, crude oil production in the state increased by 240,000 barrels a day, or 11.4% Productivity gains have been touted by ExxonMobil, the largest producer in the Permian Basin, which spans west Texas and southeast New Mexico. The company has cited success from a proprietary technology it uses in its fracking operations in a portion of the Permian Basin located in New Mexico. The productivity of wells drilled by Exxon in southeast New Mexico has increased by 21% compared to other wells drilled in the same area, industry consulting and analytics firm RBN Energy reported in a blog post. In December 2024, Exxon announced plans to double its production in the Permian Basin to 2.3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2030. Exxon's proppant – a material that opens channels so that oil and natural gas can flow more freely – has increased well productivity, said Pierre Conner, who leads the Tulane Energy Institute in New Orleans. “Exxon is using petroleum coke for the proppant. There continues to be technical advancements like this and others that provide the energy companies a better chance of success and reduces risk in their drilling activities,” Conner said. In Alaska, the fifth-ranked oil-producing state, output in September increased by 31,000 barrels per day, or 8.0%, to 418,000 barrels a day as a new field ramped up output. The ConocoPhillips Nuna project on the North Slope began production in December 2024 and now delivers about 20,000 additional barrels to the market. Repsol, a multinational oil company based in Spain, expects to begin production in early 2026 at the Pikka field on Alaska’s North Slope, with daily output expected to reach 80,000 barrels. In Oklahoma, the state with the sixth-highest crude oil production in September, output rose by 14,000 barrels a day, or 2.5%, to 414,000 barrels per day during the month, according to government data. Other key oil producing states like Texas, North Dakota and Colorado saw September output levels that were little changed from August. In Texas, crude oil production was down by 30,000 barrels a day to 5.801 million barrels a day, and output has nearly flatlined in the last six months. In North Dakota and Colorado, the third and fourth largest U.S. oil producing states, output was little changed at 1.155 million barrels a day and 469,000 barrels a day, respectively. Crude oil output in the federal offshore gulf region, located in the Gulf of America, reached 1.983 million barrels per day in September, the most since February 2020. Offshore production in the Gulf is expected to grow rapidly during the next two years due to technological advancements, a more favorable regulatory and investment environment and a shift away from onshore shale production. Eric Smith, a professor at the Tulane Energy Institute with expertise in offshore energy, said the vast majority of new oil production in the Gulf will occur in deep water, where it is relatively expensive to drill. Technical advancements and improved operational efficiencies now make vast, previously unreachable oil reservoirs in the Gulf accessible to the largest energy companies, Smith said.
Energy Transfer Upsizes $5.6 Billion Texas-to-Arizona Gas Pipeline to Meet Demand - Energy Transfer plans to upsize the Transwestern Desert Southwest expansion after strong open season demand, increasing pipeline capacity and reinforcing natural gas supply to fast-growing markets in Arizona and New Mexico. (P&GJ) — Energy Transfer plans to increase the capacity of its proposed Transwestern Pipeline Desert Southwest expansion after strong customer demand emerged during a recent open season. The project, which will move natural gas from the Permian Basin to markets in Arizona and New Mexico, will be upsized by increasing the mainline diameter from 42 inches to 48 inches. The change raises potential throughput to as much as 2.3 billion cubic feet per day, depending on final compression configuration. Energy Transfer said demand growth in the Desert Southwest — including population growth and the potential retirement or conversion of coal-fired power plants — drove the decision to expand the project’s scope. “Transwestern’s Desert Southwest pipeline expansion is an important critical source of natural gas,” said Ted Geisler, APS President and CEO. “We look forward to Energy Transfer enhancing this project to enable greater resources across the region.” “Natural gas generation is an important part of SRP’s all-of-the-above approach to ensuring reliability and affordability for our customers,” said Bobby Olsen, SRP Associate General Manager and Chief Power System Executive. “The Transwestern Desert Southwest Pipeline expansion will help enable us to meet the region’s growing power needs and strengthen Arizona’s energy infrastructure.” “We applaud the announcement of additional pipeline capacity along the Desert Southwest expansion project,” said Patrick Ledger, CEO of Arizona G&T Cooperatives. “This infrastructure is urgently needed to power the growth and business development taking place in rural Arizona.” As a result of the upsizing, the project’s estimated cost has increased to about $5.6 billion, excluding allowance for funds used during construction. Energy Transfer said the change will raise its total growth capital spending in 2026 by roughly $200 million. The company continues to target an in-service date in the fourth quarter of 2029.
$5.6B Texas-to-Arizona gas pipeline upsized to meet demand - – A natural gas pipeline from Permian Basin in west Texas to the Phoenix, Arizona area will get a capacity boost 50% larger than originally planned to meet strong market demand, oil and gas transportation company Energy Transfer announced. A 48-inch diameter pipe will be used in the construction of the Transwestern Desert Southwest pipeline instead of the 42-inch pipe previously announced in August, Energy Transfer said in a statement. The change will expand the pipeline’s maximum capacity from 1.5 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas to 2.3 billion cubic feet a day. The increase follows strong interest from Arizona utilities to secure additional long-term supplies of natural gas to power artificial intelligence data centers and advanced industrial operations, which prompted Energy Transfer to commit to an investment of $5.6 billion, up $300 million from the $5.3 billion announced in August. “Transwestern’s Desert Southwest pipeline expansion is an important critical source of natural gas,” said Ted Geisler, president of Arizona Public Service, the state's largest electric utility. “We look forward to Energy Transfer enhancing this project to enable greater resources across the region." Most of the additional gas supplies will go to the Phoenix area and central Arizona to power the fast-growing AI data center market and industrial users. Arizona is home to 164 data centers, ranking seventh among all states, according to the online tracking platform Data Center Map. Arizona Public Service, the pipelines’ anchor customer in Arizona, will use additional gas to power electricity plants serving data centers and industrial users, Geisler said in an Aug. 6 earnings call. Arizona Public Service has almost 4.5 gigawatts of committed high-load customer demand in its interconnection queue and an additional 20 gigawatts of uncommitted, potential large-load customers, Geisler said in an interview with Utility Dive in August. For perspective, Geisler said, consider that Arizona Public Service set a peak demand record of about 8.5 gigawatts on July 9, up 300 megawatts from the previous year’s peak. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, generating 20 gigawatts of electricity at gas-fired electricity plants would consume about 1.482 billion feet of natural gas in 2023, the last year for which data is available. Arizona Public Service announced in November it plans to build a new 2-gigawatt natural gas power plant in Gila Bend, southwest of Phoenix, designed in part to supply Arizona’s data center market. The Desert Sun Power plant is expected to come online in 2030 or 2031, following the completion of the Transwestern Pipeline in late 2029. Arizona Public Service plans to pay for the second phase of plant construction by requiring large-load customers to sign long-term contracts at rates that cover the capital costs associated with building the additional power generation.
PHMSA Grants Emergency Permit for Santa Ynez Pipeline Segments - PHMSA has issued an emergency special permit for segments of the Santa Ynez Pipeline System, allowing Sable Offshore to operate under enhanced integrity and safety requirements. (P&GJ) — The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has issued an emergency special permit allowing Sable Offshore Corp. to implement enhanced integrity management practices on portions of the Santa Ynez Pipeline System. PHMSA approved the permit on Dec. 23 for interstate pipeline segments 324 and 325, according to the company. The permit authorizes Sable Offshore to operate the affected segments under specific conditions while applying additional integrity and operational measures beyond standard regulatory requirements. The agency’s Letter of Decision outlines the approved integrity management practices and operating conditions tied to the emergency permit. The documentation is available through the Federal Docket Management System under docket number PHMSA-2025-1502. Emergency special permits are issued by PHMSA when an operator demonstrates that alternative safety measures can provide an equivalent or greater level of pipeline safety under defined conditions.
Sable Gets Federal Nod for Controversial California Pipeline - — A federal regulator approved the restart of Sable Offshore Corp.’s contested California oil pipeline that leaked 3,000 barrels of crude along the Santa Barbara coastline a decade ago. Article content Sable’s shares rose about 30% Tuesday after it said its plan was signed off on by the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration. The move follows last week’s determination by the regulator that portions of the key oil conduit, the Las Flores Pipeline System, is under the domain of the federal government and not California. State environmental groups are poised to push back. Houston-based oil driller Sable Offshore Corp. has been trying to restart production at a cluster of offshore drilling rigs in a state prone to energy supply crunches, but has been hamstrung by local opposition. Sable acquired the assets from Exxon Mobil Corp. last year, but the onshore pipe network that feeds crude to refineries hasn’t yet been permitted to reopen. The development comes amid a bigger clash between local and federal officials over how to supply energy in the US. President Donald Trump’s administration is actively boosting crude oil production through deregulation and is proposing to open new areas off the coasts of Florida, Alaska and California to crude drilling. California residents and environmental groups, on the other hand, are fiercely protective of their ecosystems, and are seeking to avoid a repeat of the 2015 Refugio spill which coated beaches in oil, dented tourism, and killed scores of birds and marine mammals. In the letter, PHMSA approved the restart of lines CA-324 and CA-325, conduits built in the 1980s that transport offshore oil once it has reached land from pump stations on the California coast to destinations further inland. Line CA-324, previously known as line 901, was responsible for the 2015 Refugio oil spill under its previous operator, Plains All American. “This pipeline was shut down because it was spewing oil into the ocean and onto our beaches, killing wildlife, disrupting the fishing, tourism and recreation jobs that are critical to our coastal economy and way of life,” said Monique Limón, the incoming California Senate leader. “It is clear this reclassification is yet another attempt by this administration to circumvent state law, putting millions of Californians at risk.” Limón, who also represents the district that includes Santa Barbara, is working with state agencies and Governor Gavin Newsom to ensure the state’s laws are followed to prevent another oil spill, she said. Oil and gas groups, including the nation’s largest trade group, The American Petroleum Institute, have previously hailed Trump’s plans for offshore crude drilling. Meanwhile, professional golfer Phil Mickelson has touted Sable’s plans and continues to do so even after allegations by Hunterbrook Media that Sable executives selectively disclosed information to investors, including Mickelson.
Alaska LNG Secures All Federal Permitting as Development Push Continues - Glenfarne Group LLC, backer of the revived Alaska LNG project, has received the necessary federal permits and is working to attract customers to make the export facility a reality. At A Glance:
- Permitting completed ahead of schedule
- Biological opinions, other permits updated
- 11 Mt/y of tentative offtake deals signed
Alberta Gas Storage Still Plentiful for Christmas -- Gas storage in the Western Canadian province of Alberta, the region in Canada with the greatest amount of storage capacity, fell to 471 Bcf as of December 23 (blue line and text in chart below). Based on data from RBN’s Canadian NatGas Billboard, this latest reading is just 6 Bcf less than last year and a plentiful 76 Bcf higher than the five-year average. The year-on-year deficit is the first for the current heating season after a very mild November which has since transitioned to several weeks of below average temperatures to date in December. Despite the recent cold, storage levels remain very high by historic standards with the latest storage reading the second highest for this time of year. Very robust gas production in Western Canada has offset higher Alberta demand from cold and record gas use in the oil sands, a modest increase in gas exports from the province and, so far, a very erratic and lower than expected gas intake to LNG Canada. Factoring in RBN’s outlook for Alberta gas balances, we expect that the province’s gas storage will exit this year around 460 Bcf (red text in chart below) with a March 2026 exit of 313 Bcf (red underlined text). This would be, respectively, 9 Bcf and 32 Bcf below year ago levels, but 77 Bcf and 40 Bcf higher than the five-year average, suggestive of still very comfortable storage entering the 2026 injection season.
Japan placing high hopes on LNG project in western Canada - Japan is banking on a Canadian project that started full-scale operations in November to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) used for thermal power generation and city gas production. Since the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 disrupted LNG networks and supply chains, Japan has scrambled to secure LNG procurement sources for its economic security. With the LNG Canada project in the western province of British Columbia, Japan can take advantage of its location and the reduced risk of stalled shipping. This is the first time for Japan to import LNG from Canada on a full-scale basis. Mitsubishi Corp. holds a 15-percent stake in LNG Canada and has the right to sell 2.1 million tons of LNG per year to Japan and other Asian countries. Other shareholders include Shell Plc of Britain, Petronas of Malaysia, PetroChina Co. of China, and Korean Gas Corp. of South Korea. Total development costs reached about $14 billion. The project is capable of producing 14 million tons of LNG a year. The first shipment was made on June 30. Natural gas produced in inland regions of Canada is transported through a 670-kilometer pipeline to the Pacific coast, where it is cooled to liquid form and shipped on LNG carriers. LNG Canada now has two production lines in operation. Mitsubishi expects the project to begin generating several tens of billions of yen in profits from the business year starting in April 2026. During a news conference on Nov. 4, Mitsubishi President Katsuya Nakanishi said the company is carefully considering additional investments to increase production capacity. One company source said capacity could double. LNG Canada’s export terminal faces the Pacific Ocean, meaning it takes about 10 days to transport LNG to Japan. In comparison, it takes between 16 and 30 days to ship LNG from the Middle East and the U.S. Southeast region. Along with the lower transportation costs, the Canada LNG project has fewer geopolitical risks. Shipments can avoid the Straits of Hormuz, which is surrounded by Middle East conflicts, and the Panama Canal, where passage restrictions can be imposed due to low water levels. Both waterways are strategically important ocean shipping routes called “choke points.” “We, the government, have high hopes. It means a lot not having to go through the choke points,” In addition to the geopolitical advantages, Canada is a friendly nation to Japan. Before the war in Ukraine, Japan relied on Russia for about 10 percent of its LNG imports, most of which came from the Sakhalin-2 project in the Russian Far East. Mitsubishi and Mitsui & Co. also hold stakes in the Sakhalin-2 project. But after Japan imposed economic sanctions against Russia, President Vladimir Putin’s administration put pressure on Japan by changing the project’s operator and taking other measures. LNG procurement costs soared in the spot market on global concerns over the LNG supply from the gas-rich country. “We had thought it would be OK if we diversified procurement sources, but we were at risk of power outages even if only 10 percent (of LNG) didn’t reach Japan,” the source added.
Falling TTF Prices Mask Rapid Drawdown in EU Gas Storage as Winter Advances - Despite a precipitous drop in international natural gas prices, the European Union (EU) could exit winter with storage levels at the lowest point in five seasons as some U.S. LNG cargoes shift to Asia. Chart showing global natural gas futures settles through 2029, comparing Henry Hub, JPN/KOR LNG, and TTF prices in $/MMBtu, with forward curves and tables detailing 12-month strip values and calendar-year pricing for 2027–2029 as of Dec. 19, 2025. At A Glance:
EU storage estimated at 5-year low
U.S. netbacks favor Asia
Growing LNG supply eases security concerns
Egypt says gas deal with Israel ‘purely commercial without political dimensions’ - Egypt on Thursday called a major gas deal with Israel "purely commercial without political dimensions." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a $35-billion natural gas deal with Egypt on Wednesday, raising controversy over the Egyptian stance regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “The gas deal is a purely commercial deal concluded on the basis of purely economic and investment considerations and does not involve any political dimensions or understandings,” Diaa Rashwan, chairman of Egypt’s State Information Service, said in a statement. Rashwan reaffirmed that Egypt's support for the Palestinian cause “remains firm and has not and will not change.” “Egypt supports the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, rejects forced displacement, and adheres to the two-state solution,” he said. “The gas deal is a commercial contract subject to market rules and the mechanisms of international investment, away from any political use or interpretation,” he added. The Egyptian official stressed that the parties of the agreement are “well-known international commercial companies that have been operating in the energy sector for years,” including the US-based Chevron, in addition to Egyptian companies specialized in receiving, transporting, and trading gas, “without any direct government intervention in concluding these contracts.” Under the agreement, partners will sell 130 billion cubic meters of gas to Egypt through 2040 in exchange for about $35 billion. This deal adds to a series of Israeli natural gas supplies to Egypt over the past five years.
Türkiye's gas imports up 3.9% in October -- Türkiye's natural gas imports increased by 3.9% in October compared to the same month in 2024, according to data from Türkiye's energy watchdog on Tuesday. Natural gas imports in October rose to around 4.10 billion cubic meters (bcm) from approximately 3.95 bcm in the same month of 2024, Türkiye's Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) said in its latest monthly natural gas market report. Russia was the largest natural gas supplier to Türkiye, providing 1.63 bcm, while Azerbaijan and Iran followed with 996 million cubic meters (mcm) and 820 mcm, respectively. During the period, Türkiye imported 363 mcm of LNG from Algeria, 100 mcm from Senegal and 95 mcm from the US. Meanwhile, the country's total gas consumption rose by 11.6% to approximately 3.51 bcm, compared to the same month last year. Industrial natural gas consumption rose 3.7% to 1.21 bcm during the period. Gas use at power plants increased 26.7%, reaching 1.09 bcm. Household consumption also edged up, rising 22.9% to 534 mcm during the same period. The natural gas storage volume in October expanded by 13.4% to around 5.88 bcm, compared to 5.16 bcm in October 2024.
Spot market natural gas prices for Friday, Dec. 26 - The trade volume on Türkiye's spot natural gas market showed an increase of 9.6% to around 17.3 million lira on Friday, Türkiye's Energy Exchange Istanbul (EXIST) data showed on Saturday. Total trade on Thursday amounted to about 15.8 million lira. On Friday's spot market, 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas cost 14,377.43 Turkish liras, while the cumulative natural gas trade volume amounted to around 1.24 million cubic meters. Türkiye received about 277.01 million cubic meters of pipeline gas on Friday.
Reliance resumes Russian oil imports - Reliance Industries has restarted buying discounted Russian crude oil. The company is sourcing barrels from suppliers not under sanctions. These shipments are heading to its refinery in Gujarat. This move is expected to limit a drop in India's overall Russian oil imports this month. Reliance had paused purchases after US sanctions were imposed on Russian producers.
Russia's Gazprom supplied 38bcm of gas to China via Power of Siberia pipeline in 2025 -- Russia's gas corporation Gazprom supplied 38.8 billion cubic metres of gas to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline this year, the company's CEO, Alexei Miller, said on Thursday, up by nearly a fifth from the previous year. "By the end of 2025, we have not only reached our gas supply target for China of 38 billion cubic metres, but more importantly, we will supply China with almost 800 million cubic metres more than our contractual obligations," Miller said at a meeting held to summarise the company's preliminary results of the year. A source familiar with the data told Reuters on Monday that Russia's pipeline exports of natural gas to China were expected to reach around 38.6-38.7 billion cubic metres this year, up from 31bcm in 2024 and exceeding the pipeline's planned annual capacity of 38bcm. Miller said in October that supplies via the Power of Siberia would exceed 38bcm this year. Russia began pumping gas from eastern Siberia to China in late 2019 via the Power of Siberia 1 pipeline.
FG Boosts Security Beef-up at Ogoniland Oil Wells After Spill - The Federal Government has ordered the immediate beefing up of security at all dormant oil wells in Ogoniland, Rivers State, to prevent interference and acts of sabotage. The government also vowed to identify and prosecute those linked to the massive oil spill at the Yorla Oil Field in the Kpean community, Khana Local Government Area of the state. The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, disclosed this on Monday when he led a Federal Government delegation to assess the extent of devastation at the spill site in Kpean, Ogoniland. Recall that a massive oil spill ravaged the oil field in September, destroying farmlands and vegetation in the area. However, a civil society group, Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre, led by its Executive Director, Dr Fyneface Dumnamene, had alleged that the spill was caused by equipment failure. But Ribadu, during the visit, said the incident was a clear case of sabotage and appealed to residents to protect their wealth and that of the nation. He said, “We have seen the devastation. It is extensive and terrible, and anyone who sees it will truly feel bad. It is unfortunate. Those in charge have done a good job in controlling it and stopping the spill.
Rayong oil spill lawsuit dismissed - Bangkok Post - A lawsuit seeking environmental rehabilitation and 5 billion baht in compensation from Star Petroleum Refining Plc and PTT Global Chemical Plc over a crude oil spill that occurred in waters off Rayong in early 2022 has been dismissed. The Rayong Provincial Court dismissed the lawsuit on Monday that was filed by a small-scale fisheries association in Rayong and 832 fishermen. The court ruled that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to demand court-ordered environmental rehabilitation and said the evidence failed to prove the spill caused losses to marine resources or income damage as claimed. The plaintiffs had asked the court to compel the defendants to restore marine ecosystems, breeding grounds, and coastal environments, while also seeking substantial damages under the Environmental Quality Promotion and Preservation Act 1992. However, the court said no law empowered the plaintiffs to bring such a claim in this form, though it noted they retain the right to appeal. On whether the defendants were liable for individual damage claims, the court acknowledged that Star Petroleum Refining was in possession of hazardous crude oil and could be held responsible if it was proven that the spill harmed the fishermen's livelihoods. However, the court found no convincing evidence to support the plaintiffs' assertions. It said there was no reliable data showing reductions in marine species, income losses, or tourism decline attributable to the spill. Scientific assessments by Chulalongkorn University marine experts also indicated no measurable drop in marine abundance, species diversity, or breeding capacity linked to the incident, the ruling said. The court further ruled that the company's use of chemical dispersants was conducted under state-approved procedures and thus did not constitute unlawful action, while the PTTGC bore no operational responsibility over the offshore buoy system where the spill occurred. Accordingly, the court dismissed the case and ordered that the litigation costs be borne as per procedure. However, the association and affected fishermen announced they will appeal to seek justice and reaffirm community rights to protect and rehabilitate Rayong's marine environment.
Iraq seeks to increase OPEC oil production quota by 300,000 bpd - Iraqi News - – Iraq is aiming to increase its oil production quota within the OPEC+ alliance by up to 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), a move that could generate up to $10 billion in additional annual revenue. Mazhar Mohammed Saleh, the Financial Advisor to the Prime Minister, confirmed today, Tuesday (December 23, 2025), that the proposal comes at a critical financial juncture for the country. Saleh noted that Recent statements by Oil Minister Hayan Abdul Ghani reflect Iraq’s need to balance internal financial stability with the constraints of the global oil market. As the second-largest producer in OPEC, Iraq possesses an actual production capacity that exceeds its current ceiling. With rising operational commitments in the national budget and slow growth in non-oil revenues, the push for a higher quota has become a priority. The proposed increase is expected to be gradual, ranging from 150,000 to 300,000 bpd. Saleh emphasized that this volume would not threaten global market balance if integrated into the collective production adjustments of OPEC+. According to current global price averages, this production hike could provide:
• Minimum Revenue: Approximately $4 billion annually.
• Maximum Revenue: Up to $10 billion annually.
Such funds would significantly reduce the federal budget deficit and decrease the government’s reliance on high-cost alternative financing tools. OPEC+ Approval and Structural Reforms Saleh clarified that gaining approval for a quota adjustment remains dependent on collective consensus within OPEC+, particularly among major producers who prioritize price stability. Iraq’s chances are favorable but conditional on strict adherence to previous production ceilings and presenting the increase as part of a collective market management strategy. However, the Financial Advisor warned that increasing oil production is not a permanent solution to fiscal challenges. He stressed that sustainable economic health depends on deep structural reforms, diversifying income sources, and reducing the nation’s extreme vulnerability to oil price cycles through the government’s comprehensive economic reform policies.
China overtakes OPEC+ as the main oil price maker (Reuters) - Conventional wisdom in the crude oil market is that producers such as OPEC+ largely determine the price by altering output levels to achieve a desired outcome.That shibboleth was challenged in 2025 by China, which used its status as the world's biggest oil importer to provide an effective price floor and ceiling by either increasing or decreasing the volume of crude it sent to storage tanks.Production cuts in 2022 by OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, did shore up prices. Those gains faded once it began reversing the cuts in April this year. Now, facing alooming oil glut, OPEC+ has decided to sit tight and hold production levels steady in the first quarter of next year.That leaves China to mop up the excess.What China does in 2026 is now the biggest known unknown in crude markets. Other participants are likely to set their strategies in response to Beijing.China doesn't release public information on its strategic or commercial stockpiles, making it challenging not only to assess physical flows, but also to determine what policies are likely to be followed. What was clear in 2025 is that China was buying more crude than it needed for domestic consumption and exports of refined products. China does not disclose the volumes of crude flowing into or out of its strategic and commercial stockpiles, but an estimate can be made by subtracting refinery throughput from the total crude available from imports and domestic output. It is worth noting that not all of the surplus crude was likely to have been added to storage, with some being processed in plants not captured by the official data. For the first 11 months of 2025, the surplus crude amounted to about 980,000 barrels per day (bpd), given that imports and domestic output combined were 15.80 million bpd, while refinery processing amounted to 14.82 million bpd. The surplus has been built up since March and came after refiners made a rare draw on inventories in January and February, when processing rates exceeded available crude by about 30,000 bpd. There is a solid correlation between the volume of surplus crude and the price of oil, with China adding barrels when prices dip but cutting back when they rise. This was in evidence in September, when the surplus crude dropped to 570,000 bpd after hitting 1.10 million bpd in August. Cargoes arriving in September would largely have been arranged at the time of the Israel-Iran conflict in June, when crude prices were elevated. Global benchmark Brent futures spiked to a six-month high of $81.40 a barrel on June 23. With prices easing since June, China's refiners resumed buying excess crude, with a surplus of 1.88 million bpd seen in November, the biggest since April and up from 690,000 bpd in October. It could be argued that China's storage flows are the main reason that crude prices were locked in a fairly narrow range in the second half of 2025, with Brent anchored either side of $65 a barrel. The key question for 2026 is whether China will, and can, continue to buy excess crude when prices drop, effectively providing a floor. Estimates vary as to how much crude China already has stored, with a range from around 1 billion barrels to as much as 1.4 billion barrels. If the assumption is that a country should have 90 days of import cover, and China's base imports are around 11 million bpd, then 1 billion barrels would be sufficient. But at least 700 million barrels are likely commercial inventories, implying a strategic reserve closer to 500 million barrels.That in turn suggests that Beijing may wish to add about another 500 million barrels to the strategic stockpile, though the timeline is uncertain. China is building more storage, with state oil companies including Sinopec and CNOOC adding at least 169 million barrels across 11 sites in 2025 and 2026. Assuming a storage flow of somewhere around 500,000 to 600,000 bpd, this would add in the region of 200 million barrels over the course of a year. If Beijing does continue to add to strategic inventories at this rate, it would imply that much of the forecast surplus of supply in 2026 will simply go into Chinese tanks. If this does happen, then it is likely that crude prices will once again enjoy a Chinese-supported floor, but also a cap as China will simply trim imports if prices rise too high. Of course, there are a number of "ifs" in the above paragraphs, but the recent history suggests that China will continue to build inventories in 2026, and probably into 2027 as well. What is also clear is that China is quite prepared to use inventory flows as a pricing mechanism. Given China's seaborne crude imports of around 10 million bpd are about a quarter of the global seaborne total, it is possible that Beijing's policies are now the most important factor in oil markets.
Crude Oil: US–Venezuela Tensions Put a Geopolitical Floor Under Prices - Crude prices edged higher in early Asian trading as geopolitical risk reentered the pricing equation through rising tensions between Washington and Caracas, reminding investors that supply security remains fragile even in a broadly well-supplied market. The latest catalyst was the U.S. boarding of a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker docked in Venezuela over the weekend, the second such action in recent weeks, underscoring a more assertive enforcement posture toward sanctioned Venezuelan exports. Front-month WTI crude traded about half a percent higher near $56.79 a barrel, while Brent rose a similar amount to around $60.77, a modest move that nonetheless reflects how sensitive prices remain to disruption risk at the margin. The immediate market reaction was restrained rather than explosive, which is telling in itself. Global oil balances have been cushioned by ample inventories and steady non-OPEC supply, limiting the upside response to isolated geopolitical events. However, the direction of travel matters more than the size of the initial move. By physically interdicting tankers linked to sanctioned flows, the U.S. is signaling that Venezuelan barrels, already constrained by years of sanctions and underinvestment, face renewed logistical and legal friction. Even small interruptions can tighten prompt supply conditions, particularly for refiners that rely on heavier crude grades similar to those produced in Venezuela. For investors, the key issue is not the single tanker involved but the precedent it sets. Enforcement actions raise uncertainty around how much Venezuelan oil can reliably reach international markets and at what cost. That uncertainty tends to support front-month prices and steepen near-term spreads as traders price a higher probability of short-term disruptions. The measured price response suggests that markets are balancing this risk against still soft demand growth and the absence of a broader escalation that would materially alter global supply totals. Looking ahead, the base case is that oil prices remain range-bound with a modest geopolitical premium, as enforcement actions continue but stop short of meaningfully reducing aggregate exports. In this scenario, WTI and Brent find support on dips but struggle to sustain rallies without confirmation of tighter physical balances. The risk scenario is a sharper escalation in U.S. actions or retaliatory moves that disrupt shipping lanes or insurance availability for Venezuelan crude, which could amplify supply concerns and trigger a more pronounced upside reaction. Investors will be watching closely for further enforcement measures, shipping data, and any official signals that indicate whether this pressure campaign is intensifying or stabilizing, as those developments will determine whether geopolitical risk remains a background factor or moves decisively to the forefront of oil pricing.
Oil Prices Climb as U.S. Intercepts Venezuelan Tankers, Geopolitical Risks Mount -- The oil market traded higher on Monday on increasing geopolitical risk with the U.S. intercepting an oil tanker in the international waters off the coast of Venezuela and tensions in Russia’s war against Ukraine remaining high. The U.S. Coast Guard pursued an oil tanker near Venezuela in what was the second such operation over the weekend and the third in less than two weeks. This followed U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement last week of a “total and complete” blockade of sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers. Also, while U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said that talks between U.S., European and Ukrainian officials in Florida over the weekend had focused on aligning positions and added that they had been productive, the top foreign policy aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin said that changes made by the Europeans and Ukraine to U.S. proposals had not improved prospects for peace. The market was also supported by reports of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian ships at a Black Sea port. The oil market posted a low of $56.60 on the opening before it continued to trend higher. The market rallied to a high of $58.13 early in the morning. The market later retraced some of its gains and settled in a sideways trading range during the remainder of the session. The February WTI contract settled up $1.49 at $58.01 and the February Brent contract settled up $1.60 at $62.07. The product markets ended the session higher, with the heating oil market setting up 3.62 cents at $2.1581 and the RB market settling up 3.4 cents at $1.7422.The U.S. Coast Guard is pursuing an oil tanker in international waters near Venezuela in what would be the second such operation this weekend and the third in less than two weeks, if successful. British maritime risk management group Vanguard, along with a U.S. maritime security source, identified the vessel as Bella 1, a very large crude oil carrier that was added last year to the sanctions list of the U.S. Treasury Department, which said the vessel has links to Iran. According to TankerTrackers.com, Bella 1 was empty when it was approaching Venezuela on Sunday.China’s Foreign Ministry said the United States’ seizure of another country’s ships was a serious violation of international law, after the U.S. intercepted a China-bound oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast. On Saturday, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted a second oil tanker in international waters off the Venezuelan coast, days after President Donald Trump announced a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela. The tanker, Centuries, loaded in Venezuela under the false name “Crag” and was carrying some 1.8 million barrels of Venezuelan Merey crude oil bound for China.According to tracking data and sources, tanker loading in Venezuela fell on Monday, with most ships moving oil cargoes only between domestic ports following U.S. action against two more ships and as state-run energy company PDVSA struggles to recover from a cyberattack. As of Monday, PDVSA had delivered a 1.9 million-barrel cargo of heavy crude to the Aruba-flagged sanctioned vessel Azure Voyager at the Jose port, but no other supertanker bound for Asia was scheduled to load soon. The number of loaded tankers that have not departed has increased in recent days, leaving millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil stuck in ships, while customers demand deeper discounts and contract changes to take risky voyages beyond the country’s waters.On Sunday, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said talks held between U.S., European and Ukrainian officials over the last three days in Florida aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine were productive and focused on aligning positions.
Oil settles higher on risk of disruptions to Venezuela, Russia supply (Reuters) - Oil prices settled higher on Monday after the U.S. Coast Guard tried to intercept an oil tanker in international waters near Venezuela a day earlier, and Ukraine damaged two vessels and piers in Russia, raising the risk of oil supply disruptions.Brent crude futures gained $1.60, or 2.7%, to settle at $62.07 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose $1.49, or 2.6%, to settle at $58.01 a barrel.The U.S. Coast Guard tried to intercept an oil tanker on Sunday that U.S. officials said is part of Venezuela's illegal sanctions evasion, the third such operation this month. The pursuit followed U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement last week of a blockade of oil tankers under sanctions entering and leaving Venezuela.Market participants see a risk of disruption to Venezuelan oil exports because of the U.S. embargo, having previously downplayed the risk, said UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo.Venezuelan crude accounts for 1% of global supply, and most of it is bought by China. Beijing on Monday said the U.S. seizure of another country's ships is a serious violation of international law, after the U.S. on Saturday intercepted aChina-bound oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast.Oil prices were also rising because of reports of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian ships at a Black Sea port, oil trading advisory firm Ritterbusch and Associates said in a note.A Ukrainian drone attack damaged two vessels, two piers and sparked a fire in a village on the Black Sea coast in Russia's Krasnodar region, regional authorities said on Monday. The Black Sea region is vital for Russia's energy exports."We expect further consolidation this week amid reduced holiday volumes and a continued standoff between deteriorating oil fundamentals and a need to maintain some geopolitical risk premium related to Ukraine/Russia and Venezuela," Ritterbusch and Associates said.U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that talks between U.S., European, and Ukrainian officials in Florida over the past three days to end Russia's war in Ukraine had focused on aligning positions. Those meetings and separate talks with Russian negotiators had been productive, he said.However, the top foreign policy aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin said changes made by the Europeans and Ukraine to U.S. proposals had not improved prospects for peace.
Oil Prices Ease as Markets Await Potential U.S. Move on Venezuela -- Oil prices edged lower in early trading on Tuesday after rising more than 2% in the previous session, as the United States said it may sell Venezuelan crude it has seized, while increased Ukrainian attacks on Russian ships and ports heightened concerns over supply disruptions. Brent crude futures slipped 11 cents, or 0.18%, to $61.96 a barrel by 01:00 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 13 cents, or 0.22%, to $57.88 a barrel. Both benchmarks had climbed more than 2% at settlement in the previous session, with Brent posting its best daily performance in two months, while WTI recorded its largest single-day gain since November 14. As part of its pressure campaign on Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States may either retain the oil it has seized off the Venezuelan coast in recent weeks or possibly sell it. “Maybe we’ll sell it, maybe we’ll keep it,” Trump said, adding that it could also be used to replenish the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He also stated that it would be wise for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to step down. In a note dated Monday, Barclays said that even if Venezuelan oil exports were to fall to zero in the near term, global oil markets are likely to remain adequately supplied in the first half of 2026. However, Barclays estimates that the global oil surplus will narrow to 700,000 barrels per day in the fourth quarter of 2026, and that any prolonged disruption could tighten the market, eroding the recent build in inventories. Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine exchanged attacks on each other’s facilities in the Black Sea, a vital export route for both countries. Russian forces shelled Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa late on Monday, damaging port facilities and a vessel, marking the second attack on the area in less than 24 hours. Authorities said on Monday that a Ukrainian drone attack damaged two vessels, two berths, and sparked a fire in a town in Russia’s Krasnodar region.
Oil ticks higher on tension fears but faces pressure from oversupply forecasts - Oil prices barely moved on Tuesday, caught between fears of conflict and forecasts of too much supply. Brent crude rose just 6 cents to $62.13 a barrel by press time, and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) ticked up 2 cents to $58.03, right after a 2% surge on Monday, when Brent posted its biggest daily jump in two months, and WTI hit its strongest single-day rally since November 14. Traders are stuck between chaos on the seas and barrels stacking up. Ukrainian attacks on Russian vessels and piers have rattled markets, raising the risk of disruptions. But at the same time, analysts at Barclays on Tuesday warned of too much supply heading into early 2026, even though they admit the glut might ease to around 700,000 barrels per day by the fourth quarter if disruptions continue. President Donald Trump on Monday confirmed that the U.S. will hold onto the crude oil and ships it seized off the coast of Venezuela. “We’re going to keep it,” Trump said in Palm Beach, right after launching a new class of battleships named after himself. He didn’t stop there. “Maybe we’ll sell it, maybe we’ll keep it, maybe we’ll use it in the strategic reserve,” Trump said, adding, “We’re keeping the ships also.” That’s the new line in Washington’s blockade of sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of Venezuela. He’s putting more pressure on President Nicolas Maduro and using oil as leverage. See also Yen tops 140 per dollar ahead of US-Japan finance talks According to Kpler, the U.S. seized a massive tanker on December 10 hauling over 1 million barrels of Venezuelan crude. A second ship was intercepted last weekend. Trump confirmed a third vessel is now being pursued. “It’s moving along. We’ll end up getting it,” he said. “It came from the wrong location. It came out of Venezuela, and it was sanctioned.” Venezuela, which has the largest proven oil reserves on the planet and helped found OPEC, is still exporting roughly 749,000 barrels a day, Kpler said. Over half of that oil is headed to China. Meanwhile, the price at the pump keeps dropping in the U.S. The average cost of unleaded gas has stayed under $3 per gallon for most of December, the lowest since 2021, according to AAA. The group said this December could be the cheapest since 2020, back when the pandemic brought demand to a halt. Fuel costs have dropped about 7% since last month and 43% from the mid-2022 high when prices were near $5 a gallon after inflation took off. That’s good news for drivers, and there’s a lot of them. AAA expects a record-breaking 122 million Americans to travel at least 50 miles between December 20 and January 1. Out of that, 110 million will drive.
Crude Prices Edge Higher as Geopolitical Tensions Offset Venezuelan Supply Questions - The crude oil market traded higher on Tuesday as the market weighed geopolitical risks and stronger than expected U.S. economic growth. The potential sales of Venezuelan crude seized by the U.S. were countered by increased supply disruption fears amid the continuing attacks between Russia and Ukraine. On Monday, President Donald Trump said that the U.S. may keep or sell the oil it seized off the coast of Venezuela as part of U.S. measures that include a blockade of oil tankers under sanctions entering and leaving Venezuela. Late Monday, Russian forces struck Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa and damaged port facilities and a ship while Ukrainian drone attacks damaged two vessels and piers. The market traded mostly sideways before it breached its previous high and gradually traded to a high of $58.51 ahead of the close. The February WTI contract settled up 37 cents at $58.38 and the February Brent contract settled up 31 cents at $62.38. The product markets ended the session higher, with the heating oil market settling up 3.25 cents at $2.1906 and the RB market settling up 10 points at $1.7432. On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump said it would be smart for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to leave power, and added that the United States could keep or sell the oil it had seized off the coast of Venezuela in recent weeks. According to company documents and shipping data, Venezuela’s state -run oil company PDVSA has started filling up tankers with crude and fuel oil it has in storage as inventories increase amid moves by the U.S. to seize Venezuela-linked ships. The emerging backlog, as PDVSA produces about 1.1 million bpd of crude, is quickly filling the company’s onshore tanks, especially at the Jose terminal, which receives extra heavy oil from the country’s main output region, the Orinoco Belt. PDVSA began draining part of those inventories to oil tankers over the past weekend. On Monday evening, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said oil cargo deliveries for Chevron to export would continue even amid the dispute with Washington. Chevron has repeatedly said that its operations in Venezuela “continue without disruption and in full compliance with laws and regulations applicable to its business.” Vortexa reported Monday that crude oil stored on tankers that have been stationary for at least 7 days fell -7% w/w to 107.15 million bbl in the week ended December 19. Kpler is projecting EU countries will probably import some 4.62 million mt of diesel/gasoil this December, the lowest monthly total since February when the EU imported some 4.506 million mt. Barclays said the oil markets are expected to remain well supplied in the first half of 2026, but added that the oil surplus will shrink to only 700,000 bpd in the fourth quarter of 2026 and that prolonged disruption could tighten the market further. Baker Hughes said U.S. energy firms this week added oil and natural gas rigs for the first time in three weeks. The oil and gas rig count increased by three to 545 in the week ending December 23rd. Baker Hughes said the number of oil rigs increased by three to 409 this week, while gas rigs were unchanged at 127. The EIA announced that its weekly petroleum stocks report for the week ending December 19th will be released on Monday, December 29th at 10:30 A.M. due to the closure of the Federal government for the Christmas holiday.
Oil holds near flat on US-Venezuela tensions, Fed cut bets -- Oil prices saw limited gains on Wednesday amid supply concerns stemming from heightened tensions between the US and Venezuela, as well as stronger-than-expected US economic growth data. International benchmark Brent crude was trading at $61.97 per barrel at 09.50 a.m. local time (0650 GMT), up 0.01% from the previous close of $61.96. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) also increased by 0.01% to $58.40, compared to $58.39 in the prior session. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said his country has received "overwhelming support" at the UN Security Council following US seizures of Venezuelan oil tankers. US President Donald Trump on Dec. 16 ordered a "total and complete blockade" on all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, citing allegations that the country is financing narcotics-related terrorism. While Venezuela accounts for a relatively small share of global oil supply, analysts say markets remain highly sensitive to any potential supply disruptions amid broader geopolitical risks, providing support to prices. Strong US growth data also lent support to prices. According to preliminary figures, the US economy expanded at an annualized rate of 4.3% in the third quarter, exceeding expectations and marking the fastest pace of growth since the third quarter of 2023. Industrial production rose 0.2% in November after a 0.1% decline the previous month. The stronger-than-expected growth has helped ease concerns over an economic slowdown by signaling resilient consumer spending and economic activity in the world’s largest oil consumer. Meanwhile, as the process to select a new Federal Reserve (Fed) chair continues, US President Donald Trump argued that the newly released "great" economic data was the result of tariffs, adding that the figures would improve further and claiming there was no inflation. Moreover, referring to the next Fed chair, Trump said, "Anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed Chairman!" While the remarks have reinforced expectations of interest rate cuts, they have also raised questions over rising political pressure on the Fed in the period ahead. The comments have strengthened concerns that such pressure could undermine the central bank's institutional independence and credibility. In money markets, traders are pricing in an 86% probability that the Fed will keep interest rates unchanged in January, while expectations point to a total of two rate cuts over the course of the year. Comments from Trump have reinforced expectations that the Bank might adopt a more accommodative policy stance, which typically supports oil prices by weakening the dollar and improving risk appetite. However, concerns that rising political pressure could undermine the Fed's independence are adding uncertainty to the outlook, limiting the extent of gains in crude. On the other hand, expectations of rising US crude inventories have weighed on prices. The American Petroleum Institute estimated that commercial crude stocks rose by 2.4 million barrels last week, compared with market expectations for a draw of 9.3 million barrels. The surprise build has reinforced perceptions of weaker demand in the US, pressuring prices.
Oil prices rose slightly as the market assessed supply risks Oil prices rose on Wednesday for the sixth consecutive day, driven by strong US economic growth and the risk of supply disruptions from Venezuela and Russia, although prices were on track for their steepest annual decline since 2020, Reuters reports, writes UNN. Details Brent crude futures rose 15 cents, or 0.2%, to $62.53 a barrel by 09:08 GMT (11:08 Kyiv time), while US West Texas Intermediate crude added 18 cents, or 0.3%, to $58.56. Both contracts have risen about 6% since December 16, when they fell to near a five-year low. "Over the past week, we've seen a combination of position closures in sluggish markets after last week's collapse failed to materialize, as well as increased geopolitical tensions, including the US blockade of Venezuela, and support from yesterday's GDP data," said IG analyst Tony Sycamore. US data showed that the world's largest economy grew at its fastest pace in two years in the third quarter, driven by strong consumer spending and a sharp rebound in exports. Nevertheless, Brent and WTI crude oil prices are forecast to fall by approximately 16% and 18% respectively this year – sharp declines since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic undermined oil demand. "Despite these supply-related risks, oil prices, ... are forecast to show their largest annual decline since 2020, as supply is expected to exceed demand," said MUFG analyst Sujin Kim. A Haitong Futures report stated that the most significant factor driving oil prices was disruptions to exports from Venezuela, and the ongoing attacks by Russia and Ukraine on each other's energy infrastructure also supported the market. More than a dozen loaded vessels are in Venezuela, awaiting new instructions from their owners after the US seized the supertanker Skipper earlier this month and struck two more vessels over the weekend. Last week, US President Donald Trump announced a "blockade" of all sanctioned vessels entering or leaving Venezuela to increase pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Meanwhile, US crude oil inventories rose by 2.39 million barrels last week, gasoline inventories increased by 1.09 million barrels, and distillate inventories by 685,000 barrels, market sources said, citing American Petroleum Institute data.
Oil Futures Steady in Shorter Pre-Holiday Session (DTN) -- Oil futures held steady in Wednesday's, Dec. 24, abbreviated session ahead of the Christmas holiday, as traders focused on upbeat U.S. GDP data and geopolitical concerns that had underpinned sentiment over the past week. Weekly inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute (API) showing builds across the board in crude, gasoline and distillates did not appear to have much of an immediate impact. Crude oil futures tumbled more than 2% by Friday's close, reversing a steady morning session. NYMEX WTI crude futures contract for February delivery was up $0.10, or 0.2%, at $58.47 bbl. Front-month ICE Brent futures contract rose $0.05, or 0.1%, at $62.43 bbl. NYMEX front-month RBOB futures climbed $0.0033, or 0.2%, to $1.7465 gallon. However, the front-month ULSD futures contract bucked the uptrend, sliding by $0.0025, or 0.1%, to $2.1881 gallon. The U.S. economy posted its best quarterly growth in two years during this year's third quarter, expanding by an annualized 4.3% versus Wall Street's forecast of 3.3%, data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis showed Tuesday, Dec. 23. Oil futures have been bullish in the past five sessions, underpinned by news of U.S. seizures of Venezuelan oil cargoes and reciprocal attacks between Ukraine and Russian forces. Late Tuesday, the API reported that U.S. commercial crude oil stocks rose by 2.4 million bbl during the week ended December 19, after a 9.3 million bbl draw the prior week. Official inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, typically due on Wednesdays, will be delayed until Dec. 29 due to the Christmas break.
Oil Holds Steady in Thin Christmas Eve Trade | Rigzone -Thin volume on Christmas Eve left oil markets little changed as traders continued to weigh this year's twin forces of escalating geopolitical tensions and the expected global supply overhang. West Texas Intermediate futures edged down 3 cents to settle near $58 a barrel, narrowly snapping a five-day winning streak. Investors continue to watch for signs of supply interruptions out of Venezuela as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on the nation. The US was still in pursuit of a third oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, though nearly half a dozen tankers laden with crude have departed from the South American nation's coast since Washington intensified efforts to curb oil revenues that help sustain Nicolás Maduro's regime. The turmoil in the Caribbean is the "focal point going into the holiday weekend," said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president for trading at BOK Financial Securities Inc. "While the the blockade and sanctions are not decreasing world supplies, they may be delaying them, lending a bullish tilt to prices." WTI, the US benchmark, is still on track for its biggest annual decline since 2020, with virtually all of the world's major oil traders foreseeing a glut next year after producers in and outside OPEC+ increased supplies. But concerns about disruptions, especially from OPEC+ members Russia and Venezuela, have helped keep a floor under prices. Russian crude is building up at sea, with the volume jumping 48% since the end of August. The US actions against Venezuela may be raising concerns among shippers and buyers of Russian barrels, who worry their cargoes could also be targeted. In the US, an industry report showed crude stockpiles increased by 2.4 million barrels last week, with storage of gasoline and distillate both rising. Official data is set to be released on Dec. 29, on delay. Trading ceased early on Wednesday and markets will be closed on Thursday for Christmas. WTI for February delivery slid 3 cents to settle at $58.35 a barrel in New York. Brent for February settlement fell 14 cents to settle at $62.24 a barrel.
Oil prices rose slightly as the market assessed supply risks -Oil prices rose on Friday after the US increased economic pressure on Venezuelan oil supplies and launched airstrikes against militants in Nigeria. Brent futures rose to $62.30 and WTI to $58.41 amid low market activity due to the Christmas holidays and expectations of an annual price decline. Oil prices rose slightly as the market assessed supply risks Oil prices rose slightly on Friday after the US increased economic pressure on Venezuelan oil supplies and launched airstrikes against Islamic State militants in northwestern Nigeria at the request of the government in Abuja, UNN reports with reference to Reuters. Brent crude futures rose 6 cents, or 0.1%, to $62.30 a barrel at 04:56 GMT (06:56 Kyiv time). US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude also rose 6 cents to $58.41. Both Venezuela and Nigeria are major oil producers. Although Nigerian oil fields are predominantly located in the south of the country, the airstrikes have increased geopolitical risks. The White House has ordered its armed forces to focus on "quarantining" Venezuelan oil for at least the next two months, indicating that Washington is now more interested in using economic rather than military means to pressure Caracas. "Due to business closures for the Christmas holidays, market activity remained relatively low at the end of the year," "The main factor affecting oil prices was supply disruptions." Nevertheless, oil prices are heading for their steepest annual decline since 2020, as investors assess US economic growth and the risk of supply disruptions, particularly in Venezuela. Brent and WTI oil prices are expected to fall by approximately 16% and 18% respectively this year, which would be the sharpest decline since the COVID-19 pandemic hit oil demand, as supply is expected to exceed demand next year. Oil supplies from Kazakhstan via the Caspian Pipeline will be cut by a third in December, reaching their lowest level since October 2024, after a drone damaged facilities at the CPC's main export terminal, two market sources said on Wednesday. The US Energy Information Administration is scheduled to release official inventory data on Monday, later than usual due to the Christmas holidays. This data should provide insight into demand in the world's largest oil consumer.
Oil Futures Drop Amid Ukraine-Russia Peace Talks Progress (DTN) -- Crude oil futures tumbled more than 2% by Friday's close, reversing a steady morning session. The drop followed reports of significant progress in Ukraine peace talks, fueling expectation that lifted Russian sanctions could add millions more barrels to an already oversupplied market. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida this weekend to finalize a U.S.-led 20-point peace framework, according to the reports. The peace plan was "90% ready" and includes significant concessions, such as the creation of demilitarized zones and "special economic zones" in the contested Donbas region, Zelenskyy was quoted saying. The proposal marks a shift in Kyiv's stance as it appears willing to accept at least some of Moscow's demands to end the nearly four-year conflict caused by Russia's invasion. Meanwhile, Reuters reported Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed today his willingness to swap some territory controlled by Russian forces in Ukraine. A lifting of U.S. and European sanctions on Russia's oil trade could free up embargoed crude cargoes that are now trapped at sea. The International Energy Agency has forecast the global crude oil glut in 2026 at 3.84 million barrels per day (bpd), excluding the additional Russian supply. Crude futures pared almost all of the advances they had made for the week, with the progress in peace talks. The NYMEX WTI futures contract for February delivery settled Friday's session down $1.61, or 2.8%, at $56.74 barrel (bbl). For the week, it rose 0.1%. The ICE Brent contract for February fell $1.60, or 2.6%, to $60.64 bbl, while posting a weekly increase of 0.3%. So far this year, WTI and Brent have dropped more than 17%, putting them on track to their sharpest annual loss since 2020, the year of the coronavirus outbreak. The front-month ULSD contract slid $0.0515, or 2.4%, on the day to $2.1061 gallon. RBOB futures contract for January shipments dipped $0.0507, or 2.9%, to $1.6964 gallon.
Oil falls 2% on looming supply glut, hopes of Ukraine peace deal (Reuters) - Oil prices settled more than 2% lower on Friday as investors weighed a looming global supply glut, while also keeping an eye on a potential Ukraine peace deal ahead of talks this weekend between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump. Brent crude futures settled down $1.60 or 2.57% to $60.64 per barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled down $1.61 or 2.76% to $56.74. While supply disruptions have helped oil prices rebound in recent sessions from their near five-year low on December 16, they are on track for their steepest annual decline since 2020. Brent and WTI are down 19% and 21% respectively on the year, as rising crude output caused concerns of an oil glut heading into next year. "Geopolitical premiums have provided near-term price support, but have not materially shifted the underlying oversupply narrative," Aegis Hedging analysts said in a note on Friday. The global oil supply next year will exceed demand by 3.84 million barrels per day, according to figures from the Paris-based IEA's December oil market report. Investors are watching for developments in the Russia-Ukraine peace process and the possible impact on future oil prices, as a peace agreement could lead to the removal of international sanctions against Russia's oil sector. Zelenskiy will discuss territorial issues, the main stumbling block in talks to end the war, with Trump in Florida on Sunday, as a 20-point peace framework and a security guarantees deal near completion. Announcing the meeting, Zelenskiy said that "a lot can be decided before the New Year." The Ukrainian president also told Axios he would be willing to call a referendum on an agreed peace framework if Russia agrees to a ceasefire. A foreign policy aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to members of the U.S. administration after Moscow received U.S. proposals about a possible Ukrainian peace deal, the Kremlin said on Friday. For the oil price, "the negatives remain of elevated global oil storage, and slight progress on Ukraine-Russia peace talks," said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president of trading at BOK Financial. The White House also ordered its military forces to focus on a "quarantine" of Venezuelan oil for at least the next two months, indicating Washington is currently more interested in using economic rather than military means to pressure Caracas. "The global impact to crude prices looks minimal at this time," Kissler said of U.S. actions to intercept sanctioned oil tankers leaving and entering Venezuela. Despite headline risk pertaining to Venezuela, the broader market remains focused on the growing global surplus, according to Aegis Hedging analysts.
Saudi Arabia urges Yemen’s separatists to leave 2 governorates as the anti-rebel coalition strains (AP) — Saudi Arabia on Thursday called on Emirati-backed separatists in southern Yemen to withdraw from two governorates they now control, a move that has threatened to spark a confrontation within a fragile coalition that has been battling the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the country’s north. The statement from Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry appeared aimed at putting public pressure on the Southern Transitional Council, a separatist Yemeni force long supported by the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia backs the National Shield Forces of Yemen’s internationally backed government in the war against the Houthis. The separatists’ actions have “resulted in an unjustified escalation that harmed the interests of all segments of Yemeni people, as well as the southern cause and the coalition’s efforts,” the ministry said. “The kingdom stresses the importance of cooperation among all Yemeni factions and components to exercise restraint and avoid any measures that could destabilize security and stability.” Meanwhile, the Houthis buried four of their fighters, including the group’s top missile and drone commander who was presumed killed in March, in the first round of U.S. airstrikes to hit the rebels in March. The Southern Transitional Council moved earlier this month into Yemen’s governorates of Hadramout and Mahra. The Saudi statement said that mediation efforts were underway to have the council’s forces return to “their previous positions outside of the two governorates and hand over the camps in those areas” to the National Shield Forces.“These efforts remain in progress,” the ministry said. The local Hadramout governorate’s authority said that it supported the Saudi announcement and called for the Emirati-backed separatists to withdraw to positions outside the governorates. Those aligned with the council have increasingly flown the flag of the flag of South Yemen, which was a separate country from 1967-1990. Demonstrators rallied on Thursday in the southern port city of Aden to support political forces calling for South Yemen to again secede from Yemen.
Zelensky offers peace plan concessions to Putin -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday presented a new 20-point peace plan that offers concessions to Russia in an effort to end the conflict in Ukraine. The proposal slims down the 28-point peace plan proposed by the Trump administration and allots for the creation of a “fortress belt” composed of cities in the Donetsk region to protect Ukraine from further invasion from the Kremlin. Russian President Vladimir Putin has pushed to acquire all of the Donetsk region in peace negotiations and has made land cessation a requirement to end the war. Instead of ceding land, Zelensky has offered to establish a demilitarized zone on the front lines that would require Russian and Ukrainian forces to withdraw from the areas defined in the agreement. “If we establish a free economic zone here, and it envisages a virtually demilitarized zone — meaning heavy forces are removed from this area — and the distance, for example, is 40 kilometers (it could be 5, 10, or 40 kilometers) — then if these two cities, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, are our free economic zone, the Russians would have to pull back their troops accordingly by 5, 10, or 40 kilometers,” Zelensky told reporters Tuesday, according to CNN. The Ukrainian leader said voters must decide if the terms are agreeable through a referendum, which would require a 60-day process. “People could then choose: Does this ending suit us, or does it not?” Zelenksy said, per CNN. “That would be the referendum. A referendum requires at least 60 days. And we need a real ceasefire for 60 days; otherwise, we cannot hold it. In other words, the referendum would not be legitimate,” he continued. Zelensky and leaders in Europe and the U.S. have been urging Putin to agree to a ceasefire. However, the Kremlin’s attacks on Kyiv have persisted, with drone strikes taking place in recent days. “Since there is no faith in the Russians, and they have repeatedly broken their promises, today’s contact line is turning into a line of a de facto free economic zone, and international forces should be there to guarantee that no one will enter there under any guise — neither ‘little green men’ nor Russian military disguised as civilians,” Zelensky said, according to NBC News.
'We Will Remain Here': Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Visits Gaza Christians Ahead of Christmas - Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, arrived in Gaza on Friday to visit the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza City as Palestinian Christians prepare to celebrate Christmas.“We will not forget what happened, but we look ahead,” Pizzaballa told parishioners at the church, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA. “We will rebuild our homes and schools, and we will rebuild our lives. We are from here, and we will remain here. In this sea of destruction, we seek to be an example to everyone of what it means to rebuild.”On Sunday, Pizzaballa, who was joined by his patriarchal vicar, Monseigneur William Shomali, presided over Mass and preached a message of hope. “In this new phase, we have to bring the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of light, the spirit of tenderness, the spirit of growth,” Pizzaballa said during his homily. The Latin Patriarchate said that Pizzaballa administered First Communion to nine children and baptized a baby during Mass on Sunday. The Italian-born cardinal also celebrated Mass on Saturday, followed by a Nativity play performed by the church’s children. The Latin Patriarchate said that Pizzaballa also visited a “number of medical and relief centers” in Gaza, including those run by Catholic charities. Photos show Pizzaballa walking through rubble-strewn streets, visiting the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, and a tent camp housing displaced Palestinians on the beach.Pizzaballa also joined in prayers for Nahida Khalil Anton and her daughter, Samar Kamal Anton, two Christian women who were killed by IDF snipers on the grounds of the Holy Family Church two years ago. Seven people who attempted to help them were wounded during the attack.Pizzaballa has visited Gaza several times since Israel unleashed its genocidal campaign on the Strip, including following the Israeli tank shelling of the Holy Family Church, which killed three Christians and wounded others, including Father Gabriel Romanelli, an Argentine priest who leads the parish.Gaza’s small Christian population, which is mainly based at the Holy Family Church and the nearby St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, has dwindled further due to Israel’s destruction campaign. The Latin Patriarchate said back in August that there were just 645 Catholic and Orthodox Christians left in the Gaza Strip.
Belgium joins South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at ICJ | Al Jazeera -Belgium has formally joined the case launched by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. In a statement on Tuesday, the ICJ – The Hague-based highest court of the United Nations – said Belgium had filed a declaration of intervention in the case. Other countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Ireland, Mexico, Spain and Turkiye, have already joined the proceedings. South Africa brought the case in December 2023, arguing that Israel’s war in Gaza violates the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Israel has rejected the allegations and criticised the case. While a final ruling could take years, the ICJ issued provisional measures in January 2024 ordering Israel to take steps to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza and to allow unimpeded access for humanitarian aid. The court’s orders are legally binding although it has no direct mechanism to enforce them. The ICJ also said Israel’s presence in occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and its policies amount to annexation. Israel has continued its assaults in Gaza and the occupied West Bank despite the rulings and growing international criticism while advancing plans to seize large parts of Palestinian territory. Meanwhile, the United States and several of its European allies continue to provide military and financial support to Israel. Washington has rejected the merits of South Africa’s case, and US lawmakers have criticised the country and issued threats against it. The US has also imposed sanctions on members of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. Belgium was also among a group of countries that recognised the State of Palestine in September. Nearly 80 percent of UN member states now recognise Palestine. Since a ceasefire began on October 10, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said, Israel has killed at least 406 Palestinians and injured 1,118 in the enclave. Since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, the ministry said, at least 70,942 Palestinians have been killed and 171,195 wounded.
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