Friday, 18 September 2026

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the shutdown of Saudi Arabia's East-West crude oil pipeline will be a brief, temporary interruption measured in days, according to Hellenic Shipping News citing his CNBC interview with Morgan Brennan in Houston, where energy officials from G20 nations are meeting.

Saudi Arabia closed the line late last week after it sustained damage in drone attacks launched from Iraq, Hellenic Shipping News reported.

The pipeline's owner, Saudi national oil firm Aramco, has not said how long it expects the line to remain offline, according to The Epoch Times.

Poland's Orlen said on Wednesday it had purchased 16 additional oil cargoes for its refineries in Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic, replacing volumes lost to disruptions in Saudi Arabian supplies expected to last until November, according to Investing.com.

The replacement barrels were contracted from Norway, Great Britain, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and the Americas, Investing.com reported.

The purchases follow attacks by Iran-aligned militia on Saudi Arabia's oil industry, including one that took the East-West Pipeline offline on September 10, according to Investing.com.

The disruption cuts into a core supply relationship. Reuters reported that state-owned Saudi Aramco has been Orlen's largest oil supplier since 2022, providing around 40% of its volumes.

Lloyd's Register has granted Design Appraisal to a fore-accommodation LNG carrier design from HD Hyundai Heavy Industries that integrates Mitsui O.S.K. Lines' Wind Challenger wind-assisted propulsion system, confirming the concept meets LR's Wind-Assisted Propulsion Systems notation requirements.

The project partners describe the vessel as the world's first fore-accommodation LNG carrier equipped with the Wind Challenger hard-sail system, according to statements carried by Ocean News and Hellenic Shipping News.

The design moves the accommodation block and bridge to the bow. That relocation opens a clear mid-to-aft deck area sized to host MOL's Wind Challenger hard sails while preserving operational and navigational requirements, the partners said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the Iran conflict has added EUR 90 billion to the European Union's fossil fuel import bill, according to Crypto Briefing.

Major US and UK financial institutions have warned that crude could reach USD 150 per barrel unless Middle Eastern supply issues are resolved soon, UrduPoint reported.

Oil prices fell on Wednesday as easing US-Iran tensions and expectations of a 25-basis-point Federal Reserve rate increase reduced supply and demand concerns, while disruptions to Saudi crude shipments limited the decline, according to Anadolu Agency. The same report said up to 4% of global oil supply could remain at risk if the pipeline disruption is prolonged.

Crude prices rallied after Saudi Arabia shut its East-West pipeline, disrupting a route that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz and stoking fears of tighter global supplies, according to a Yahoo Finance report.

The rally then reversed. Nasdaq reported that prices retreated on Wednesday after U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said 18 million barrels of crude oil and refined products moved through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, easing global supply concerns.

Wright had earlier framed the baseline for maritime flows through the chokepoint. Per a Crypto Briefing account, he said on September 10 that oil and petroleum products shipped through the strait had averaged just under 11 million barrels per day over the prior seven days.

The pipeline shutdown matters because the East-West line is one of the few conduits that lets Saudi crude reach export terminals without transiting Hormuz, as noted by Yahoo Finance.

The Islip Town Board voted 5-0 to prohibit new battery storage facilities with capacity above 600 kilowatts per hour, according to ABC7.

The measure blocks a proposed battery energy storage facility in Hauppauge that had drawn years of community debate, ABC7 reported.

Islip spokesperson Caroline Smith told Newsday the prohibition carries no expiration date and will remain in place indefinitely.

Blue Energy Global has filed the first portion of a construction permit application with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a hybrid gas-to-nuclear facility at the Port of Victoria, Texas, intended to power a Crusoe data center campus built for AI workloads, according to Crypto Briefing.

The filing covers the first nuclear unit planned for the site and asks the NRC to authorize limited early construction, including deep foundation and shaft work to house the first small modular reactor, World Nuclear News reported.

Blue Energy also asked the regulator to approve what it described as a faster route to nuclear: constructing the natural gas portion and balance-of-plant of the gas-to-nuclear plant first, with that balance-of-plant then reused by the nuclear reactors, according to World Nuclear News.

The submission included a 300-page environmental report, which concluded that the natural gas portion presents no significant impacts to endangered species, tribal lands, or other environmental or historical concerns, per World Nuclear News.

The United States used the G20 energy ministers' meeting in Houston to promote its energy dominance while brushing past the consequences of Washington's war in Iran and environmental concerns, according to Al-Monitor.

The gathering brought together ministers from the largest economies, including China, India, Japan and Germany, alongside major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Canada. Statements on the war in the Middle East were rare, Al-Monitor reported.

US officials repeatedly pushed the meeting's slogan, "Unleash the full potential of American energy," from the moment the gathering opened in Texas, according to Al-Monitor. Trump administration officials presented domestic production as the answer, the outlet reported.

Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) has called on the global gas industry to treat methane reduction as a business priority, arguing that every tonne vented represents lost revenue and gas that could have reached the market.

The company said its own operating experience shows that spending to curb methane losses can pay for itself while lowering emissions and lifting plant efficiency.

NLNG pointed to two internal projects, a boil-off gas compressor and a start-up gas recovery scheme, each designed to cut methane by roughly 10-15%. Both carry positive projected net present values, meaning expected financial benefits exceed costs over the life of the projects.

Caturus LLC has announced a five-train, 7.75 million tonnes per annum expansion of its Commonwealth LNG export facility in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, according to Hellenic Shipping News.

The additional trains would lift planned capacity at the site to approximately 17.25 Mtpa, nearly doubling what is currently envisaged, the outlet reported.

Caturus is targeting the expansion to enter service in the early 2030s, after the base project begins operating. Construction on that base project is progressing on schedule, with operations targeted for 2030.

Ghana's national oil company GNPC has identified more than 1 billion barrels of oil and about 2.5 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Tano Basin that could potentially be added to national production, according to reporting by Ghanaweb, Myjoyonline, Adomonline and Yen.com.gh.

The figures come from an analysis GNPC conducted covering only the Tano Basin, with the company framing the volumes as potential additions rather than proven output.

GNPC said extracting these stranded resources through a hub development model, rather than developing each accumulation independently, would lower capital expenditure on infrastructure and strengthen the case for bringing the barrels and gas to market.

According to Myjoyonline, the corporation stressed that the identified resources would still require the necessary investment and development arrangements before they could feed into Ghana's petroleum output.

Emerald AI, Google and NVIDIA have launched the AI Energy Management Alliance (AEMA), a coalition aimed at making artificial intelligence data centers more responsive to electricity grid conditions.

According to the founding members' joint announcement, the alliance will advance flexible AI data centers that dynamically adjust their power draw to relieve the grid during periods of peak stress.

The three founders are joined by 18 launch partners drawn from the AI, semiconductor, utility and power sectors, including Anthropic, Analog Devices, National Grid, AES, RWE, Constellation and NRG.

AEMA said it will push for accelerated interconnections across the United States for grid-enhancing data centers, backed by demand-management approaches spanning colocated generation, storage and computational flexibility to make better use of existing power system capacity.