Saturday, 4 July 2026

Pennsylvania's General Fund deficit was estimated to rise to $3.9 billion in FY2025-26 before climbing to $6.7 billion in FY2026-27, according to the Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) February 2026 Budget Brief cited by IEEFA.

The IFO also estimated that the state's Rainy-Day Fund surplus will drop from $7.8 billion in FY2025-26 to $1.4 billion by the end of FY2026-27.

IEEFA reports that tax credits to Pennsylvania's fossil fuel industry are 26 times the size of effective tax rates on the industry.

Unlike most oil and gas-producing states, Pennsylvania has no severance tax on natural gas production, according to IEEFA. As a share of total state taxes, the state's impact fees, levied primarily on horizontally drilled natural gas wells, are 0.3% of state tax revenues.

"Neither job growth nor tax revenue growth is on the radar for the fossil fuel industry," said Trey Cowan, energy finance analyst at IEEFA.

TotalEnergies doubled its oil trading profit to roughly USD 1 billion in the first quarter after building crude positions ahead of the Iran war, Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanné told lawmakers, according to Rigzone.

The trading desk booked about USD 500 million above its usual quarterly haul of half a billion dollars, Pouyanné said at a parliamentary hearing in Paris on Wednesday. "This quarter, rather than making 500 million, they made 500 million more," he said.

Pouyanné traced the gain to timing. Buyers at the trading arm added barrels as the US Navy massed ships near the Strait of Hormuz in February, then routed crude out of the Persian Gulf through the Fujairah hub past the chokepoint once fighting began.

First-quarter net earnings climbed almost 30%, driven mostly by war-linked gains, with the jump in energy prices drawing public anger in France as households and businesses paid more, Pouyanné said.

A price cap the company applied at its French service stations has cost it about EUR 200 million, or USD 232 million, to date, Pouyanné told the hearing.

He said second-quarter profit will likely top the first as the crisis drags on.

Iraq will sign a formal deal on Friday to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and lift crude shipments from its southern ports.

Salim Al-Rikabi, spokesman for the Iraqi oil ministry, said exports will resume "as soon as maritime navigation returns to normal," and that the country is moving to that point.

Shipments through Hormuz reached 1 million barrels a day in the first half of this month, against observed exports of about 98,000 barrels a day in May from the southern ports, drawing on figures from Iraq's State Organization for Marketing of Oil and tanker tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. In the year through February, total Iraqi shipments averaged 3.5 million barrels a day.

The International Energy Agency said Wednesday it expects the export recovery to be "gradual".

Brent fell below USD 80 a barrel earlier this week as more Iraqi crude looked set to reach the market, dropping to levels last seen in early March.

Iraq's southern terminals carry the bulk of its seaborne crude out through Hormuz, so a shutdown of the waterway strips out most of that flow, and the Friday accord is the step needed to restart it.