Friday, 10 July 2026

Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass terminal (CP1) registered 139 exceedances of its air permits in its first year of operation, according to state regulators cited by Inside Climate News. The facility released methane, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and other hazardous pollutants during that period.

The terminal sits in Cameron, Louisiana, enclosed by a 31.5-foot-high solid steel fence and spread across 1,150 acres where grasslands stood a year earlier, according to Inside Climate News.

The surrounding community has shrunk sharply. Cameron was home to some 2,000 people before storms hit the area, and fewer than 200 remain today, Inside Climate News reported.

Venture Global chief executive Michael Sabel described the business in plain terms. "Ultimately our business is that we manufacture and operate machines that produce money," Sabel told CNBC on the day he took the company public last year, according to Inside Climate News.

Sabel received compensation of more than USD 39 million last year, and Pender received more than USD 12 million, according to Inside Climate News. The pair own nearly 80% of the company's stock.

Since the United States started bombing Iran, several Venture Global insiders have collectively netted more than USD 246 million by selling company stock, the price of which spiked during the war, according to an analysis by Friends of the Earth confirmed by Inside Climate News.

The company has accumulated more than USD 36 billion in debt to build its terminals, according to Inside Climate News.

The expansion mirrors a broader shift. The United States went from nothing to become the world's largest exporter, and LNG output is expected to nearly double between now and 2029, according to Inside Climate News.

Australia bought abroad 90% of the diesel, 80% of the jet fuel and 68% of the petrol it used in FY2024-25, its three main oil products, according to IEEFA. The country now stands as the world's biggest buyer of seaborne diesel, its purchases equal to 10.1% of global net trade in 2025, IEEFA said.

IEEFA counted six times since 2000 when Australian inflation ran past the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) target band of 2-3%, and it named oil price shocks as a leading cause each time. Across those years, oil prices climbed about 6.9% annually and oil costs about 8.9% annually, running ahead of Consumer Price Index (CPI) growth of 2.8%, according to IEEFA.

Household transport spending added one percentage point to the CPI in March 2026, IEEFA reported.

Annual inflation fell to 4% in May from a March peak of 4.6%, according to IEEFA. In May 2026 the RBA lifted the cash rate by 0.25%, pointing to the danger of second-round effects from higher oil prices, IEEFA said.

IEEFA pointed to electrification as a way to cut that import dependence. Powering all of Australia's road transport with electricity would draw the equivalent of 42% of current electricity demand, according to IEEFA.

TechnipFMC has secured a contract to build out the Var Energi-led Ofelia and Gjoa Nord developments in the Norwegian North Sea, according to Rigzone.

The integrated engineering, procurement, construction and installation deal came without a stated price, though Rigzone reported TechnipFMC classified it as a large award, a bracket the company puts at USD 500 million to USD 1 billion.

Rigzone reported the direct award grew out of a five-year subsea collaboration pact the two companies signed in 2025.

Var Energi cleared the final investment decision for the Gjoa Subsea Projects on June 25, with a target of roughly 76 million barrels of oil equivalent in gross proven and probable reserves, Rigzone reported.

Output is scheduled to begin at Cerisa in Q3 2027, with Ofelia and Gjoa Nord following in the second half of 2028, according to Rigzone.

The developments push the economic life of the area out from the early 2030s to around 2040, Var Energi said, which the company links to further tie-back work and near-field exploration.

Rigzone reported that Var Energi Chief Operating Officer Torger Rod tied the work to the company's aim of producing more than 400 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day over the long term, calling the projects a way to strengthen Gjoa as a production hub.

Var Energi holds 40 percent of Ofelia, 30 percent of Cerisa and 30 percent of Gjoa Nord, Rigzone reported.

Cenovus Energy has signed Aker Solutions to a five-year engineering and maintenance services agreement covering the White Rose field offshore Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, according to World Oil.

The scope spans the new West White Rose platform and the SeaRose floating production, storage and offloading vessel. Production from the West White Rose platform is expected to start later in 2026, World Oil reported.

Around 120 onshore and offshore staff will support the work, run out of Aker Solutions' St. John's office, according to World Oil.

The contractor's ties to the field date back to 2005, when it began providing offshore engineering that later included the tow-out and installation of the West White Rose concrete gravity structure, plus onshore commissioning and offshore hookup. It also carried out engineering, procurement and work preparation for the SeaRose vessel's life extension drydock campaign, which wrapped up in 2024, per World Oil.

Aker Solutions will record the deal as second-quarter 2026 order intake within its Life Cycle business segment.

Earth Insight mapped government oil and gas blocks against protected waters in 11 countries and found extraction zones sitting on top of habitat used by whales, coral reefs and mangrove forests. Its analysis put more than a quarter of the marine and coastal protected areas it examined inside zones flagged for possible drilling, alongside 40 percent of coral reefs and nearly a third of mangroves.

Across those same countries, oil and gas blocks overlapped with half of the waters that whales and other marine mammals use to migrate, feed and breed, according to Earth Insight.

Kenya recorded a total overlap. Proposed offshore blocks there covered 100 percent of the country's coastal coral reefs, mangroves and marine protected areas, concentrated in the Lamu Basin and its fishing grounds.

Earth Insight also tracked a proposed 800-mile liquefied natural gas pipeline running from Alaska's North Slope in the Arctic down to Cook Inlet, a route that reaches Indigenous communities dependent on hunting and fishing.

LNG shipping through Cook Inlet could push large-vessel traffic up by 40 to 70 percent, according to Earth Insight, layering underwater noise that could block beluga whales from hearing, communicating and locating food.

That noise floor is already high. Ben Boettger, energy policy analyst for Cook Inletkeeper, said existing shipping in Cook Inlet crosses beluga whale harassment thresholds almost daily.

Tyson Miller, executive director of Earth Insight, called the pace of fossil fuel expansion pressing on ocean habitat alarming.

Oil in the low $70s undershoots what supply and demand justify, according to Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB, who put a fair figure closer to $80-90 per barrel. He tied that view to sustained inventory draws across the world since the start of the war.

Brent crude has come off crisis highs to a pre-war level of $72 per barrel, Schieldrop said.

The retreat in bullish positioning tracks that price slide. Ole Hansen reported the combined hedge fund net long across West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude oil futures dropped by 36,300 contracts to 178,800 contracts, the lowest in six months and 68 percent under the March peak.

That pullback, which Hansen linked to both fundamental shifts and a weakening technical picture, has driven gross short positions in Brent toward record territory.

The figures come from Saxo Bank's weekly Commitments of Traders update, covering hedge fund futures positions during the week ending June 23.

Neil Crosby, head of research at Sparta Commodities, said traders are working to absorb a short-lived surge in prompt Arabian Gulf crude that had been held up in the Strait.

Governments at the Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa pledged over USD 6 billion for marine protection, sustainable fisheries and offshore wind, according to Climate Home News. The summit made no comparable commitment on offshore oil and gas expansion.

Only one side event out of dozens of panels in Mombasa addressed the threats posed by offshore oil and gas expansion, Climate Home News reported, and that event was organised by civil society rather than governments.

The silence contrasts with the scale of offshore fossil fuel activity. One-third of global oil and gas production comes from offshore projects, according to Climate Home News. A May report by Earth Insight found that 85% of all hydrocarbon discoveries made in 2024 were offshore.

Host Kenya announced at the conference that it was joining the Global Offshore Wind Alliance, while also defending plans to explore for oil and gas in the Lamu Basin, a biodiverse coastal region, according to Climate Home News.

Alex Wachira, principal secretary for Kenya's Department of Energy, defended the dual approach. "The energy transition is a journey. It is not a one-stop shop," Wachira told Climate Home News.

Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) has awarded SLB a seven-year contract tied to its Ahmadi Innovation Valley initiative, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The two companies will jointly evaluate, test and roll out technologies spanning artificial intelligence, industrial internet of things applications, production optimization, reservoir technologies, water management and energy transition work, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

SLB intends to build a dedicated Ahmadi Innovation Valley facility in Kuwait, the same report said. Construction is expected to start in 2026, with opening set for 2028.

Ahmadi Innovation Valley pairs KOC with industry partners, academia and technology providers to tackle strategic upstream technical problems, per Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Ahmad Jaber Al-Eidan is chief executive officer of KOC, and Olivier Le Peuch is chief executive officer of SLB.

NextDecade Corp has set pricing on senior secured notes worth $3.5 billion, with proceeds directed to the Rio Grande LNG plant under construction at Brownsville, Texas, according to Rigzone.

The opening tranche covers $1 billion in notes maturing in 2031, carrying a 5.25 percent coupon, Rigzone reported.

Rio Grande LNG has earmarked $18 billion for phase 1, which covers liquefaction trains 1-3, according to Rigzone. Capacity under construction stands at around 30 MMtpa, and trains 4 and 5 would each contribute roughly 6 MMtpa, Rigzone reported. The estimated build cost runs to $6.7 billion for each of those two trains.

Regulators widened the project's export room on June 12, 2026, when the Department of Energy lifted the free trade agreement portion of the authorization from 27 MMtpa to about 30 MMtpa, according to Rigzone.

Since July 2023, Rio Grande LNG Phase 1 LLC has swapped out more than $1.85 billion of its $11.1 billion in original term loan facilities, issuing senior secured notes and loans in their place, Rigzone reported.

The Dallas Fed Energy Survey's business activity index more than doubled between quarters, reaching 46.1 in the second quarter of 2026 after a first-quarter reading of 21.0, according to Rigzone. That gauge, which the survey treats as its widest read on conditions for energy firms in the Eleventh District, hit its strongest level since the second quarter of 2022.

Field responses came in from June 9-17, according to Rigzone. One exploration and production (E&P) executive told the survey that markets can price risk but cannot price a tweet.

Crude output firmed as the oil production index moved up to 15.0 in the second quarter from zero three months earlier, according to Rigzone. The natural gas production index held near flat at 3.7.

Costs jumped hard for oilfield services firms, with the input cost index climbing to 64.4 from 34.9 and not a single respondent reporting lower costs, Rigzone reported. The operating margin index for those firms swung to 52.2 from -7.0, its first positive print in many quarters, according to Rigzone.

Spending plans strengthened as the capital expenditures index rose to 40.9 from 21.2 over the quarter, with 49 percent of firms reporting higher outlays, according to Rigzone.

The company outlook index slipped to 29.3 in the second quarter, Rigzone reported. E&P firms read 48.2, while services firms stayed negative at -4.4.

ADNOC is proposing a new pricing methodology for crude sold to term customers, moving toward an approach more aligned with wider regional trading norms, according to World Oil, citing people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Under the plan, monthly official selling prices for Upper Zakum, Das and Umm Lulu crude would be set at a differential to the Dubai benchmark for cargoes loading two months ahead, World Oil reported.

Those three grades currently carry official selling prices set at a differential to Murban futures, which are priced on the ICE Futures Abu Dhabi platform, according to World Oil.

No change was proposed for the official selling price formulation for Murban crude, Abu Dhabi's flagship grade, World Oil reported.

The change, if implemented, could support ADNOC's plan to ramp up production and shipment of its crude following the UAE's exit from OPEC in May, according to World Oil.

ADNOC's crude-marketing team has discussed the changes with refiners and traders, traveling to Singapore to explain the proposals before moving on to Japan for similar talks, World Oil reported, citing people who asked not to be named because the discussions were private.

ADNOC declined to comment on the proposed pricing changes.

Shell expects global liquefied natural gas (LNG) flows to be little changed in 2026, ending more than a decade of growth, if shipping through the Strait of Hormuz returns to normal this summer, according to World Oil.

The conflict in the Middle East has choked off about a fifth of global LNG exports over the past four months, World Oil reported.

Production units at Qatar's Ras Laffan complex, where Shell holds an equity stake, were damaged by Iranian missiles in March, according to World Oil. Qatar has said about 17% of its LNG capacity would need years of repairs following the Iranian attacks.

Shell said LNG facilities could require around six to eight weeks to ramp up once the Strait of Hormuz is deemed safe to pass, according to World Oil.

Shell sees LNG supply returning to growth in 2027, according to World Oil. That view contrasts with Vitol Group and the International Energy Agency (IEA), which expect supplies could stay tight for around two more years.

Over the longer term, Shell projects global LNG demand to climb to nearly 700 million tons a year by 2050, an increase of around 65% from 2025 levels.

Natural gas could start flowing by 2033 from two undersea deposits ExxonMobil discovered off Cyprus, according to a senior company executive cited by Mongabay. The forecast follows a deal ExxonMobil and QatarEnergy signed with Cyprus declaring the two deposits commercially viable.

The Glaucus and Pegasus deposits sit in Block 10 of Cyprus' exclusive economic zone and together hold an estimated 7 trillion cubic feet of gas, Mongabay reported.

ExxonMobil and QatarEnergy view the most likely route to market as a pipeline carrying the gas to existing processing facilities in Egypt, where it can be liquefied for export, according to Mongabay.

The consortium will carry out additional drilling at the Pegasus deposit around the end of this year to gather more data for its development, Mongabay reported.

A separate consortium of Italy's Eni and France's TOTAL holds licenses for four blocks in Cyprus' EEZ, where two deposits hold an estimated 5.6 trillion cubic feet of gas combined, according to Mongabay.

Eni's Chief Operating Officer Guido Brusco said earlier this year that the company was close to a final decision on developing the Cronos gas field, which could deliver gas to European markets by late 2027 or early 2028, Mongabay reported.

Morgan Stanley cut its oil price forecast for the second time in roughly two weeks, projecting Dated Brent to average $75 a barrel across the third and fourth quarters as it flagged a building glut. The bank pared its third-quarter view by $15 and its fourth-quarter view by $5.

Next year's outlook also came down. Morgan Stanley reduced its estimate for each of the four quarters of 2027 and now sees Dated Brent at $70 by the close of that year.

The global benchmark has shed roughly 30% over the quarter after the United States and Iran reached an interim peace that reopened some shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The most-active September contract changed hands at $73.41 on Tuesday, well below the April high above $126.

Morgan Stanley tallied 35 oil and gas tankers leaving the Persian Gulf through the strait on Thursday, marking the first return to the 30-to-40 range that was normal before fighting broke out in February.

By the bank's reckoning, Hormuz throughput needs to climb back to only about 65% of the pre-conflict level, or 11 to 12 million barrels a day, for the market to balance in 2027.