Tuesday, 25 August 2026

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) signed a Memorandum of Agreement establishing the Small Business Investment Company-Energy (SBIC-E) Initiative, according to a DOE announcement.

The initiative attaches to an existing SBA vehicle rather than a new funding line. DOE said the SBA's Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) Program currently holds USD 58 billion in combined portfolio value.

DOE listed the first set of investment priorities for SBIC-E as technologies supporting American energy production and energy security, alongside critical minerals, advanced manufacturing, and advanced materials.

The underlying SBIC Program has a long track record in small-business finance. DOE said it has invested USD 147 billion in American small businesses since 1958.

On employment, DOE said SBIC-backed businesses have created or supported 10.6 million jobs since 1995.

Hutchison Ports Pakistan will deploy 20 more e-trucks in October and take delivery of 50 additional units before the end of 2027, according to Electrek.

The e-truck referenced is the Westwell E-Truck S1 terminal tractor, Electrek reported.

The wider USD 76 million investment covers new electric material handlers, two electric remote-controlled quay cranes, 17 electric remote-controlled rubber-tired gantry cranes and 40 e-trailers, per Electrek.

The expansion follows operating experience with the terminal's first electric tractors. Electrek reported that those units covered more than 450,000 km over the last year, and that the operator was satisfied with their performance.

Quay cranes and rubber-tired gantry cranes handle container transfers between ship and yard, while terminal tractors move containers within the yard. Electrifying all three equipment classes at one site shifts the terminal's fuel demand onto the electricity supply serving the port.

The first group of large data centers queued for connection to the Texas grid will not advance until mid-December, ERCOT officials said, according to Inside Climate News.

The holdup covers Batch Zero, a set of 300 projects that ERCOT staff must vet. Inside Climate News reported that 90 percent of those projects are data centers.

Batch Zero was set up to refine how ERCOT studies the 1,800 projects waiting for grid connection, according to the same report.

Chad Seely, ERCOT's senior vice president for regulatory policy, said the grid operator is now running the audit and verification earlier in the study process at the request of the governor. Seely made the remarks at a PUC meeting, per Inside Climate News.

Water use data on the sector remains thin. A PUC water survey released in April has drawn responses from only 28 companies, Inside Climate News reported.

Public sentiment in the state runs against local siting. A June poll from the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Politics Project found 56 percent of respondents opposed building data centers in their communities, with 42 percent strongly opposed.

Australia's largest oil and gas company has walked away from its clean energy plans after profiting from the global fuel crisis, according to RenewEconomy.

RenewEconomy reported the retreat came as the company cashed in on the crisis in global fuel markets.

Woodside Energy operates the North West Shelf gas project on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia, RenewEconomy said.

Australia has roughly 40 GW of grid-scale renewable generation and energy storage moving through its development pipeline, according to pv magazine, citing AEMO. That total sits against a NEM capacity of 77 GW today, with about 24 GW of the pipeline newly committed or anticipated.

The pipeline is building ahead of a large fleet exit. About 15 GW of coal and gas generation is scheduled to retire over the next decade, pv magazine reported.

AEMO Chief Executive Officer Daniel Westerman said the reliability outlook has improved relative to last year's report, with no forecast reliability gaps identified before 2030, according to pv magazine.

Connection rates have accelerated. Approximately 9.1 GW of new capacity reached full output in the NEM over the past year, which pv magazine reported as a new annual record and more than double the previous year's connection rate.

Behind the meter, more than 2.4 GW / 7.4 GWh of household batteries have been added to the grid since 1 July 2025, per pv magazine.

Demand-side pressure is coming from computing load. The number of proposed data centres seeking to connect to the NEM has more than doubled over the past year, rising from 97 to 225, according to pv magazine.

That queue translates into a steep consumption curve. Data centre electricity use on the NEM is forecast to rise from about 5 TWh today to 34 TWh in 2035-36, lifting the segment's share of grid-supplied electricity from roughly 3% to about 13%, pv magazine reported.

The scale comparison matters for the retirement schedule: the 40 GW of committed and anticipated capacity is more than half the existing 77 GW of NEM capacity, while the plant set due to close over the coming decade amounts to 15 GW. Household batteries add a distributed layer on top of that grid-scale build, with the 7.4 GWh installed since 1 July 2025 dispatchable behind the meter.

Public spending in the Indian state of Jharkhand would be screened and tagged by its climate relevance under a framework published by IEEFA. The report, 'A Green Budgeting Framework for Jharkhand', was developed with the state government's Task Force on Sustainable Just Transition.

The tagging mechanic sits at the centre of the design. Every line of state expenditure would receive one of five labels ranked by environmental relevance, according to IEEFA. At one end sits green positive (G+), then transition enabling (T) and enabling or systemic (E). Spending with no environmental bearing is marked neutral (N); the remainder falls under brown or negative (B).

Six objective areas define what counts as green under the scheme. Two cover the climate response directly: mitigation, and adaptation and resilience. Natural capital protection forms a third, with resource efficiency and circular economy a fourth. The final pair are sustainable mobility and urban systems, and Just Transition and coal district resilience.

A separate 'Just Transition flag' would run alongside the five tiers. IEEFA says it would mark money going directly to coal districts, to communities that depend on fossil fuels for work, to workers who lose their jobs, and to others hit by structural economic change.

Running the system would fall to a green budgeting cell housed in Jharkhand's Department of Finance. IEEFA sets out two supporting bodies for that cell: the Task Force on Sustainable Just Transition, and an independent expert panel.

India has no formal national green budgeting framework in place, said Vibhuti Garg, Director of IEEFA - South Asia, though she pointed to several earlier initiatives that laid groundwork for one. Garg linked that to wider recognition that public expenditure needs closer alignment with environmental priorities.

Equinor Energy AS, Aker BP ASA and Vår Energi ASA have set up a joint exploration alliance on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) aimed at high-impact oil and gas prospects, Oil & Gas Journal reported.

The three partners are lining up 20-25 exploration opportunities over the next 4-5 years, according to Oil & Gas Journal.

The drilling ambition attached to that pipeline is about five high-impact exploration wells a year.

The stated purpose of the tie-up is to keep NCS production going beyond 2035.

Specific prospects were not named. Oil & Gas Journal reported that financial terms, operatorship arrangements and equity interests for future prospects were also left out.

Vår Energi chief executive Nick Walker called the arrangement "a transformative step" for future high-impact exploration on the shelf.

Public officials in some communities are being inundated with seemingly fake public feedback intended to block renewable energy projects and promote fossil fuels, according to Canary Media.

Ohio is one of the states dealing with the problem, and state regulators there have done little to crack down on it, Canary Media reported.

The fabricated submissions arrive through the same channels officials use to gauge genuine local sentiment on proposed projects, which places the burden of separating authentic objections from manufactured ones on the recipients themselves. Canary Media reports that some parties want a crackdown on the practice, while regulatory action in Ohio has so far been limited.

Europe recorded its hottest June on record this summer during a run of repeated record-breaking heat waves, according to Canary Media.

Canary Media reported that a drought hit the continent at the same time, pulling rivers down to record lows. The outlet described the drought as possibly related to the heat.

River levels matter for power supply because thermal plants draw on river water for cooling, and hydro output depends on flow. Canary Media's account pairs the two stresses, heat and low water, as concurrent conditions across the continent.

Spirit Energy has finished a USD 55 million decommissioning campaign in the UK North Sea, plugging and abandoning three subsea wells and lifting out more than 234 tonnes of subsea infrastructure, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The work ran between April and July in the UK Southern North Sea, OEDigital reported. It covered the Seven Seas and Grove G5 production wells along with the Grove Deep exploration well.

Seven Seas and Grove G5 delivered a combined 56 billion cubic feet of gas across their producing lives, per the same report.

The offshore programme absorbed more than 114,000 hours of work, according to OEDigital. Tugs, a rig and a construction support vessel were deployed alongside remotely operated vehicles.

Spirit Energy said 100% of the recovered subsea materials are to be reused or recycled in UK yards.

Two Wabtec FLXDrive battery-electric locomotives are hauling iron ore for BHP in the Pilbara region of Australia, running between the Jimblebar mines and BHP's Port Hedland operations, according to Electrek.

The units reached Port Hedland in November and went into service on those routes, Electrek reported. The publication described them as Australia's first purpose-built battery-electric locomotives delivered new.

BHP said it expects to be one of the first mining companies globally to run side-by-side evaluations of battery-electric heavy haul locomotive technologies from two suppliers within the same operating environment. That framing sets the Wabtec machines against a second supplier's equipment under identical duty cycles, grades, and ambient conditions on the same iron ore network.

Heavy haul is among the harder duty cycles to electrify with batteries, given train mass and the length of the run between pit and port. Comparing two suppliers on one network gives the operator performance data that vendor specifications alone cannot settle.

Renault has added an entry-level version of the electric Renault 5 pairing an 80 kW motor with a 36.5 kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery, rated for a WLTP range of up to 305 kilometres, according to electrive.

The LFP variant charges at up to 6.6 kW on alternating current and up to 80 kW on direct current, electrive reported. The battery and motor combination sits below the existing pack sizes in the line-up.

Both larger batteries gained range in the update. The Urban Range with the 40 kWh pack moves from 312 to 315 kilometres on the WLTP cycle, a gain of three kilometres. The Comfort Range with the 52 kWh pack improves from 410 to 430 kilometres.

Pricing came down at the same time. Renault cut prices across all Renault 5 variants by EUR 1,710 in Germany. The German entry point is now EUR 26,290 for the Evolution 120 Urban Range, according to electrive.

Renault will show the revised model range at the 2026 Paris Motor Show, which runs from 12 to 18 October.

By around 2060, Sweden's yearly stream of retired solar panels could reach 150,000 metric tons, against 17 metric tons in 2021, according to a circular-economy roadmap reported by pv magazine. Axfoundation and KTH Royal Institute of Technology authored the roadmap with industry partners, among them Svea Solar, El-Kretsen, Stena Recycling and REMONDIS.

RISE puts the 2060 figure inside a scenario band: 40,000 metric tons a year if deployment stays lower, 150,000 metric tons if expansion runs fast, with the heavier volumes starting to show up from around 2035, pv magazine reported.

Viability is the near-term problem. A dedicated photovoltaic (PV) recycling plant needs roughly 10,000 metric tons flowing in each year to work economically on RISE's estimate, and Sweden has not yet come close to that inflow.

Glass dominates what arrives. Roughly 67% of a typical panel is glass, 16% aluminum, 11% plastic and 4% silicon, per the roadmap. Each unit weighs about 20 kg.

Six of 12 European countries filing PV-specific treatment data hit the 85% recovery target in 2021, the European Environment Agency found, according to pv magazine.

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre estimates cumulative EU photovoltaic waste at between 21 million and 35 million metric tons by 2050.

One pilot process has pulled back more than 99.5% of a panel's original weight in testing, using electrohydraulic shockwave fragmentation and including routes for silicon and silver recovery, pv magazine reported.

Gas began flowing from the Troll Phase 3 Stage 2 subsea development in the North Sea on August 22, feeding the Troll A platform and the Kollsnes processing plant, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. The start-up came ahead of the original plan, which had targeted production towards the end of 2026 at an estimated cost of USD 1.32 billion (NOK 12.3 billion).

The development is built to accelerate output of 55 billion standard cubic metres of gas from the Troll West reservoir, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Drilling explains much of the schedule gain. An eight-well campaign was finished in five and a half months with Odfjell's Deepsea Aberdeen rig, supported by services from SLB and Baker Hughes. Trond Bokn, senior vice president for project development at Equinor, said the campaign was completed 25% faster than planned.

Equinor operates the Troll partnership with a 30.55% interest. Petoro holds 55.93%, Shell 8.19%, TotalEnergies 3.69% and ConocoPhillips 1.64%, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The field's weight in supply terms is set out in the same report: Troll holds around 40% of the gas reserves on the Norwegian continental shelf, and gas from the field covers around 10% of Europe's demand. The Troll A platform receiving the new subsea volumes is 30 years old.

Waymo has moved its Zeekr-built "Ojai" robotaxis out of free testing and into regular paid passenger service in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, according to electrive. Riders booking through Waymo's ride-hailing app in those three cities will initially be assigned either an Ojai or one of the Jaguar I-Pace vehicles already in the fleet.

A company spokesperson told electrive that roughly 300 Ojai robotaxis are in service now, and that Waymo expects thousands more to arrive in the US by the end of 2026.

The vans arrive from Zeekr without connected vehicle technology, electrive reported, and Waymo installs its autonomous driving system in Arizona.

The fleet has room to grow beyond the three launch cities. The Nevada Department of Transportation has approved Waymo to run a commercial robotaxi service with up to 1,000 vehicles in Clark County, according to electrive.

None of seven active battery energy storage sites inspected in Norway met the NFPA 855 requirement for 0.9 meters of spacing between units, a distance intended to limit fire spread between modules, according to ESS News.

The inspections were carried out under SafeBESS, a research project funded by the Research Council of Norway, ESS News reported. Researchers visited seven active battery sites, reviewing documentation and reports alongside building owners and facility representatives.

The sites were located in Oslo, Bergen, and Trondheim, and ranged from kindergartens to offices, per ESS News. Installed capacity spanned 41 kWh to 450 kWh.

Detection and mitigation equipment varied sharply across the sample. ESS News reported that one site had gas detectors and two had explosion control, while six relied on smoke detectors. On spacing, the audit found no site in full compliance with the 0.9 meter separation set out in NFPA 855.

Four of the installations, listed by the researchers as Cases 4, 5, 6, and 7, used repurposed Nissan Leaf batteries.

The researchers point to Norway's performance-based regulations, combined with limited knowledge of the fire and explosion hazards associated with lithium-ion batteries, as a likely cause of the wide divergence in safety measures between sites, according to ESS News. Performance-based rules set an outcome to be achieved rather than a prescriptive specification such as a fixed clearance between battery modules, leaving the interpretation to designers and owners.

NFPA 855 is a standard for the installation of stationary energy storage systems. Its 0.9 meter spacing clause addresses propagation between modules, the mechanism by which a thermal runaway event in one unit can cascade into neighbours. Smoke detection, which six of the seven sites had, responds to combustion; gas detection, present at one site, targets the flammable vent gases released by a cell before open flame.

Denmark's state-owned export bank has lent EUR 100 million to build a large new wind farm in Ukraine, Semafor Net Zero reported.

The project will run on turbines supplied by Danish manufacturer Vestas, according to Semafor Net Zero, and will be operated by Ukrainian agricultural company Kernal, which plans to use part of the output itself and sell the rest into the country's battered grid.

Peder Lundquist, chief executive of the Export and Investment Fund, told Semafor Net Zero that the fund assesses Ukrainian investments strictly on economic merits. "As a principle, we will ignore the fact that there is a war," Lundquist said.

That stance has not yet been tested by a direct hit. Of the several dozen projects the fund has backed in Ukraine since the 2022 invasion, spanning energy, agriculture and other sectors, none have sustained major damage from Russian attacks, Lundquist said.

The loan is not the fund's first bet on Ukrainian wind. Last year it made another major investment in a separate wind project alongside Ukrainian energy company DTEK, according to Semafor Net Zero.

The corporate owner of Solara4, a 220 MW solar plant in Portugal, has been placed into administration, pv magazine reported. Thin output, softer wholesale power prices, technical faults and higher costs cut into revenues and cash flow at Welink Energy Portugal 2 UK.

A document lodged with the UK's Companies House register dates the administration to 11 June 2026, pv magazine reported.

Sited at Alcoutim in southern Portugal, the plant started operating in 2021, and no larger solar facility existed in the country at that point, according to pv magazine.

The design called for output of roughly 382 GWh a year from 661,500 modules laid out over about 320 hectares of non-contiguous land, pv magazine reported.

Investec and Kommunalkredit Austria are the main creditors, with project exposure of some EUR 64 million, according to pv magazine.

A separate dispute has already reached the courts. China Triumph International Engineering sought GBP 17.2 million from the WeLink group in High Court proceedings last July, tied to unpaid debts on solar projects, pv magazine reported.

Exus has taken over management of the project from Welink Investments, pv magazine reported. Exus and Enertis are expected to review what capital is needed to restore and lift generation at the plant.

Swedish mining company LKAB has put two 120-tonne battery-electric Scania trucks into service at its Malmberget iron ore mine, according to electrive. The vehicles work at depths of up to 1,250 metres and have already moved more than 100,000 tonnes of iron ore since entering service, electrive reported.

Each truck carries a 624 kWh battery, according to electrive.

The deployment sits inside a wider fleet target. By 2027, LKAB aims to electrify 30% of its mining fleet and to extract and handle at least five million tonnes of material per year without local emissions, electrive reported.

On the road freight side, electrive reported that Einride's battery-electric trucks will cover 832,000 kilometres annually for Lidl in Sweden. That figure marks a possible increase from 474,000 kilometres, a rise of 76%, according to electrive.

Einride and Lidl have worked together on electrifying logistics in Sweden since 2020, with the cooperation so far concentrated mainly on the greater Stockholm area, electrive reported. The new volume includes longer routes beyond that base.

Wholesale electricity costs in New England climbed in spring 2026 even though natural gas got cheaper, with emissions costs and other factors behind the increase, according to the latest quarterly report from ISO New England's Internal Market Monitor (IMM).

The total estimated wholesale market cost of electricity in the region reached $1.75 billion for the quarter, up 6% from spring 2025, the IMM said.

Fuel moved the other way. Natural gas averaged $2.79 per million British thermal units over the spring, 18% below the same period a year earlier, according to the market monitor.

Emissions-related costs for a typical natural gas generator in the region rose 65% year over year, the IMM reported. That charge sits inside the offer costs of the gas units that frequently set the marginal price in the New England energy market, which is why a falling fuel benchmark did not translate into falling wholesale bills.

Imports took a visibly larger share of supply. Net imports covered 13% of the region's energy in spring 2026, against 7% in the previous spring, according to the report.

Capacity payments went in the opposite direction from energy costs. Capacity costs totaled $266 million, a 26% drop year over year, which the IMM attributed to lower cleared capacity and less price separation in import-constrained zones.

The combination described by the market monitor is a quarter in which the two largest components of wholesale cost diverged: energy-side charges tied to emissions rose while the capacity-side bill shrank, and the region leaned harder on power brought in from outside its own generation fleet.

Delhi has put 200 new electric buses into public transport service, electrive reported. The batch splits into 112 nine-metre vehicles and 88 twelve-metre vehicles, according to the specialist outlet.

The smaller nine-metre units account for the majority of the batch, a size class suited to narrower city streets where full-length buses struggle. The twelve-metre buses make up the remaining 88, per electrive.

Alongside the urban deployment, the city started an interstate electric bus service running to Karnal, in the neighbouring state of Haryana, electrive reported.

The deployment sits inside a larger fleet target. Delhi is working toward a total bus fleet of 7,500 vehicles by March 2027, of which 5,800 would be electric, according to electrive. That would leave electric units as the dominant share of the fleet rather than a supplementary tier.

Swiss energy company Alpiq has bought Eco Power One GmbH, the project company holding the 103 MW/238 MWh Bollingstedt battery energy storage system in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, from developer Eco Stor, according to ESS News.

Operational responsibility does not move with the ownership. Eco Stor stays in charge of technical and operational management of the 103 MW/238 MWh battery, ESS News reported.

The utility-scale site has been running since June 2025, per the same report.

Grid access at Bollingstedt rests on an arrangement Eco Stor describes as one of Germany's first flexible connection agreements for battery storage, concluded with grid operator Schleswig-Holstein Netz. Flexible connection agreements let a project connect on terms that allow the operator to limit injection or withdrawal under defined grid conditions, rather than waiting for firm capacity to be built out.

The two companies had already been working together. At the end of 2025, Alpiq and Eco Stor announced a cooperation on the Schuby battery storage project and signed a tolling agreement, ESS News reported. Under a tolling structure, the offtaker directs dispatch and takes the market risk while the asset owner is paid a fee for converting that instruction into stored and discharged energy.

The Bollingstedt deal converts that trading-side relationship into direct ownership of an operating asset, with the developer retained as operator.

BYD Malaysia and Bus Cap have signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Shenzhen, China, to explore a jointly developed new energy commercial vehicle platform, according to electrive.

The two companies are weighing a local assembly and manufacturing plant for electric buses in Perak, Malaysia, along with related ancillary activities, electrive reported. Neither the platform's scope nor the plant plan has moved beyond the exploratory stage described in the MoU.

Bus Cap listed on Bursa Malaysia in June 2026, debuting on the ACE Market as the country's first pure-play bus builder, according to electrive.

South Korean state utility Korea Electric Power Corp. (Kepco) has launched a wholly owned technology-commercialization subsidiary, Kepco Technology Holdings, according to pv magazine. The utility seeded the unit with KRW 20 billion (USD 14.4 million) in initial capital.

Funding is scheduled to build out over five years. Kepco plans to raise cumulative funding to KRW 100 billion through annual contributions of KRW 20 billion, pv magazine reported.

The new unit's mandate is to route more than 8,000 Kepco patents, along with other public-sector energy research, toward startups and energy-technology companies, according to pv magazine.

One of the agreements signed at launch brings in seven domestic solar-inverter manufacturers: OCI Power, Dass Tech, Dongyang E&P, Ecos, DIK, Geumbi Electronics, and INO ELECTRIC. Per pv magazine, that agreement is aimed at strengthening South Korea's domestic inverter manufacturing base.

A third agreement created an investment alliance pairing Kepco and Kepco Technology Holdings with 10 investment institutions, among them the Korea Development Bank and IBK Industrial Bank of Korea, pv magazine reported.

Suzuki has unveiled the e SKY, its first battery-electric passenger kei car, carrying a reference driving range of 310 kilometers, according to CleanTechnica.

CleanTechnica reported that Suzuki released preliminary information on the model on Aug. 24.

The 310-kilometer figure is described as a reference range rather than a certified rating, per CleanTechnica. The e SKY marks Suzuki's entry into battery-electric passenger vehicles in the kei class, the smallest regulated passenger car category, according to the same report.

Eni is working with BP plc and Egyptian Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) to reach a final investment decision within the next few months on Denise West, a recently discovered gas field offshore Egypt, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Eni said first gas from the discovery, announced last April, could come in less than two years.

The timetable emerged around a meeting in Cairo, where Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi saw Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Tuesday, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

Descalzi and El-Sisi also reviewed the Cronos gas development offshore Cyprus, another Eni project. Gas extracted at Cronos is to be liquefied at Egypt's Damietta LNG plant, according to the same report.

That routing ties Cypriot upstream volumes to Egyptian liquefaction capacity, placing Damietta at the centre of how Eni plans to monetise its eastern Mediterranean gas. Eni said Cronos will play a role in developing Egypt's position as a Mediterranean energy hub.

No decision has yet been taken on Denise West. The partners' timeline puts the commitment ahead of the point at which production could begin, on Eni's own less-than-two-years guidance for first gas.

The United Arab Emirates' General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has issued regulatory certification to the Dubai VDX vertiport, clearing the site to work toward commercial electric vertical takeoff and landing operations across the emirate, Electrek reported.

The terminal covers 3,100 square meters and is built to serve up to 170,000 passengers per year, according to Electrek.

Two dedicated landing pads sit at the facility, alongside high-powered DC fast charging equipment for the service's electric aircraft, Electrek reported.

Skyports is building the vertiport network with Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA). Electrek describes VDX as the first and primary Skysports transit hub within Dubai's planned air taxi network.

NANO Nuclear Energy has signed a non-binding strategic commercial framework with Tillman Global Holdings and its Tillman Digital Gateway platform covering deployment of KRONOS MMR energy systems across Tillman's planned AI industrial zones in the United States, according to Power Engineering Nuclear.

The two sides are targeting 2 GW or more of advanced nuclear capacity by the mid-2030s, rising to 6 GW or more by 2040, Power Engineering Nuclear reported.

Under the framework, NANO Nuclear Energy is identified as Tillman's anticipated preferred nuclear technology provider. The arrangement is not binding on either party.

The reactor at the center of the arrangement is the KRONOS MMR energy system, a 15 MWe high-temperature gas-cooled unit that NANO Nuclear Energy is developing with modular and phased deployment in mind, according to Power Engineering Nuclear. At that unit size, the stated capacity targets imply a build-out sequenced across many separate modules rather than a single large station.

Tillman Digital Gateway is described as the global data-center platform of Tillman Global Holdings, and the framework ties reactor siting to the AI industrial zones that platform has planned.

Par Pacific has struck a deal to sell the assets of Laramie Energy, LLC for USD 485 million in cash, with USD 60 million of that total deferred until the fifth anniversary of the closing date, according to a GlobeNewswire release.

The seller is a company in which Par Pacific holds 46%, a stake the announcement describes as a non-controlling ownership interest.

Earn-out payments follow the first through fifth anniversaries of closing and are capped at an additional USD 65 million in aggregate, with the amounts tied to price conditions, the release said.

Closing is expected by the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

Halliburton has secured an integrated drilling services contract from bp for the first appraisal campaign at the Bumerangue field offshore Brazil, according to World Oil. The operator is moving to further evaluate its deepwater discovery there.

The scope includes deployment of Halliburton's LOGIX automation and remote operations technology during the campaign, World Oil reported.

Halliburton did not disclose the value or duration of the contract, according to World Oil.

Francisco Tarazona, senior vice president, Latin America at Halliburton, said the award reflects the company's ability to execute complex deepwater projects through a combination of digital solutions, integrated service delivery, and local expertise.

SLB has been picked as strategic reservoir partner for the Havstjerne carbon storage project in the Norwegian North Sea, supplying technology and engineering services as the development moves through concept and front-end engineering and design (FEED), according to World Oil.

Harbour Energy operates Havstjerne in consortium with Stella Maris CCS, a Yinson Production company, World Oil reported. The project is being built as a large-scale offshore CO2 storage site serving industrial emitters across Europe.

An appraisal well drilled in 2025 confirmed reservoir quality suitable for CO2 injection and storage, giving the partners a technical basis to continue development, according to World Oil.

The consortium has settled on a low-pressure floating storage and injection concept, with the stated aim of a cost-effective offshore storage route for European industrial CO2.

Funding support is already in place. Havstjerne received EUR 225 million from the EU Innovation Fund in 2025, World Oil reported.

Sri Lanka's upstream petroleum regulator has opened bidding on 33,964 km² of Mannar basin acreage, split across four blocks, under a round designated SL2026-01. The launch date was Aug. 25.

The Petroleum Development Authority of Sri Lanka (PDASL) is the body running the tender. The four tracts carry the designations 2026-MB-01, 2026-MB-02, 2026-MB-03 and 2026-MB-04. World Oil reported that the acreage is on offer to international oil and gas companies.

Block sizes are uneven. The smallest covers approximately 5,689 km² and the largest approximately 11,728 km², according to World Oil. Water depths across the offered area run from approximately 100 m to 3,000 m.

Dr. Neil DeSilva, director general of PDASL, said prior work in the area has "demonstrated the presence of a working petroleum system in the Mannar basin".

A data room carrying geological and geophysical information opens Sept. 1 for prospective bidders.

Sri Lanka reworked its upstream regulatory framework through the Petroleum Resources Act of 2021, the statute that set up PDASL as the country's upstream petroleum regulator. The current round follows those changes.

Equinor is aiming for 950,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of equity production outside Norway by 2030, up from 750,000 boed in the second quarter of 2026, according to World Oil.

The target rests on a narrower asset base. Equinor is concentrating investment in a smaller international portfolio led by the U.S., Brazil and Angola, World Oil reported.

That portfolio is expected to deliver approximately USD 20 billion of free cash flow between 2026 and 2030, according to World Oil.

The U.S. is Equinor's largest producing country outside Norway, at 433,000 boed of equity production in Q2, World Oil reported. On the company's forecast cited by World Oil, Brazil equity production approaches 200,000 boed by 2030, making it another major source of growth.

In Angola, Equinor and operator Azule Energy sanctioned the Greater PAJ development in June, comprising the Palas, Astrea and Juno discoveries, according to World Oil. The project is expected online in 2029 and will unlock approximately 250 million bbl of resources.

Direct electrolysis of iron ore holds advantages over rival ironmaking routes, but unresolved questions about scaleability and commercialisation could limit its role in cutting emissions from one of the world's most carbon-intensive industries, according to a briefing note from IEEFA.

The note sets out three electrochemical pathways separated mainly by operating temperature. Low-temperature electrowinning runs at 20-120°C, molten salt electrolysis at 800-1,100°C, and molten oxide electrolysis below 1,600°C, IEEFA said.

The feedstock argument is the clearest commercial draw. IEEFA points to the ability of direct electrolysis to take lower-grade iron ores with minimal or no processing, including magnetite ore with an iron content as low as 35% Fe. That sidesteps the beneficiation step that other low-emissions routes typically require.

Power cost decides the economics. "Electricity is the primary cost driver in iron production via electrolysis," IEEFA analyst Soroush Basirat said.

The most advanced developer has already hit trouble. US-based Boston Metal, whose backers include BHP, Vale, ArcelorMittal and Tata Steel, suffered a serious technical setback at its Brazil plant in January 2026, IEEFA said.

Other entrants sit further back. In Australia, Fortescue and Element Zero are working on variations of the process at much earlier stages of development, according to the briefing note.