ExxonMobil and SOCAR have moved from study agreements to a 50/50 production-sharing contract for unconventional oil and gas in Azerbaijan’s Middle Kura Basin.

The deal, exchanged on September 26, 2026, at the Second Azerbaijan International Investment Forum in the presence of President Ilham Aliyev, makes ExxonMobil the operator and still needs parliamentary ratification. It is the first time a U.S. supermajor has taken operatorship of an onshore unconventional program in Azerbaijan. The country has spent three decades built […]

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DOE Kicks Off a Huge Investment into America’s Electric Grid

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity announced on September 24, 2026, that it intends to help fund 31 grid-improvement projects across 26 states under the Speed to Power through Accelerated Reconductoring and other Key Advanced Transmission Technology Upgrades (SPARK) initiative. The package totals $5.25 billion—$1.9 billion in federal funding and $3.35 billion in […]

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Why Are Global Diesel Prices So High? Exhibit A: Ukraine Drone Hits Novoshakhtinsk Refinery

A Ukrainian drone strike on Friday forced Russia’s Novoshakhtinsk refinery in the Rostov region offline, according to regional governor Yury Slyusar. The plant, which processes about 110,000 barrels per day (roughly 5–5.6 million tons per year), is not one of Russia’s giants. It is, however, a clean illustration of why diesel—the workhorse fuel for trucking, […]

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Oracle’s huge data center project declares force majeure. Is this the first warning sign in the data center space?

On Thursday, September 24, 2026, Bloomberg reported that Oracle sent a force majeure notice to the developer of Project Jupiter — the 1,400-acre AI campus in Doña Ana County, New Mexico — in an effort to defer payments if the facility misses its planned 2028 in-service date. Shares of Oracle fell about 4–5%. Blue Owl […]

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White House Showing Restraint on a Diesel Export Ban Is the Right Call for American Energy Dominance

The White House’s decision this week to step back from a blunt 90-day diesel export ban is one of the most important energy-security signals of 2026. Record pump prices invited a political shortcut. The administration, led by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, instead chose the harder and more honest path: keep the refining system running and […]

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The real story is not that China is “back buying everything.” It is that Beijing throttled demand, shifted suppliers, drew inventories, and is now restocking only where landed cost still works — while $1 million-a-day VLCCs make a return to the old full-cycle buying pattern expensive and unlikely.

That is the argument Javier Blas is making in his September 23 Bloomberg Opinion column, China Isn’t Buying More Oil, It’s Buying From Different Markets (also framed as “Don’t Believe the Hype About China’s Oil Buying”). The global market treated China’s pre-war appetite as a floor. In 2026 it became a valve. The Blas thesis: […]

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Diesel, AI, and Energy Dominance: Charlie Garcia on the Crisis Nobody Sees Coming

Charlie Garcia stops by the Energy News Beat Channel, and he is a RockStar! Welcome back to Energy News Beat Podcast. Today we’re diving deep into a perfect storm that’s reshaping global markets, and most people have no idea it’s coming. We’re talking about the diesel crisis that’s quietly becoming the inflationary tax on everything—from […]

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The UK’s Net Zero Policies Strike Again as Ineos Halts Three Chemical Plants Due to High Energy Costs

Ineos, the chemicals giant owned by Sir Jim Ratcliffe, is idling all three of its world-scale acetyls plants in Hull, northern England. The facilities—Europe’s last remaining plants of their kind—produce essential feedstocks for pharmaceuticals, clothing, cosmetics, detergents, construction materials, and military explosives. Two have already stopped production; the third will follow in days. The site […]

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