Texas Governor Greg Abbott has directed a halt on new data center connections to the ERCOT grid pending a comprehensive audit of their energy use, water consumption, financing, ownership, and community impacts.

This action, announced August 3, 2026, comes roughly three weeks after New York became the first state to impose a temporary statewide moratorium on new hyperscale data centers. It applies to projects seeking to interconnect with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) system and pauses related transmission planning work, including the “Batch Zero” study. […]

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NextDecade Snags $4.6B Financing for Rio Grande LNG Growth

HOUSTON — NextDecade Corporation has locked in approximately $4.6 billion in financing tied to its Rio Grande LNG (RGLNG) project in South Texas, strengthening the balance sheet for Phase 1 while advancing expansion plans. The moves, detailed in the company’s second-quarter 2026 business update released July 30, 2026, refinance existing construction debt and free bank […]

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Texas Holding Consumers Hostage for $33 B in a High-Voltage Heist

Texas ratepayers are on the hook for a $33 billion high-voltage transmission expansion that critics call a classic power grab—funneling guaranteed returns to transmission monopolies, condemning thousands of acres of private land, and primarily enabling more intermittent wind and solar that many of today’s assets won’t economically or physically outlast another decade. The Electric Reliability […]

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Expand Energy’s First Far Western Haynesville Wildcat IPs 27.5 MMcf/d

Expand Energy Corporation (NASDAQ: EXE), North America’s largest independent natural gas producer, has reported a strong initial production (IP) rate of 27.5 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) from its first horizontal wildcat in the Far Western Haynesville. The Bobby Yancey #2H well, located in Houston County, Texas, features an 8,158-foot lateral and represents an […]

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German Industry Warns Energy-Price Shock is Crippling Investment and Growth

German companies are delaying investments and increasingly eyeing production moves abroad as stubbornly high energy costs erode competitiveness, according to the latest survey from the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK). The findings, highlighted in a July 27, 2026 Bloomberg report drawing on the DIHK’s Energiewende Barometer 2026, underscore deepening structural pressures from Germany’s […]

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Texas ERCOT Grid Holds Beyond 91 Gigawatts in Heat Wave – At What Cost?

On Wednesday, July 22, 2026, extreme Texas heat drove air-conditioning demand that pushed the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid past 91 gigawatts for the first time. Unofficial real-time figures from ERCOT’s website showed a peak around 91,300 megawatts near 5 p.m. CT, with system-wide demand data indicating highs near 91,089 MW. This shattered […]

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WellDatabase Weekly Rig Report for July 18, 2026: US Rig Count Climbs Up 11 with Strong Horizontal and Oil Activity

The latest WellDatabase US Rig Report (dated July 18, 2026) shows the U.S. active drilling rig count at 567, marking a solid +11 week-over-week (WoW) increase and +37 year-over-year (YoY) gain. This reflects resilient drilling activity amid a stable-to-rising trend over the past 12 months, with the count holding in the mid-to-high 500s range. Key […]

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