Chevron Chairman and CEO Mike Wirth delivered a blunt message in Austin on Friday: the shock absorbers that kept oil from exploding earlier in the Iran war are finished. Strategic stockpile releases and the U.S. decision to loosen rules on sanctioned crude sitting in floating storage have been “played out.” From here, he said, it […]
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Energy News Beat Channel — September 11, 2026 Hector Acevedo put the industry’s new map on the table this week: AI did not just raise electricity demand. It collapsed the old division of labor. Utilities no longer have a monopoly on electrons. Oil and gas companies no longer stop at molecules. Hyperscalers no longer wait […]
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The latest WellDatabase U.S. Rig Report dated September 11, 2026, shows 598 active rigs, down 32 week-over-week but up 22 year-over-year. Baker Hughes, which released the same day, reported 591 rigs, up 3 from 588 the prior week and up about 52–54 from 537 a year earlier. Enverus’ daily GPS-tracked count stood near 661 as […]
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President Donald Trump’s late-August 2026 arrangement with North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) grants the company 100-year rights over 17 fields in Lake Maracaibo and the Orinoco Belt, holding an estimated 65 billion barrels—about one-fifth of Venezuela’s proven reserves. NABEP plans as much as $100 billion in infrastructure investment. The U.S. government receives rights to […]
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The September 2, 2026 sit-down with Tyler Kendall came the same day Chevron announced updated joint-venture agreements with PDVSA. The company will invest more than $7 billion over five years across three existing ventures, add acreage in the Orinoco Belt’s Carabobo area, and target more than 600,000 barrels per day of production—more than triple the […]
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The pacts target higher crude output from existing and new acreage under Venezuela’s reformed hydrocarbons law, separate from the larger U.S.-backed North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) arrangement announced days earlier by President Trump. Wright described the package as “tens of billions” in investments and a “transformation for Venezuela.” Rodríguez credited Trump administration efforts for […]
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The U.S. government receives a 35% equity stake in NABEP’s corporate parent via the Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital, a guaranteed right to buy 20% of offtake at production cost, and a right of first refusal on the remaining 80%. U.S. governance rights include veto power over board appointments, a requirement that a […]
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President Donald Trump is scheduled to sit down Tuesday afternoon, September 1, with executives from at least 10 U.S. fuel makers and distributors. The agenda is straightforward and politically urgent: persistently high gasoline and diesel prices, what the industry can do about them, and how to expand domestic refining capacity. We hope he looks for […]
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President Trump’s administration is in advanced talks with Venezuela’s interim government for what officials describe as a “massive” energy deal: a U.S. ownership stake or long-term lease covering 17 of the country’s most promising oil and gas fields holding about 90 billion barrels of proven reserves. That is nearly a third of Venezuela’s world-leading 300 […]
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Iraq is pushing aggressively to more than double its oil production capacity, targeting 8–10 million barrels per day (bpd) within six years—up from roughly 4 million bpd before the recent Iran-related regional conflict disrupted Strait of Hormuz shipping. On August 21, 2026, Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi announced the goal at the Baghdad Dialog conference and […]
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