6-3-26

Texas Energy Report NewsClips

Wednesday June 3, 2026

Asterisk (*) denotes news stories that may be inaccessible because portions are behind a paywall

Good morning! Here are today’s Texas Energy Report NewsClips

In one of the most serious exchanges since the ceasefire began, Iran fired missiles at Kuwait and Bahrain as the US conducted new strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island, in news reported about 3 am CT Wednesday. Earlier in the day, the US military said it “disabled” an oil tanker heading for an Iranian port by striking it with a Hellfire missile

Oil prices rose Wednesday as investors weighed uncertainty over U.S.-Iran talks with the two countries launching fresh strikes Tuesday, even as President Donald Trump said negotiations with Tehran were ongoing.

West Texas Intermediate futures for July delivery gained over 1.3% to $94.99, while international benchmark Brent crude for August delivery advanced 1.1% to $97.07 per barrel.

U.S. Central Command said Tuesday that it had defeated multiple Iranian ballistic missiles and drones and launched defensive strikes following “attempted attacks” by Iran, signaling an escalation in Mideast tensions.

That followed Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that Washington was still engaged in talks with Iran over a potential deal to halt the conflict, pushing back against Iranian media reports suggesting communications had broken down.

Top Stories

KUHF NPR – June 2, 2026

ERCOT votes to streamline process for data centers looking to join the power grid

See the Houston Chronicle coverage

Background: Texas takes aim at threat of ‘cascading’ outages — E&E News By Politico 

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) voted Tuesday to streamline its process for data centers looking to connect to the power grid. The vote comes as ERCOT is wading through a massive backlog of data centers and other large energy users — such as cryptocurrency miners and industrial facilities — looking to join the grid. In the past, these so-called “large loads” would go to their local utility company and ask to join the power grid. However, with so many data centers looking to connect, that’s no longer feasible.

It’s hard to evaluate whether there’s enough transmission equipment — such as power lines and transformers — to connect a data center to the grid in a given area, when other nearby projects are constantly being proposed. “That sequential evaluation of projects was growing untenable,” said Bryan Clark, a partner at the global energy law firm Bracewell LLP’s Dallas office.

Now, ERCOT is planning to evaluate data centers in batches, rather than individually. Its board voted to move forward with the first combined study of data centers, known as “Batch Zero,” on Tuesday. The new process will now go to the Public Utility Commission of Texas for approval on June 18.

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Yahoo! News – May 30, 2026

The world is quietly adapting to 9% less oil

Related: Oil demand shows first sign of contraction as emergency buffers fade: analysts — S&P Global Platts

Can the world live with 9% less oil? The answer, at least for right now, seems to be… maybe? That’s according to JPMorgan oil strategists Natasha Kaneva, Lyuba Savinova, and Artem Fakhretdinov, who spent last week meeting with market participants in China.

“The most striking takeaway from our meetings was not simply that oil demand has fallen,” the strategists wrote in a recent client note. “It was that it may have dropped by as much as 9% or 1.5 [million barrels per day] — abruptly, unexpectedly, and with remarkably little visible disruption.” Despite the three-month-long closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical shipping conduit for the global oil trade, prices on the energy product have remained relatively contained around $100 per barrel, only briefly spiking higher earlier in the war.

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Reuters – June 2, 2026

US plans energy investments in Azerbaijan, says $8 billion in deals signed*

A U.S. delegation and Azerbaijan signed commercial agreements worth more than $8 billion, and ​Washington plans to invest in the country’s ‌energy sector, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Caleb Orr said on Tuesday. Orr, on a visit to Baku, said ​the United States was seeking a larger ​role in Azerbaijan’s energy infrastructure projects. “We are planning ⁠concrete investments in the energy sector,” Orr ​said in response to a Reuters question.

He said ​ExxonMobil remained an important partner in Azerbaijan after signing a memorandum of understanding on new exploration opportunities at last ​year’s Baku Energy Week, and that Chevron had ​signed a new exploration agreement during this year’s event, which ‌Washington ⁠supports. “We expect that we will be able to help Azerbaijan grow its role as the central node of the Middle Corridor for energy transit ​going to ​Europe and ⁠to the rest of the world,” Orr said.

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Texas Monthly – June 2, 2026

War, Gas Prices, and AI Are Fueling a Texas Pipeline Boom*

On the horizon is an unprecedented wave of new pipeline projects from the Permian Basin. Three are expected to be completed this year and would increase the area’s export capacity by about 20 percent. Two of those will lead to a gas hub near Corpus Christi and one to a hub at the center of Dallas–Fort Worth’s proliferation of power-hungry data centers for artificial intelligence. By 2029, another three are slated to come online, with more in the works. Altogether, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s predominant grid operator, says that data centers could add nearly 360,000 megawatts of power demand by 2030. That’s more than quadruple the most demand the grid has ever recorded. To accommodate that anticipated growth, ERCOT president and CEO Pablo Vegas has stressed the need to support gas generation.

The Latest TERse Tips

Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson to resign as state’s top election official in July, after serving as the top election official for three years — Dallas Morning News*

Meet the Far-Right Nepo Baby Vying to Deregulate Texas’s Fossil Fuels — “Bo French is running a deranged culture-war campaign for a spot on the powerful Texas Railroad Commission. The race says everything about where Republicans are today” — New Republic

The FERC’s Summer Reliability Assessment is out — “The Texas Interconnection is widely at a normal risk level for Summer 2026 due to a 12% jump in anticipated resources for the summer period and a 4.5% decline in projected net internal demand. The lower demand forecast is the result of updated load modeling that reflects the observed behavior of load during peak periods and more demand response from large computational loads” — FERC

Vesper Energy has closed a $236 million financing package for its 201-megawatt Nazareth Solar project in West Texas, advancing another utility-scale renewable energy development as electricity demand across the ERCOT market continues to climb — Citybiz

Governor Greg Abbott today announced the first agreement under the Texas Energy Fund Outside of ERCOT Grant Program (OEGP) with Sam Houston Electric Cooperative — see the press release

Amigo LNG has all of its permits on both sides of the border in hand and is targeting the end of June to “start working on the ground,” according to CEO Muthu Chezhian of LNG Alliance, the Singapore-based firm behind the project — Natural Gas Intelligence*

Oil giant Chevron lines up former Texas solicitor general as GC in anticipation of CLO succession — Scott Keller joins as GC in July and will replace R. Hewitt Pate as CLO at the start of next year — Global Legal Post

Two women related to a former Austin Energy employee accused of routing nearly $1 million to fake vendors have also been indicted in Travis County, expanding a criminal case first brought against former city employee Mark Ybarra — Austin American-Statesman*

Oil & Gas Texas

Pipeline & Gas Journal – June 2, 2026

Howard Expands Oklahoma-to-Gulf Coast Gas Network

Howard Energy Partners (HEP) has expanded its Midcontinent natural gas platform through two recent transactions, acquiring full ownership of the Midship Pipeline and purchasing Tulsa-based gathering and processing operator Superior Midstream. The Midship transaction, completed May 29, gives HEP 100% ownership of the 36-inch, approximately 200-mile FERC-regulated natural gas pipeline serving Oklahoma’s SCOOP and STACK plays. The pipeline transports natural gas from production areas in the Anadarko Basin to downstream markets, including Gulf Coast demand centers.

HEP previously acquired an operating interest in Midship earlier this year and said the system has experienced record throughput and utilization since the company assumed operatorship. The pipeline also has the capability to move gas in either direction, providing operational flexibility as market conditions evolve.

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Reuters – June 2, 2026

Chevron applies for Argentina tax break program with $13.8 billion investment plan*

Chevron has applied to join Argentina’s incentive regime for ​large investments for a $13.8 billion unconventional ‌oil project in the El Trapial area of Vaca Muerta, the U.S. oil major said on ​Tuesday, in what would rank among the ​biggest new bets on the country’s ⁠shale patch. The filing, which still requires government ​approval, is the latest sign that global energy ​companies are positioning for long-term growth in Vaca Muerta, one of the world’s biggest shale oil and ​gas reserves and a cornerstone of ​the country’s hopes to boost exports and earn hard ‌currency.

“Chevron ⁠commends Argentina’s government for making meaningful progress toward unlocking Argentina’s world-class energy resource,” the company said in a statement. President Javier Milei’s government ​has promoted ​the RIGI, ⁠or incentive regime for large investments, as a key tool to ​attract foreign capital into strategic sectors ​including ⁠energy, mining and infrastructure.

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Utility Dive – June 2, 2026

Sunoco acquires wholesale assets in Texas

Sunoco has acquired the dealer wholesale fuel supply and transportation rolling stock assets of Alexander Oil Company, according to a Monday announcement from Corner Capital Advisors, which advised Alexander on the sale.

The deal gives Sunoco branded and unbranded dealer wholesale accounts in the Houston, Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth, Bryan/College Station and Brenham parts of Texas, representing more than 90 million gallons of fuel a year. This is the third publicly announced transaction from Sunoco so far in 2026 as it targets a planned $500 million worth of bolt-on acquisitions this year.

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June 2, 2026

Firms’ Views on the Current Oil Price Shock: Stable for Now, Risky for Tomorrow: Atlanta Fed

Given the speed at which oil prices have ratcheted up and the potential for high oil prices to remain a facet of the near-term outlook, we were interested in how business decision-makers saw the immediate impact of higher oil prices on their costs, prices, and demand as well as what would happen if oil prices rose further and remained elevated through the end of the year.

Specifically, in April’s Business Inflation Expectations (BIE) survey we asked about the impact of recent increases in oil prices on firms’ input costs. We also asked similar questions about the prices a firm charges for their products and their anticipated demand. Firms were then given two hypothetical paths—prices returning to $67 a barrel or staying around $130 a barrel by year-end—to gauge possible impacts on their input costs, prices, and demand.

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Texas Tribune – June 3, 2026

Corpus Christi delays decision on nearly billion-dollar water plant despite impending crisis

A bitterly divided Corpus Christi City Council voted early Wednesday morning to delay a decision on reviving an almost billion-dollar water plant it had rejected nine months earlier. The 7-2 vote came at 2:20 a.m., almost 15 hours into a meeting that drew extensive interest from residents who argued for and against building a desalination plant that council members voted down last year over environmental and cost concerns.

The proposed plant is not expected to begin delivering water until late 2029, but supporters fear that without long-term supplies, the city’s economy will freeze, driving away residents and businesses and crippling the important tourism industry. Opponents expressed deep concern about the proposed plant’s impact on Corpus Christi Bay, and some doubted the fairness of an environmental study that concluded the plant’s salty discharge would not affect sea life.

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Texas Lawbook – May 24, 2026

Energy Transfer’s Ali Henderson is a ‘Trial Warrior’

The 12-person North Dakota jury filed into the courtroom. They had been deliberating for more than two days. Energy Transfer Assistant General Counsel Ali Henderson stood as the jury handed the court clerk the 33-page verdict form. The courtroom, filled with Greenpeace supporters and news reporters from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, stayed silent as the clerk started reading the verdict.

“Did defendants trespass on Energy Transfer’s land?”

“Yes.”

Damage award: “$3,761,034.”

“Oh my gosh, we are going to come in much lower than our damages experts calculated,” Henderson thought to herself, as Energy Transfer had sought a couple hundred million in damages for Greenpeace’s alleged destructive acts, tortious interference and defamation regarding ET’s pipeline construction in North Dakota. “How am I going to manage this message?”

Oil & Gas National & International

Nevada Current – June 2, 2026

‘I need Chevron’: The oil company at the center of the California governor’s race

When it comes to California’s climate future, the most important figure in the state’s chaotic governor’s race may not be any of the candidates on the debate stage. It may not even be outgoing governor Gavin Newsom or President Donald Trump. Instead, it might just be Chevron, the multinational oil company that was founded in the Golden State more than 100 years ago. It is among the largest producers, refiners, and sellers of petroleum products in a state rapidly shifting toward electric vehicles. Depending on which candidate is talking, the company is an example of how Big Oil is strangling consumers or an example of how climate regulations are strangling the state economy.

The behemoth — it reported $12.3 billion in profit last year — took the spotlight last month when an interviewer asked leading Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra about Chevron’s contributions to his campaign. The former state attorney general and Biden-era health secretary gave what seemed to be a candid response: “Chevron, that’s the problem with politics. They’re not the bad guy. Does everybody here drive an electric vehicle? You need Chevron. I need Chevron. My people of the state of California need Chevron … Chevron wants to give me a check, that’s — that’s their prerogative.”

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Reuters – June 2, 2026

Goldman Sachs expects elevated refined fuel margins through 2026 on Hormuz disruption*

Refined fuel margins are set to remain sharply elevated through 2026 after disruptions around the ​Strait of Hormuz tightened product markets more than ‌crude, Goldman Sachs said in a note on Monday.

• Goldman expects refined margins to stay 2–3 times higher for the ​rest of 2026 than 2013–2019 averages with ​diesel margins exceeding pre-war forecasts by $19–26 per barrel.
• Global ⁠refined product exports were down 4 million barrels ​per day (bpd) year-on-year, led by a lack of Persian ​Gulf product exports and reduced Asian refinery output.
• “We expect gasoline and especially diesel stocks to decline further in the initial ​Hormuz reopening stage as demand likely recovers more ​quickly than refined product supply,” the bank said.
• Goldman sees U.S. ‌and ⁠European diesel margins at $50 and $37 per barrel, respectively, in the fourth quarter of 2026 and respective gasoline margins at $22 and $14.

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Morningstar – June 2, 2026

BP reports start of gas production at Azerbaijan’s ACG oil field

BP PLC on Monday reported the start of non‑associated gas production at the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea. “This marks the first-ever commercial gas production operations on ACG, one of the world’s largest oil-producing fields,” BP said. The London-based fuel major operates the ACG field. Partners on the venture include Spring, Texas-based-based Exxon Mobil Corp, alongside the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Hungary’s MOL Group, Japan’s Inpex Corp, Turkish Petroleum Corp and New Dehli-based ONGC Videsh Ltd.

“This is a big day for Azerbaijan and for the ACG co‑venturers. ACG has a long and successful history and now, nearly three decades into oil production, the field continues to hold potential to deliver value for the nation and its investors as it starts this new chapter,” commented Gio Cristofoli, BP’s regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.

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Global News – June 1, 2026

New documents show potential pipeline routes from Alberta to B.C.’s coast

New documents are laying out the potential route for the controversial pipeline from Alberta to B.C.’s coast. The documents, obtained by CBC News, show a number of options for the pipeline, with the majority of those ending in northern B.C. Alberta has released a new promotional video as it continues to make its case for a new oil pipeline to the B.C. Coast.

“My takeaway, looking at all of them, was that it was going further north than Northern Gateway and a lot of terminuses in Nisga’a territory,” Heather Exner-Pirot, with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said. Exner-Pirot, who is also a special advisor on energy to the Business Council of Canada, said the routes appear to be selected for political advantage to go through areas more supportive of oil and gas, rather than economics.

Utilities, Electricity & Renewables

Texas Tribune – June 2, 2026

Eight data centers threaten to transform this small Texas county. Local officials say they have no power to stop them.

Hood County — Brian Crawford points to the top of a hill northwest of his family’s home garden, just past their gently sloping yard dotted with live oaks beginning to flower. “All of this would be buildings,” said his wife, Laura Crawford.

“A slab of concrete,” Brian added. Their property is a 118-acre paradise along the Paluxy River Valley where the couple care for a menagerie of animals including their two enormous donkeys, Little Joe and Hoss, chickens and a herd of African antelope that they inherited when they bought the property nine years ago.

Instead of green, about 600 yards away from their garden, they could soon be looking at 2,100 acres of warehouse-like structures filled with computing servers that process the digital world, flattening their scenic view into something industrial. The site plan calls for a campus that spans almost six times the size of University of Texas at Austin’s main campus. Its Florida-based developer refers to it as the Comanche Circle project, but the eventual company that will run the data center has not been publicly revealed.

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KPRC – June 2, 2026

CenterPoint Energy kicks off 2026 hurricane season with grid resiliency upgrades in Houston

Related: Entergy Texas highlights year-round storm readiness efforts ahead of 2026 hurricane season — Hello Woodlands

As the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season officially gets underway, CenterPoint Energy is talking about the resiliency work the company says it has been focused on. The company calls the plan the Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative—a sweeping effort to reinforce critical infrastructure across the region. It includes four pillars: trimming trees, installing new poles and equipment, adding automation and intelligence devices, and placing more underground power lines.

Since 2024, CenterPoint says it has installed more than 68,000 stronger, storm-resilient poles across the Greater Houston area. CenterPoint says it has also been clearing higher-risk vegetation, undergrounding power lines and deploying advanced technology to improve system reliability year-round. The company projects these efforts will prevent 150 million customer outage minutes by the end of 2026.

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San Antonio Express-News – June 2, 2026

CPS Energy answers lawsuits over North Side explosions that injured 5 people*

Oil Price – June 2, 2026

What Hormuz Is Teaching Traders About Utilities

Oil traders have spent months obsessing over tanker movements, shipping insurance costs and the fate of crude cargoes attempting to navigate the Strait of Hormuz. But now, some of that attention will be shifting to a longer-term play: a potential restructuring of American utilities themselves.

Instead, Hormuz is exposing how vulnerable electricity markets remain to fuel price shocks, even after years of investment in renewable energy. While crude oil prices have dominated headlines, the effects of the disruption are steadily working their way through natural gas markets, fuel procurement contracts and wholesale electricity systems around the world. For utilities, power traders and policymakers, this is now a crisis that will serve as a stress test of how modern electricity markets respond when geopolitical risk suddenly becomes fully embedded in energy prices.

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Houston Chronicle – June 2, 2026

Texas summer heat, data centers could push power demand to a new record. Will the grid hold up?*

Still, ERCOT expects low risk of blackouts this summer, CEO Pablo Vegas said during the grid operator’s quarterly board meeting on Tuesday. “As we continue to see (power demand) growth coming on, that profile and picture obviously can evolve, and we expect it to evolve,” Vegas said. “But what we have published at this point is still showing fairly adequate capacity and low likelihood of emergency conditions going into the June and July months.” Recent ERCOT reports forecast a 0.04% chance and a 0.11% chance of the grid operator needing to initiate rotating outages in June and July, respectively.

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Tipranks – June 2, 2026

TXNM Energy Pursues Texas Rate Settlement and Grid Resilience

On May 29, 2026, TNMP, TXNM Energy’s Texas utility, filed a comprehensive settlement in its base rate review before the Public Utility Commission of Texas, seeking recovery of a $2.8 billion rate base as of June 30, 2025, preservation of a 9.65% return on equity with a 45% equity ratio, and separate recovery of $20.5 million in Hurricane Beryl restoration costs over five years, with interim rates to relate back to May 22, 2026 once a final order is issued.

The same day, sister utility PNM applied to the New Mexico Public Regulatory Commission for approval of resources in its plan to advance carbon-free generation in line with state clean energy mandates, signaling TXNM Energy’s simultaneous push to stabilize regulated returns, fund storm-related grid resilience in Texas, and reposition its New Mexico portfolio toward cleaner power, with broad stakeholder participation but pending regulatory approvals in both jurisdictions.

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The New York Times – June 2, 2026

Blue States Sue Trump Administration Over Offshore Wind Deal*

Seven Democratic-controlled states sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over its move to block a planned wind farm off the coast of New York. The lawsuit seeks to overturn an extraordinary deal that the Trump administration reached in March with the French energy giant TotalEnergies. That agreement saw the government pay TotalEnergies $928 million to abandon plans to build the wind project off New York and another one off North Carolina. The New York attorney general, Letitia James, filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Ms. James, a Democrat, said in a statement that the deal violated at least two federal laws and that it would harm New York’s economy and power grid.

“This administration cooked up a sham deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon offshore wind and invest in oil and gas instead,” she said. “We are fighting back to stop this illegal agreement that threatens to erase over a thousand union jobs and cheat millions of New Yorkers out of clean, affordable energy.” The attorneys general of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont joined Ms. James in the litigation, arguing that their states could have gotten electricity from the project. Charlotte Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, which oversees offshore wind leases, said in an email that the deal with TotalEnergies was “voluntary” and that “no one was forced to sign.” She added that the agreement “went through the appropriate channels” and was vetted by Justice Department officials. A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment.

Regulatory

JD Supra – May 21, 2026

Texas Supreme Court Issues Troubling Decision in Royalty Dispute: Houston Harbaugh

Back in February I advised landowners to keep an eye on the discretionary appeal granted by the Texas Supreme Court in Fasken Oil and Ranch LTD, et al. v. Puig, et al. (No 24-1073, January 16, 2026). See, Texas Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Arguments on Whether ‘Free of Cost’ Clause in 1960 Deed Prohibits the Deduction of Post-Production Costs (February 2026). At issue in Fasken Oil was whether the following clause in the 1960 Deed insulated the royalty from post-production costs:

“all the oil, gas and other minerals, except coal, in and under or that may be produced from the above-described acreage, to be paid or delivered to Grantor, B.A. Puig, Jr., as his own property, free of cost forever. . . “

The landowners, the Puig Family, argued that the scope and effect of the “free of cost” language in the 1960 Deed was controlled by the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Chesapeake Exploration LLC v. Hyder, 483 S.W.3d 870 (Tex. 2016). In Hyder, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that a royalty clause which provided for a “perpetual cost-free” royalty was sufficient to exempt the royalty from all post-production costs. See, Hyder, 483 S.W. 3d at 874 (“[T]he general term cost-free does not distinguish between production and post-production costs and thus literally refers to all costs”). The Puig Family contended that the 1960 Deed should be construed in the same manner (i.e. no deductions). The trial court agreed with the Puig Family and entered judgment in their favor.