Texas Energy Report NewsClips
Monday July 13, 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
Oil prices rose Monday after the U.S. and Iran traded strikes as they contest control of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most important trade routes for global energy supplies.
U.S. crude oil futures were up 4.1% at $74:33 per barrel as of 1:15 a.m. ET.
Brent futures traded 4.01% higher at $79.06.
The U.S. military launched another wave of strikes Sunday against Iran after hitting 140 targets on Saturday, according to U.S. Central Command. The strikes are in response to an attack by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on a container ship transiting Hormuz.
Iran responded Sunday with strikes on U.S. military facilities in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, according to the state news agency Tasnim.
Iranian state media said the Revolutionary Guard had closed the Hormuz until further notice, but the U.S. military disputed that claim. Centcom said the strait was open to “all vessels seeking to lawfully transit.”
Top Stories
E&E News By Politico – July 10, 2026
Texas approves grid standards to keep data centers online
Texas regulators approved a new set of requirements Thursday to keep data centers and crypto-mining facilities operating, a move tech companies say could cost them billions of dollars. The state Public Utility Commission voted 5-0 to require data centers and other “large computational loads” overseen by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to stay online during temporary disturbances on the grid. Under the new rules, data centers could be ordered to disconnect from ERCOT — which handles about 90 percent of the state’s power demand — if they trip offline during power disruptions. Grid experts and ERCOT officials say data centers and crypto miners that can’t “ride through” temporary power blips could lead to a cascade of facilities and generators going offline.
“Without these requirements, events involving [large computational load] loss would increase in magnitude, potentially leading to system frequency and voltage instability,” ERCOT said in an impact statement, according to a PUC staff memo. Frequency refers to the number of complete cycles electric currents undergo within one second. An abrupt frequency change could lead to localized power outages and, potentially, even gridwide issues, according to electricity experts. Temporary grid disruptions are common, caused by everything from lightning hitting a transmission line to equipment malfunctions.
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Politico – July 11, 2026
The Rise and Fall of the Fracking Phenomenon
Marty Whiteman had enough natural gas under his hayfield to make him quite rich when the fracking boom swept through his rugged corner of West Virginia 20 years ago. But it didn’t make him rich, because someone else owned the gas. Decades before, he’d decided against buying the “mineral rights” under his land. He thought the worst thing that could happen was that a coal mine might tunnel underneath. Instead, he found himself with a 10-acre industrial site to host three gas wells. That and a dispute with a neighbor about the gas caused him to lose the use of his field.
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Pipeline & Gas Journal – July 10, 2026
155-Mile Texas-Louisiana Natural Gas Pipeline Gains FAST-41 Status
The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council has granted FAST-41 coverage to the Texas Gateway Project, a proposed 155-mile natural gas pipeline that would expand transportation capacity across Texas, Louisiana and the U.S. Gulf Coast. The designation places the project under the federal FAST-41 permitting framework, which is intended to improve coordination, transparency and predictability for major infrastructure projects undergoing federal environmental review.
Sponsored by Gulf South Pipeline Company LLC, the project includes approximately 155 miles of new 36-inch and 42-inch-diameter pipeline, a new compressor station in San Jacinto County, Texas, and upgrades to the existing Carthage Compressor Station in Panola County, Texas, and Magasco Compressor Station in Sabine County, Texas. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will serve as the lead federal agency overseeing the project’s permitting process.
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Houston Chronicle – July 11, 2026
A proposed change to a federal rule could eliminate Texans’ right to weigh in on permits for facilities considered “minor” air polluters, critics say, including small industrial operations like concrete batch plants, rock crushers and some power projects that fuel data centers.
The change would remove a federal requirement for public feedback and leave it to states to decide whether to include members of the community before officials approve or deny facilities’ air pollution permits that fall below “major emissions” thresholds. This includes air pollution permits linked to a number of AI data centers in Texas, which have used minor emissions applications to permit diesel generators and gas turbines to power their facilities. The nonprofit Public Citizen said the change would allow the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to eliminate its public notice and participation processes for smaller-scale polluters. The TCEQ has not responded to repeated requests for comment on this concern.
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Hart Energy – July 10, 2026
Big Permian-Woodford Oil Flowing for ConocoPhillips, Continental*
The next U.S. shale play will be deep shales, such as the Permian Basin’s oily Woodford, according to a new report by oil and gas investment firm Kimmeridge Energy Management Co. The deep Permian Woodford represents the next phase of unconventional production. As traditional inventory matures, operators are targeting these deeper, high-pressure, and high-temperature (HPHT) horizons to unlock massive, newly assessed oil and gas reserves. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the deep Woodford and Barnett shales in the Permian Basin hold undiscovered, technically recoverable resources estimated at 1.6 billion barrels of oil and 28.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Operators note that these secondary shales often generate significantly less water than the traditional core plays, reducing operating costs. Activity is heavily clustering along the eastern edge of the Delaware Basin (primarily in Loving, Winkler, and Ward counties in Texas), where operators target optimal permeability and high oil-in-place. Companies like ConocoPhillips, Continental Resources, Diamondback Energy, and Matador Resources are actively drilling and evaluating these ultra-deep zones to extend their core inventories
The Latest TERse Tips
The US national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded is $3.84, which is one cent more than this day last week and 68 cents more compared to this day last year, according to AAA
Oil Demand Recovery Is Under Way But U.S.-Iran Escalation Clouds Outlook, IEA Says — the agency said the latest escalation in hostilities could upend expectations the market would move into surplus next year — The Wall Street Journal*
The Trump administration on Friday announced it rolled back a key protection for endangered species — specifically, it said it was repealing a previous definition of prohibited “harm” to endangered animals and plants under the Endangered Species Act — The Hill
Chevron Australia said on Friday it has signed a long-term agreement with energy retailer Alinta Energy to supply natural gas from its Western Australian portfolio — Reuters*
Energy Transfer LP announced the pricing of a dual-tranche public offering of junior subordinated notes due 2057, raising an aggregate principal amount of $1.75B — both tranches are priced at 100.000% of their face value — MSN
City of Taylor petition to restrict new data centers ruled ineligible for ballot under Texas law — KEYE
The American Petroleum Institute reported that crude oil inventories in the United States decreased by 399,000 barrels for the week ending July 3, while the previous week had seen a decline of 6.072 million barrels — IndexBox
Energy Transfer Asks PUC To Dissolve Sunoco Pipeline Company And Transfer Assets To 2 New Companies— One For Natural Gas Liquids Pipelines Like Mariner East Pipelines And Another For Refined Petroleum Product Pipelines — Pennsylvania Environment Digest Blog
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Oil & Gas Texas
Oil Price – July 10, 2026
US Oil, Gas Drillers Hang Back in Volatile Market
The total number of active drilling rigs for oil and gas in the United States rose this week, according to new data that Baker Hughes published on Friday, bringing the total rig count in the US to 581, up 44 from this same time last year. The number of active oil rigs stayed at 445 during the latest reporting period, according to the data. This is 21 above this same time last year. The number of gas rigs also stayed the same, at 126, which is 18 more than this time last year. The gain was courtesy of the miscellaneous rig count, which gained 1, for a total of 10.
The latest EIA data showed that weekly U.S. crude oil production rose during week ending July 3. US crude oil production averaged 13.860 million bpd during the reporting period, up from 13.810 million bpd last week and up 475,000 bpd from a year ago. Primary Vision’s Frac Spread Count, an estimate of the number of crews completing wells, rose by 5 in the week ending July 2, to 205 crews. The number of active drilling rigs in the Permian Basin fell by 5, reaching 256. This is 9 rigs under year-ago levels. The count in the Eagle Ford rose by 3 to 47, which is 6 more than this same time last year.
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Courthouse News – July 10, 2026
Sable Offshore, Exxon lose ground in Santa Barbara permit-transfer dispute
A federal judge on Friday tentatively dismissed Sable Offshore and ExxonMobil’s claims that Santa Barbara County violated the U.S. and California constitutions by refusing to transfer permits to operate the onshore oil and gas facilities that Exxon sold Sable two years ago. In a tentative ruling that wasn’t publicly released, Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee granted Santa Barbara County’s motion to dismiss claims by Sable and Exxon that the county board’s December 2025 decision violated the Takings Clause of the U.S. and California constitutions and was preempted by federal and state law.
Gee, a Barack Obama appointee, did not issue a final ruling at Friday’s hearing in downtown Los Angeles. Instead, she took the county’s motion, along with a separate motion by environmental advocacy groups to dismiss the companies’ preemption claim, under submission.
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Yahoo! News – July 11, 2026
Chevron to relocate 180 California workers to Texas as headquarters move continues
Chevron expects about 180 employees at its San Ramon office to relocate to Houston this year as the oil giant continues shifting corporate operations out of the Bay Area. The moves are expected to begin by Sept. 1, according to a notice filed this month with California’s Employment Development Department. Employees may choose to relocate earlier. Chevron emphasized in the filing that the action is “a relocation, not a layoff or termination.”
The company said it is providing relocation assistance and other support to affected employees, who have received advance notice of their expected moving dates. The positions include jobs in legal affairs, information technology, cybersecurity, engineering, commercial operations, human resources and corporate communications.
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S&P Global Platts – July 10, 2026
Freeport LNG feedgas deliveries fall as major maintenance begins
Feedgas deliveries to Freeport LNG were scheduled to fall to about 1 billion cubic feet/day on July 10 as the exporter began a major maintenance turnaround, suggesting two of the plant’s three liquefaction trains were offline. The operator of the Texas facility announced the planned maintenance on July 9 but did not specify how many units it planned to take offline or how much production would be affected at the terminal, which can produce about 16.5 million metric tons/year of LNG.
Freeport said it expected to complete the work in late August. The exporter said the work would focus on the plant’s pre-treatment and liquefaction facilities to ensure safe and reliable operations, but it declined to elaborate. The terminal can ship about 20 cargoes per month when operating normally. The outage during peak summer demand months stands to reduce Atlantic Basin supplies available for Asia-Pacific seasonal cooling demand and for refilling European storage inventories, according to S&P Global CERA LNG analysts.
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Midland Reporter-Telegram – July 10, 2026
Permian growth leads US to record oil production*
U.S. crude oil production, including lease condensate, reached a record 13.6 million barrels a day in 2025, driven by growth in the Permian Basin. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2025 production broke the 2024 record of 13.2 million barrels a day. The U.S. remained the world’s largest crude oil producer, continuing a streak that began in 2018. EIA analysts say U.S. crude production was about 40% higher on average in 2025 than that from the next two largest global producers, Russia, at 9.9 million barrels a day, and Saudi Arabia, at 9.6 million barrels a day.
EIA analysts attributed the growth in U.S. crude oil production to continued gains in drilling productivity and operational efficiency across key shale basins. New wells produced 2.9 million barrels a day, and wells drilled before 2025 produced 8.3 million barrels a day. The gains came despite fewer active rigs and lower oil prices, analysts said. In 2025, the number of active rigs in the Lower 48 was 5% lower than in 2024, and operators drilled 1% fewer wells. That activity decline came as West Texas Intermediate oil prices fell from $77 a barrel in 2024 to $65 a barrel in 2025.
Production growth was particularly strong in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, which had a 280,000-barrel-a-day, or 4%, increase in crude oil production, from 6.3 million barrels a day in 2024 to 6.6 million barrels a day in 2025. The Permian accounted for approximately 48% of U.S. production in 2025.
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Tyler Morning Telegraph – July 10, 2026
East Texas gas plant faces air quality violations*
A gas processing facility in Gregg County is facing a slew of air quality violations following an investigation by state regulators. Investigators with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality found that the Longview Gas Plant’s flare was billowing black smoke for weeks this spring in violation of state environmental regulations. They also found that the company failed to maintain required records and failed to maintain proper equipment temperatures, among other violations.
Investigators discovered 20 air quality violations at the plant and will take formal enforcement action, according to an agency report approved July 1. The environmental violations are the latest woes for the facility, which has been under scrutiny for years. The News-Journal reported in 2025 that employees expressed safety concerns at the plant following a worker death, two fires and an oil spill.
Oil & Gas National & International
Time – July 10, 2026
Political Candidates Have An Opening on Clean Energy
President Donald Trump and his allies have been hindering our country’s energy resources for the last year and a half. They are paying off companies to stop them from building new energy supplies. Last month, the Interior Department paid TotalEnergies $1 billion to walk away from two offshore wind leases off the coast of New York and North Carolina, projects that would have powered nearly one million homes. Seven states recently sued the Trump Administration over this decision.
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Pipeline & Gas Journal – July 10, 2026
Keystone Pipeline Owner Agrees to $26.8 Million Spill Settlement
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a proposed settlement requiring the owner and operator of the Keystone Pipeline to pay a $26.9 million civil penalty and complete an estimated $40 million in pipeline integrity improvements to resolve alleged Clean Water Act violations tied to the pipeline’s 2022 rupture in Washington County, Kansas. The proposed consent decree, filed on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Kansas, resolves allegations against South Bow (USA) LP and South Bow Infrastructure Operations Inc. related to the release of nearly 13,000 barrels (approximately 543,000 gallons) of crude oil on Dec. 7, 2022.
According to the Justice Department, the spill was the largest discharge in the Keystone Pipeline system’s history and one of the largest inland crude oil spills in recent U.S. history. In addition to the federal civil penalty, South Bow agreed to contribute more than $3 million to the State of Kansas for natural resource restoration projects.
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AOL – July 7, 2026
Could abandoned energy pipelines help bring new water west to Arizona?
Environmentalists love a good recycling project. But does that make recycling energy infrastructure to transport water from states enduring flooding to those weathering drought a good idea? Arizonans are ever on the hunt for a creative solution to the state’s water woes. Legions of lawyers and legislators log thousands of billable hours arguing with other states for a larger piece of the Colorado River pie. Squads of scientists spend years searching for hidden springs. Meanwhile, climate change extracts its own cut.
As the countdown to a Colorado River deal ticks on a seemingly broken watch and wildfires rage across an American Southwest made more flammable by higher temperatures and parched soils, ideas trickle in, and dry up. It’s all pretty soul-dessicating (except, maybe, for some of the more promising results unearthed by an Arizona-based team of hydrologists in their report last month on how the state could capture and store more of its rainfall). The lawyers and legislators have inspired little hope.
Utilities, Electricity & Renewables
WFAA – July 11, 2026
Data center opposition creating strange bedfellows in Texas
Something strange is happening in the world of Texas politics. Opposition to data centers is creating some strange bedfellows. San Marcos recently passed the state’s first data center ban and the council member behind the ordinance tells us city residents of all political stripes demanded action. “I can tell you we spent hearing after hearing after hearing, hours, eight, nine, ten hours of hearings,” Amanda Rodriguez told us on Y’all-itics. “We had over 500 people over the course of months come into our chambers. They had town halls. Our entire community was in uprising over this issue. It was, I mean, it was fully the people.”
In fact, the people were so persuasive it changed the vote’s outcome. Place 6 Council Member Amanda Rodriguez says the first time the data center ban came up, it failed by one vote. After citizens spoke out loudly enough, when the issue came back up in June, it passed by one vote. And it’s not a single political party. She says she’s heard from Republicans, Democrats and Independents. Rodriguez says there’s one group that may have even been louder than all the rest.
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Austin American-Statesman – Kuly 11, 2026
Austin’s Aalo Atomics plans expansion, hiring after nuclear reactor milestone*
An Austin nuclear energy company is preparing to expand after reaching a critical milestone tied to a White House initiative to expand nuclear energy. Aalo Atomics will grow its production facility by 25 times and hire hundreds of people after the modular nuclear reactor maker achieved a sustained chain reaction in its test reactor over the July 4 weekend at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho nuclear test site.
It was one of several nuclear companies chosen by the department to build reactors at the Idaho National Laboratory as part of a Trump administration directive to produce a stable, self-sustaining nuclear reaction by July 4, part of a broader effort to expand nuclear energy production in the United States. “It was a super exciting day, it was probably the happiest day of my life,” said Matt Loszak, Aalo Atomics CEO and co-founder. “It was up and down, we weren’t sure if we’d get it done before the deadline but we pulled it off. I mean, we split atoms and we controlled it with our reactor. It was such a spiritual experience.”
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Reuters – July 10, 2026
Holtec Nuclear Corporation files for US IPO amid surging power demand*
Energy company Holtec Nuclear Corporation filed for an initial public offering in the U.S. on Friday, seeking to capitalize on investor enthusiasm for nuclear power businesses amid an AI-linked electricity demand surge and government support for carbon-free energy. The U.S. IPO market has seen a resurgence after a few years of muted issuances, with larger deals and AI-linked listings driving dollar volumes toward record levels, even as the number of offerings remains far below past boom-era peaks.
Energy sector IPOs have also benefited from the government’s push to quadruple U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050 to meet rising power demand from data centers, electric vehicles and cryptocurrency mining. Founded in 1986, Holtec supplies nuclear equipment, manages spent nuclear fuel and develops small modular reactors (SMR) touted as being more cost-effective and quicker to deploy than full-sized models that can take decades to build.
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Utility Dive – July 10, 2026
Former FERC officials concerned about Supreme Court Slaughter decision impacts
The independence of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could be significantly impacted by the Supreme Court’s June 29 decision in Trump v. Slaughter, which significantly expanded the president’s ability to fire regulators at will, former FERC commissioners appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents told Utility Dive. The court’s 6-3 decision found the president’s dismissal without cause of Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission was within his constitutional rights. The decision applies to many other federal agencies, including FERC, legal experts say.
Former FERC commissioners said the ruling could lead to a loss of quorum at the body, leaving it unable to issue substantive orders. The impact could also cause FERC to lurch in different policy directions based on who wins the election every four years, and both impacts could have negative consequences for electricity markets and the broader economy, former commissioners said.
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The Wall Street Journal – July 10, 2026
A Plan to Stop Solar Storms From Sending Us Back to the Stone Age*
It’s the year 2040, and the Big One—a civilization-smashing solar storm of a scale not seen since the 19th century—is on a collision course with Earth. Far out in space, where geostationary satellites orbit, a half-dozen school-bus-size satellites crack open and start dumping barium, lithium or sodium. Within minutes, sunlight transforms this material into an ionized gas shield that slows the oncoming massive blob of plasma. Down on our planet’s surface, a would-be global catastrophe—potentially knocking out entire electrical grids—is reduced to a nighttime display for anyone who cares to look up and see the Northern Lights.
Even its name, StormWall, sounds like science fiction, but authorities on space weather say it could work, mitigating an event that happens, they estimate, once a century. The trio of scientists who conceived of it say an international coalition could build such a system with existing or soon-to-arrive technology. Back-of-the-envelope math suggests it could cost tens of billions of dollars. Yet with all of the electronics on Earth that increasingly govern our lives, and ever more infrastructure being put into orbit, from internet-delivering satellites to AI-training data centers, spending that much could be a no-brainer, says StormWall co-designer Brian Walsh, an associate professor of engineering at Boston University.
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Engineering News-Record – July 7, 2026
Aecon Wins $1.2B EPC Contract for Alberta Gas-Fired Power Plant
A consortium led by Toronto-based Aecon Group announced July 2 it won a roughly $1.2-billion engineering, procurement and construction contract to build the first phase of the Greenlight Electricity Centre, a $3.2-billion combined-cycle power project in Alberta expected to become one of the province’s largest new sources of dispatchable generation.
The contract was awarded by Greenlight Electricity Centre Limited Partnership, a venture of Pembina Pipeline Corp., Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and project developer Kineticor Asset Management, after the project reached a final investment decision earlier the same day. Aecon said its share of the award will be added to the company’s third-quarter construction backlog. Under the contract, the TRA consortium—of which Aecon holds a majority interest with Spain-based Técnicas Reunidas Alberta Inc.—will provide EPC and commissioning services.
Regulatory
E&E News By Politico – July 11, 2026
Energy Department unveils draft electric transmission needs study*
The Department of Energy released a study Thursday that identifies the nation’s greatest electricity transmission needs and calls for more planning and investment that would clear up costly congestion on the interstate power grid. Relieving bottlenecks on the U.S. grid that drive prices up during hours of high energy demand is a notable move away from DOE’s focus under the Biden administration on enabling the build-out of long-distance power lines to ship renewable energy across the United States.
The draft triennial National Transmission Needs Study lands as the country confronts growing demand from data centers, manufacturing and other large industrial electricity loads. It provides new analysis on how transmission investment can help maintain reliability, provide congestion relief and account for new generation and grid interconnection. “Electricity demand is accelerating faster than anything we’ve seen in decades, driven in part by data centers, manufacturing growth, and new forms of industry that are emerging almost by the month,” said Assistant Secretary of the Office of Electricity Catherine Jereza in a statement.
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Pipeline & Gas Journal – July 10, 2026
BLM Approves 220-Mile Gas-to-Water Pipeline Conversion in California
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has approved a right-of-way allowing Cadiz Inc. to convert a 220-mile former natural gas pipeline in California into a water conveyance system, clearing the way for construction to begin. The approval authorizes conversion and long-term operation of the Cadiz Northern Pipeline, which was acquired from El Paso Natural Gas in 2020 and will transport water from the Mojave Groundwater Bank to communities in San Bernardino County.
The new right-of-way, issued under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, replaces the pipeline’s previous authorization under the Mineral Leasing Act and allows the pipeline to operate as water infrastructure across BLM-managed lands for up to 50 years. Cadiz Chair and Chief Executive Officer Susan Kennedy said the approval marks the transition from permitting to construction.