Texas Energy Report NewsClips
Monday March 6, 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 on Monday as investor focus returned to threats facing Middle East oil facilities, despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for nations to help safeguard the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for global energy shipments.
West Texas Intermediate crude gained 54 cents, or 0.6%, at $99.25 a barrel, after settling up nearly $3 in the previous session.
Brent crude futures climbed $1.27, or 1.2%, to $104.41 a barrel by 0400 GMT, after settling up $2.68 on Friday.
Both contracts have surged more than 40% this month to their highest since 2022, after the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran prompted Tehran to halt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, choking off a fifth of global oil supply in the biggest disruption ever.
“U.S. strikes over the weekend on Kharg Island raised supply concerns, as most of Iran’s oil exports pass through it,” ING commodity strategists said on Monday.
Top Stories
The Wall Street Journal – March 15, 2026
White House Tries to Build Coalition on Iran to Address Energy Crisis*
President Trump and top aides spent the weekend framing their Iran operation as a resounding military success while imploring other countries to join their effort to resolve a worsening energy crisis related to the Strait of Hormuz. The Trump administration as soon as this week plans to announce that multiple countries have agreed to form a coalition that will escort ships through the waterway, which runs along the Iranian coast, U.S. officials said. The U.S. and potential coalition countries are still discussing whether those operations would begin before or after the war ends.
The White House declined to comment on the expected announcement, which could shift depending on battlefield conditions. Trump told reporters Sunday that the administration had reached out to seven nations for help policing the strait, but declined to say whether any had agreed to assist. For any that decline, he said, “We will remember.” Publicly, many countries have been noncommittal to such an escort mission until hostilities cease, given the risks involved, including Iran’s placement of mines in the strait.
This pressure for the White House to announce such a coalition underscores the dilemma facing the administration. Gasoline prices continue to rise and questions swirl from within the Republican Party as to the endgame. The military operation has resulted in the striking of more than 6,000 Iranian targets, including the killing of Iran’s supreme leader and other top regime officials. But the strategic problems—growing instability in the Middle East, a global energy crisis and the domestic political fallout—have proven difficult to manage through bombing alone. In a Sunday joint statement, the foreign ministers of the U.K. and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council said GCC states “have the right to take all necessary measures to defend their security and stability and protect territories, citizens and residents.”
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CNBC – March 13, 2026
Who is really footing the AI energy bill? Inside the debate about data center electricity costs
Tech companies have also committed to meeting data center needs through renewable sources. Such alternative energy sources will become increasingly important as concerns over energy availability grow due to the growing demand for data centers worldwide, according to JLL’s Howard.
“The average wait time for a grid connection in primary data center markets is already between four to six years, and up to 10 years in cities like Tokyo,” Howard said. Globally, these energy shortfalls could “create massive opportunities for energy producers, particularly when it comes to renewable energy,” he added. However, skepticism toward renewable energy commitments within the U.S.′ current administration has raised questions about how far such sustainability pledges will advance in the country, Howard said.
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Utility Dive – March 13, 2026
Atlas Energy to buy $840M in power assets from Caterpillar
Atlas Energy has inked a multiyear agreement to secure 1.4 gigawatts of incremental natural gas power generation assets from Caterpillar to meet surging electricity demand. Under the agreement, the Austin-based power systems and proppant supplier will invest $840 million to obtain large natural gas reciprocating generator sets, including Caterpillar’s CG260-16 and G3520 models used for behind the meter and bridge power applications.
Deliveries are scheduled between 2027 and 2029. Annual price increases will be capped at 8% per year, according to the agreement. The deal is one of Caterpillar’s largest as the company continues to build out its power systems segment for data center and oil and gas customers. It also has an extension option if more orders are needed.
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The Wall Street Journal – March 13, 2026
Trump Wants to Secure Hormuz. Here’s What It Would Take.*
President Trump has vowed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the vital artery for the world’s energy supply that has been closed off by Iran. It won’t be easy. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have repeatedly pledged that naval vessels will escort oil tankers and other ships through the strait. On Thursday, Trump said escort operations would begin “very soon.” In a pair of social-media posts Saturday, the president called on other nations to help. The U.S. is holding off on sending warships into the narrow strait—just 21 miles wide at its narrowest point—with Navy officers saying Iranian drones and antiship missiles could turn the area into a “kill box” for American sailors.
One option to clear the way for escorts would be a more-intense use of air power to hunt and destroy Iranian missiles and drones before they could be fired at ships in the strait. Another would be to use ground troops to seize the territory around the waterway. The administration has said it is keeping all options on the table, including the use of ground troops. On Friday, Trump ordered a Marine expeditionary unit, which typically has warships with thousands of sailors, attack jets and 2,200 Marines, to the Middle East.
In an escort operation, U.S. warships, maybe in conjunction with allied navies, would travel through the strait alongside oil tankers to clear mines and fend off Iranian attacks from the air as well as from Iran’s “mosquito fleet” of small, fast-attack boats. Experts estimate it could take two ships per tanker, or a dozen ships to guard convoys of five to 10 tankers, to have the necessary air defenses. The short distances involved make shooting down missiles and drones much more difficult. Despite weeks of American and Israeli attacks that have decimated Iran’s navy and military capabilities, its commanders are still demonstrating the ability to attack.
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Bloomberg – March 13, 2026
US Officials Have Discussed Trading Oil Futures, Burgum Says*
The Trump administration has discussed trading in the oil futures market as a strategy to help curb surging crude prices amid the war in Iran, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said. Burgum, however, said he wasn’t aware whether the US had actually intervened in the market at this point. “I would say there has been a discussion. We have a lot of smart people working in this administration — a lot of smart people work in the energy trading market,” Burgum said during an interview with Bloomberg Television in Tokyo on Saturday. “An intervention to try to manipulate and lower prices would require enormous amounts of capital. That is all I will say on that front.”
His comments come as US and Israeli attacks on Iran continue to upend the global energy landscape, trapping millions of barrels of oil in the Persian Gulf, with the Strait of Hormuz effectively blocked. Global crude futures have surged more than 40% in the nearly two weeks since the conflict began, driving US gasoline prices to their highest level in 22 months. Brent crude settled above $100 a barrel for the second straight day, ending Friday at the highest level in more than three years. The head of the company that oversees the trading of West Texas Intermediate US oil futures has warned it would be a “biblical disaster” for the federal government to start trading derivatives as a way to lower crude prices. “Markets do not like when governments intervene” in market pricing, Terry Duffy, chief executive officer of CME Group Inc., said at a conference in Boca Raton, Florida, this week.
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March 13, 2026
The Iran War Is Also Now a Semiconductor Problem: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Iran conflict has triggered dramatic economic effects across the globe, but despite its location far away from the warzone, South Korea has felt outsized shocks. The country’s stock market plunged 18 percent in just four trading days—the worst drop since the 2008 financial crisis—and wiped out more than $500 billion in market value as the energy security disruption has cascaded through Korea’s semiconductor-heavy stock market.
But the market panic was only the surface symptom, exposing a deeper structural weakness in Korea’s economy. South Korea suffers from a persistent energy vulnerability, and geopolitical shocks can quickly translate into acute economic pain. When these shocks threaten the conditions that allow major industries—particularly Korea’s booming semiconductor trade—to operate smoothly, the entire economy feels it immediately.
The Latest TERse Tips
The proliferation of data centers for artificial intelligence could drive U.S. natural gas consumption in the power sector significantly higher than previously estimated, according to a new analysis by the Energy Information Administration — Natural Gas Intelligence*
Lifting rules that limit flaring the Permian Basin’s associated gas to allow oil producers to put more barrels into the global market is not on the RRC agenda currently, the regulator told Hart Energy
The mayor of the city of Lone Star said Friday the city is aware of the oil leak/spill that has been observed in Lone Star Lake (the reservoir) — KLTV
Banpu Power, the electricity generation arm of Thai coal miner Banpu, plans to invest $90 million in a battery energy storage system in the U.S. state of Texas, anticipating demand from data centers, which are expanding rapidly there — Nikkei
Flying taxis to connect Texas cities under new federal program — San Antonio Express-News*
Video: Electric vertical aircrafts to be tested in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott says — KVUE
Oil & Gas Texas
Oil Price – March 3, 2026
US Drillers Add Oil, Gas Rigs As Brent Tops $100 For First Time in Years
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 553 this week, down 39 from this same time last year. The number of active oil rigs rose by 1 to 412 during the latest reporting period, according to the data. This is 75 below this same time last year. The number of gas rigs also rose by 1, reaching 133, which is 33 more than this time last year. The miscellaneous rig count stayed the same at 8.
The latest EIA data showed that weekly U.S. crude oil production fell this week, by 18,000 bpd in the week ending March 6, to 13.678 million bpd on average, 184,000 bpd under the all-time high. Primary Vision’s Frac Spread Count, an estimate of the number of crews completing wells, rose again during the week ending March 6 by 3 after gaining 7 crews in the week prior. The number of active drilling rigs in the Permian Basin stayed the same at 241, which is 60 rigs under year-ago levels. The count in the Eagle Ford was also unchanged at 43, which is 5 fewer than this same time last year.
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The Wall Street Journal – March 13, 2026
Iran War Delivers Windfall to America’s Oil Country*
New Mexico churns out about 2.3 million barrels of crude every day, enough to make it the nation’s second-largest oil-producing state behind its more famous neighbor, Texas. In fiscal year 2025, New Mexico raked in at least $7.3 billion in revenue from the output. Now, it stands to make even more. Higher oil prices brought on by the conflict with Iran might vex the global economy, but for some U.S. states, they are a windfall that will help close budget deficits, fund early childhood education and improve roads. “At the end of the day, it means more jobs and more opportunities for people,” Jonathan Sena, the mayor of Hobbs, N.M., said of higher oil prices. “Oil-and-gas is the foundation of our economy.” Hobbs has reaped the rewards of its place in the biggest oil-producing county in the country: As oil prices soar, restaurants and hotels fill up, construction booms and retail sales rise.
Higher oil costs strain the U.S. economy by raising gasoline and diesel prices, and the prices of a myriad of goods and services. But unlike during past oil shocks, the U.S. itself is now a major oil producer, providing insulation for the economy from the worst effects of the war. The southeast corner of New Mexico hosts some of the most productive wells in the Permian Basin, the nation’s most prolific oil field that extends far into West Texas. Oil-producing regions of the U.S. are seeing their output fetch higher prices as Iran blocks tankers from safely transiting through the Strait of Hormuz.
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Associated Press – March 13, 2026
US energy secretary directs oil company to restore operations off California
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright directed a Texas-based oil and gas company Friday to restore operations in waters off southern California that were damaged by a 2015 oil spill, invoking the Defense Production Act. Restoring Sable Offshore Corp.’s Santa Ynez unit and pipeline off Santa Barbara aims to address supply disruption risks, according to a department news release. The unit includes three rigs in federal waters, offshore and onshore pipelines, and the Las Flores Canyon Processing Facility. The facility can produce about 50,000 barrels of oil per day and would replace nearly 1.5 million barrels of foreign crude each month, officials said.
“The Trump Administration remains committed to putting all Americans and their energy security first,” Wright said in a statement. “Unfortunately, some state leaders have not adhered to those same principles, with potentially disastrous consequences not just for their residents, but also our national security. Today’s order will strengthen America’s oil supply and restore a pipeline system vital to our national security and defense, ensuring that West Coast military installations have the reliable energy critical to military readiness.”
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Midland Reporter-Telegram – March 13, 2026
EIA: Natural gas production hit record high in 2025*
U.S. marketed natural gas production continued to set records in 2025, growing by 5.3 billion cubic feet per day to average 118.5 Bcf, according to the Energy Information Administration’s Natural Gas Monthly report. According to the report, the Permian Basin joined with Appalachia and Haynesville to account for 67% of natural gas production last year, and for 81% of last year’s growth. Other U.S. regions accounted for the remaining 1.1 Bcf per day of growth.
The Permian Basin was second to Appalachia in terms of production last year, accounting for 23% of marketed natural gas. But the region saw the highest growth among the three main regions, jumping 11% or 2.7 Bcf per day to average 27.7 Bcf per day. Analysts noted that the growth in natural gas production is primarily the result of associated gas produced during oil production. West Texas Intermediate averaged $65 a barrel in 2025, down from $77 in 2024 but sufficient to support oil-directed drilling in the Permian region. Additionally, the average gas-to-oil ratio, which has been steadily increasing in the Permian, contributed to natural gas growth.
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Bloomberg – March 15, 2026
US Reiterates Oil Reserve Release Spurred by Iran War Will Be an Exchange*
The US Energy Department reiterated Sunday that a planned 172-million-barrel release of oil from the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve would be structured as an exchange. The agency gave more details on the release Friday, clarifying it would begin with an exchange — essentially a loan that companies must eventually return with interest — of 86 million barrels. The oil is expected to begin moving to market this coming week. Energy Secretary Chris Wright earlier referred to the action as a release, leading to some confusion among traders who initially interpreted the plan as an outright sale.
An Energy Department spokesman said an exchange was the plan all along. He pointed to the reference in Wright’s initial announcement to refilling the reserve with approximately 200 million barrels within the next year, or about 20% more than what was being released, at no cost to the taxpayer. That would only be possible with an exchange, the spokesman said. Wright also referred to the release as an exchange in an CNN interview on March 12. Countries around the world are planning releases from strategic oil reserves as the war in the Middle East chokes supply and sends fuel prices soaring. The Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for crude tankers, has been all but shut since the start of the conflict. Last week, The International Energy Agency agreed last week to discharge 400 million barrels from emergency oil reserves, its largest-ever release. The US plan is part of that effort.
Oil & Gas National & International
Inside Climate News – March 13, 2026
China’s Clean Energy Push Has Made It Less Vulnerable to Energy Shocks, Including the Iran War
When Gary Dirks arrived in China in 1995, the country’s government was looking to source more of its energy at home. Dirks was the incoming country head for BP, but efforts to find more oil and gas in the country had largely fizzled. So government leaders pivoted, Dirks said. China invested heavily in its domestic coal and, later, in building wind and solar energy. Now, those investments and other steps are shielding China from more severe impacts of the volatility unleashed by the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, despite Beijing’s continued reliance on foreign oil.
“They’ve been taking measures for a very long time to try to maximize their use of their own resources,” said Dirks, now senior director at the Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University. “They’ve been aware of this vulnerability for a very long time.”
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The Wall Street Journal – March 15, 2026
If Seizing Iran’s Nuclear Material Is the Endgame, Here’s What It Would Take*
President Trump has said preventing Iran from ever developing nuclear weapons is a central aim of the war he is waging. In the absence of regime change—or at least a deal to hand over its enriched uranium by Tehran’s leaders—that could mean seizing the country’s fissile material. Accomplishing that in the face of resistance from Iranian forces would be a complex military operation that could require the deployment of hundreds of troops at one or more sites for days, former U.S. military officers and experts said. The U.S. military has elite teams specially trained to remove radioactive material from a conflict zone. But locating and seizing the hundreds of kilograms of highly enriched uranium that Iran possesses would require an intricate choreography and could be fraught with risk.
President Trump has said he wouldn’t rule out sending ground troops into Iran if necessary. But on Friday, he signaled an operation to seize the country’s enriched uranium wasn’t imminent. “We’re not focused on that, but at some point we might be,” Trump said on Fox News Radio. “Right now, we’re focused on knocking the hell out of their missiles and their drones.” Before Israel and the U.S. conducted a series of airstrikes on Iran in June last year, the country was believed to have more than 400 kilograms of 60% highly enriched uranium, and nearly 200 kilograms of 20% fissile material, which is easily converted into 90%-weapons-grade uranium.
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The Wall Street Journal – March 13, 2026
Why Trump’s Move to Lower Oil Prices Fell Flat*
If the White House hoped tapping 40% of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve would quickly push down oil prices, it hasn’t worked. News this week that member countries of the International Energy Agency would coordinate to release 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency stockpiles, of which the U.S. will contribute close to half, barely touched the oil price. Big as the number sounds, it isn’t nearly enough to compensate for the loss of barrels passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Analysts expect the total IEA release to add around 3 million barrels of crude and refined products a day. But according to Janiv Shah, a vice president at Rystad Energy, nine to 10 million barrels of oil a day are currently trapped behind the Strait of Hormuz, even accounting for the flows that are likely to be diverted to pipelines.
So the initial announcement, intended to have a positive impact on sentiment in the markets, seems to have fallen flat. Brent was trading around $90 a barrel on the day of the IEA announcement and ended the week at around $103. When the barrels do eventually hit the physical oil market, they should bring prices down at least some. But another problem is that strategic reserves take longer to unlock than commercial stocks, especially if they are in specialized storage facilities. The U.S. SPR holds 415 million barrels of crude in 61 underground salt caverns in Louisiana and Texas. But it will be hard to get it out quickly. The Biden administration made a similar-size draw at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which left the store at just 60% capacity. As more oil is extracted, pressure levels in the caverns fall, which slows subsequent withdrawals.
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E&E News By Politico – March 13, 2026
Why the Iran war hurts Trump’s plans to expand LNG*
On the eve of the Iran war, Energy Secretary Chris Wright traveled to Texas to celebrate the expansion of a liquefied natural gas terminal. Gas will likely be “the fastest-growing energy source probably through the rest of my life,” Wright told a crowd gathered at Cheniere’s Corpus Christi plant. Two weeks later, that outlook has become significantly more complicated. The U.S.-Israel war in Iran has resulted in shutting down the world’s largest LNG facility, in Qatar, and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, stranding about a fifth of global gas supplies. Escalating attacks by Iran on tankers and cargo vessels on Thursday have dimmed hopes of reopening the shipping route and led analysts to question the future growth of gas.
“The LNG industry has a problem,” said Alex Munton, an analyst who tracks the industry at Rapidan Energy Group. The conflict presents a double-edged sword for the U.S. The shutdown of the Qatari plant, Ras Laffan, is an opportunity for American LNG developers, who can talk up the relative security of their supplies to potential customers. But whether those buyers will be willing to sign long-term contracts is an open question as fighting in the Persian Gulf diminishes the global supply of gas — and raises prices around the world. The conflict comes just four years after Europe shutoff gas pipeline import from Russia in retaliation for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
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The New Yorker – March 13, 2026
Trump’s Inexcusable Unpreparedness for the Iranian Oil Crisis*
Two weeks after the United States and Israel launched an air war on Iran, there has been no let up in the conflict—or its financial repercussions. On Thursday, Iran’s new Supreme Leader said that his country would keep closed the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane through which about a fifth of the world’s oil flows, and more vessels in the Persian Gulf were attacked, including two oil tankers that were set ablaze off the coast of Iraq. On world markets, the price of a barrel of crude jumped to more than a hundred dollars. Here in the U.S., the price of gasoline has risen by about more than twenty per cent since the war began, and energy analysts warn that it could rise a lot further if the Strait isn’t reopened. The Dow has fallen by about four per cent. Donald Trump, having plunged the country into a potentially disastrous war, with no clear rationale or exit plan, is flailing around for ways to mitigate its economic consequences. On Thursday, he suggested in a social-media post that the U.S., as the world’s largest oil producer, makes a lot of money when prices go up—an argument that even the most slavish G.O.P. congressman facing a reëlection campaign might hesitate to embrace.
Perhaps the most startling thing about the whole situation is that the Trump Administration was apparently surprised by, and unprepared for, Iran’s capability to inflict economic pain on the U.S. and its allies. This despite the fact that during a showdown in Trump’s first term the regime in Tehran used the same tactics of threatening to block the Strait and of attacking oil infrastructure in neighboring Gulf states that are allied with the U.S. Whether out of arrogance, capriciousness, or collective amnesia, this recent history was ignored.
In 2018, after rashly pulling out of the nuclear deal that the Obama Administration had negotiated, Trump launched a “maximum pressure campaign” against the Islamic Republic, which included extensive sanctions on its oil industry, the country’s biggest revenue generator. The response from Tehran was robust. In February, 2019, the Navy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that if Iran had no buyers for its oil it would take military steps to close the Strait. Ultimately, it backed off—it was able to continue exporting oil to China and other countries that ignored the U.S. sanctions—but the government and its foreign proxies did carry out a campaign of aggression in and around the Gulf. In May and June of 2019, four oil tankers docked in the United Arab Emirates were sabotaged and two freight vessels, one Japanese-owned and the other Norwegian-owned, were damaged by Iranian mines in the Gulf of Oman, which sits below the Strait. Months later, in Saudi Arabia, drone attacks struck oil-pumping stations that were operated by Aramco, the state-run oil giant. According to a report from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, Tehran “meant to send a message to the Gulf states that if they continue to encourage the United States to cut off Iran’s oil sector, Iran will take actions to harm their ability to export oil.” The report continued, “The message to the United States is that the ‘maximum pressure’ campaign is not without costs, and if the United States seeks to pursue this approach, Iran will take steps that have a negative impact on the global economy.”
America Depends Less on Oil Than Ever*
War with Iran has frozen commerce in the Persian Gulf and boosted oil prices by more than 50 percent worldwide, translating almost immediately into higher gasoline costs. It’s the largest global oil disruption ever and is likely to accelerate inflation throughout this year. And yet, in the United States, the impact is much more muted than it would have been a few decades ago. That’s in part because America uses less energy per unit of economic output than it used to. In economist-speak, the U.S. economy is less “energy intensive,” for a few reasons. One, the U.S. economy now depends largely on services like health care, retail and entertainment, which require much less energy than manufacturing industries. There are only about 21 million jobs in goods-producing sectors, while private services employ 114 million people.
And two, the machines that Americans do use are now much more efficient, a trend that started in earnest after the oil price shocks of the 1970s. According to the Department of Transportation, the average new light-duty vehicle gets 28 miles per gallon of gas, up from 13 in 1975. Gasoline consumption rose until 2007, then leveled off as electric vehicles gained traction. As a result, consumer spending on gas as a share of discretionary income has fallen. Economists at Wells Fargo estimate that a sustained 50 percent rise in oil prices — similar to the current situation — would have had about twice the effect in the 1980s as it would today, when it’s expected to trim about one percentage point from annual consumer spending growth. The United States has also become the world’s largest oil and gas producer. Rather than depend on supply from the Middle East, the rest of the world now consumes petroleum products that are fracked from North Dakota and West Texas.
Why Trump has his sights on Iran’s Kharg Island — and what it means for the oil market
Related: Trump weighing options to strike Iran’s critical oil hub, UN Ambassador Waltz says — CNBC
President Donald Trump’s order to strike Iranian military assets on Kharg Island has thrust one of Tehran’s most critical oil hubs into the center of the escalating U.S.-Iran conflict. Trump said the strikes, carried out Friday night, targeted military facilities and spared oil infrastructure. But he warned the United States could attack crude facilities on the island if Iran continues attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping artery for global energy supplies.
“The strike on the military facilities of Kharg was meant to serve as a warning shot to Tehran. If it doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the oil infrastructure on the island would be next,” Vandana Hari, founder of Vanda Insights, told CNBC in an email on Monday.
The Oil Tankers Trump Seized Are Costing the U.S. Millions of Dollars*
The seizures have put the U.S. government in a financial bind. The ships are highly expensive to maintain. And the Trump administration cannot legally sell their oil without a judge’s permission. Maintaining the seized tankers has already cost the United States tens of millions of dollars — in one case, $47 million in only three months — and complicates Mr. Trump’s claims of swift financial victories from his military operations targeting Venezuela and Iran. The situation is laid bare in U.S. District Court in Washington, where Trump officials are detailing the financial burden of maintaining a seized tanker.
Consider the case of Motor Tanker Skipper No. 9304667. The United States seized the tanker and its more than 1.8 million barrels of Venezuelan petroleum on Dec. 10 as it made its way from Venezuela to Asia. Since then, the costs to maintain the tanker and its oil have mounted. The government has already spent $47 million repairing and maintaining the aging ship, which is only valued at $10 million, federal prosecutors said in a court filing. And it will most likely need to spend another $5 million over the next few months to cover insurance and crew, among other costs.
Moreover, storing the ship’s oil costs the government $15,000 per day, or about $450,000 per month. “I know that aircrafts, vessels and cargos pose unique challenges in asset management,” Gene Patton, a top Justice Department official, wrote in a court filing. “These assets have maintenance and storage costs that far outstrip standard assets. The larger assets in these categories are particularly challenging to maintain, as crews may need to be retained for around the clock servicing, and only limited locations can store such items.”
He Was Chevron’s Man in Venezuela—and a CIA Informant*
In the months before President Trump moved to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Central Intelligence Agency turned to an old friend for advice on who should replace the autocratic leftist. Former Chevron executive Ali Moshiri told the agency that if the U.S. government tried to oust the entire Maduro regime and install the democratic opposition led by María Corina Machado it would have another quagmire like Iraq on its hands, according to people familiar with the matter. She didn’t have the support of the country’s security services or control of its oil infrastructure, Moshiri argued.
Utilities, Electricity & Renewables
Yahoo! News – March 13, 2026
Houston controller’s office says city’s electricity costs have risen over 40%
Energy costs in Houston have risen significantly, and will cost the city $131 million this fiscal year, according to the controller’s office. The increase is an approximately 40% increase from the previous fiscal year.
The change is due to multiple factors including a 2021 storm that tore through the Houston area, according to the controller’s office. “So, as a result of Winter Storm Uri, the state of Texas passed policies and reforms to help stabilize the grid and as a result of that, those costs have to be passed down to the customers,” City of Houston Deputy Controller Will Jones.
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E&E News By Politico – March 13, 2026
Texas floats plan to ease data center approvals*
Texas regulators moved Thursday to pare back proposed requirements for data centers seeking to connect to the state’s main power grid, although a final decision won’t come this month. A proposal from Chair Thomas Gleeson of the state Public Utility Commission would lower the fees for large loads and add other standards developers can use to show that they have a site ready to go. The proposed rule will be published in the Texas Register, and the PUC will accept comments on it until April 17.
If a project meets the minimum — or “gating” — requirements proposed by the PUC, it would be included in the first tranche of sites studied and potentially granted the ability to interconnect to the grid managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Officials with ERCOT and the PUC are juggling calls to make sure Texas has reliable electricity without causing a surge in prices as new demand comes online and requires expanded energy infrastructure. “I think it’s appropriate to take all these gating issues that we’ve been talking about and try to find ways that we can align the regulatory commitments we’re looking for with the commercial milestones and the development process for these large loads,” Gleeson said during Thursday’s open meeting.
KXXV – March 15, 2026
Neighbors fight plan for 200-foot power transmission towers crossing Texas landscape.
Homeowners across multiple Texas counties are pushing back against a proposed high-voltage power transmission line that planners say is essential to meet growing electricity demand in Texas, but which residents say would devastate their properties and the surrounding landscape.
The “Bell County East to Big Hill 765 kV Transmission Project” would connect to a new substation planned near Eldorado and traverse 194 miles of countryside across Schleicher, Menard, McCullough, San Saba, Burnet, Lampasas and Bell counties, ending at the Bell County East Switch substation in Temple. The Lower Colorado River Authority and Oncor are proposing the project to bring electricity to fast-growing areas of the Permian Basin.
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Dallas Morning News – March 15, 2026
The Texas lithium boom that wasn’t … or at least not yet*
The Lone Star State is already a literal powerhouse that bestrides domestic energy production. Lithium — the stuff that consumer technology, electric vehicle batteries and solar panels are made of — is in abundant supply around the world and here at home, including Texas. There’s an estimated 9 million tons of the alkali metal scattered in reserves around the U.S.; while we don’t have nearly as much as Australia, China or other countries abroad, that hasn’t stopped an enterprising number of domestic players from vying to tap into the emerging market.
Except that trend has now lost momentum, and the economics of a would-be gold rush are running headlong into reality. Once upon a time, lithium was seen as the avatar of a green energy economy that got lots of attention and subsidies from the Biden administration — but has had the rug largely pulled out from it as EV demand has tumbled, and as President Donald Trump has pulled back on government-funded initiatives his predecessor championed.
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Utility Dive – March 13, 2026
PJM is now using ambient-adjusted transmission ratings. Other grid operators will soon follow.
The PJM Interconnection is the first grid operator to fully adopt “ambient air” adjusted transmission line ratings, a measurement that can allow for fuller use of a transmission line’s capacity, PJM said Monday. PJM started using hourly ambient-adjusted ratings, or AARs, across its system on March 4.
“PJM systems now leverage new, complex and dynamic data sets of line ratings that update every hour according to a stream of weather data of ambient air temperatures with forecasts up to 10 days ahead,” the grid operator said. “PJM system changes also synchronized markets functions to adapt to the new advanced data structures and dispatch methods.” AARs can increase capacity on transmission lines by 15% to 40% compared with static ratings, according to Ampacimon, a grid technology company.
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Utility Dive – March 13, 2026
IOUs work to interconnect 39 GW of data center, manufacturing load: EEI
Investor-owned utilities are working to connect at least 39 GW of publicly announced data centers and other large loads across the United States, the Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade group, told federal regulators on Thursday.
“We continue to underscore the importance of crafting federal policies that build upon, rather than disrupt, existing forward progress, including state processes and stakeholder efforts,” Drew Maloney, EEI president and CEO, said in a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. “We are committed to ensuring the timely interconnection of large loads while also ensuring benefits and protection for all customers and the grid.”
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Utility Dive – March 13, 2026
‘Clear warning signs’ as PJM wholesale power costs jump 54% in one year
There are “clear warning signs” for the PJM Interconnection’s capacity market and for grid reliability in its footprint largely driven by data center development, the grid operator’s independent market monitor said Thursday.
On the reliability front, PJM’s last two base capacity auctions show a growing shortfall compared to its reserve margin targets. The gap was about 210 MW in the 2026/2027 auction, rising to about 6,520 MW in the 2027/2028 auction, Monitoring Analytics noted in its annual report on PJM’s markets. At the same time, the price impacts have been large and will continue to grow “until the issues associated with the additions of large data center loads are addressed,” it said. Last year, wholesale power in PJM cost $67 billion, up 54% from $43.5 billion in 2024, according to the report.
Regulatory
Politico – March 13, 2026
Federal court U-turns on Texas smog plan ruling*
A federal appellate court, in a rare reversal of an earlier decision, has found that EPA erred in rejecting a Texas plan for meeting federal smog regulations. In a unanimous opinion issued Friday, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cited factors that included EPA’s own recent about-face in concluding that the agency was wrong to reject the state’s plan for satisfying “good neighbor” requirements tied to compliance with the 2015 ozone pollution standard.
The panel, led by Judge Priscilla Richman, accordingly withdrew its opinion from last March upholding EPA’s earlier disapproval of the state plan. In the new ruling, the panel retained its earlier finding that EPA also erred in disapproving Mississippi’s plan, but — on procedural grounds — upheld the disapproval of Louisiana’s good neighbor blueprint. Richman, an appointee of President George W. Bush, pointed to an EPA proposal released in January that seeks to undo similar Biden-era disapprovals of plans submitted by Alabama and four other states by relying on a different analytical framework.
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The Wall Street Journal – March 13, 2026
An Easy Fix to a Clinton Energy Error: Michael Buschbache, James Conde*
Bipartisan consensus these days is rare. But Republicans and some Democrats agree on at least one thing: We’re going to need a lot more energy fast if the U.S. wants to reduce soaring electricity costs. That means building natural-gas plants. The biggest obstacle is counterproductive regulation. A comprehensive permitting fix will require action by Congress, but the Trump administration can quickly remove one big roadblock. That roadblock arises from a program called Prevention of Significant Deterioration. It extended the Clean Air Act to areas that already have clean air—ones that meet the protective “national ambient air quality standards” set by the Environmental Protection Agency. It requires a labyrinthine permitting process any time a “major emitting facility” is built, requiring air-quality modeling and public hearings. Antigrowth nonprofits can sue to stop permits, attack companies for noncompliance, and seek civil penalties.
Why would Congress want to punish industrial development in clean areas? Because heavily polluted industrial states (primarily on the East and West coasts) that had to comply with the Clean Air Act’s red tape wanted to prevent industry from migrating to cleaner areas, so they insisted on red tape for all. The result is that the industry packed up and went overseas. The program singles out a list of industrial facilities for disfavor, setting a low threshold for the permitting requirements to kick in. Among these facilities are what the law labels “fossil-fueled fired steam electric plants,” or what most people would call coal plants. Notably, one thing not included in that naughty list is gas turbines. Enter the combined-cycle natural-gas plant. First commercialized in the 1970s, these ingenious plants fire a natural-gas turbine and use the resulting waste heat to power a steam turbine, resulting in a combined efficiency of more than 60%, compared with about 42% for a simple gas turbine.