Dive Brief: Amid rising threats to operational systems and a chaotic geopolitical environment, electric utilities want Congress to cleanly reauthorize the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, which allows for greater information sharing between the power sector and federal government. The law lapsed October 1. A temporary extension was included in the government funding bill, which failed and resulted in the current shutdown. A bipartisan Senate bill could bring CISA’s protections back into force. It is vital that utilities are able to share threat information as the risks are rising, said Kristine Martz, a principal product advisor at cybersecurity firm Dragos. “Adversaries are becoming aware of the impact that they can achieve against easy to access industrial control systems,” or ICS, she said Friday at a conference hosted by Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Dive Insight: “We’ve seen a consistent rise in threat activity over the years,” Martz said, noting new threat adversaries are focused on operational technology and ICS environments where they can impact the delivery of services. “They get in through these internet-facing devices and just live off the land for a long time to perform reconnaissance, pulling down things like your GIS data, your network maps,” Martz said. “Living off the land” refers to cyber intruders using legitimate network tools to cover their presence and gain information. While utility regulations like the North American Electric Reliability Corp.’s Critical Infrastructure Protection standards have helped create a baseline of security and shored up obvious weaknesses, Dragos has identified new threat groups developing operational and ICS-specific malware which take advantage of the extensive knowledge of utility work environments that hackers can gain from their research, Martz said. Given the threat, and in an environment of rapidly growing electricity demand, it is vital that electric utilities are able to share information

Residential electricity retail prices rose more rapidly than commercial and industrial prices from 2019 to 2024, according to a study released last week by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Nationwide, average residential prices jumped 27% to 16.5 cents/kWh in the five years since 2019 while average commercial prices increased 19% to 12.8 cents/kWh and industrial prices climbed 19% to 8.1 cents/kWh, the LBNL researchers said in a summary of the report examining factors that affect electricity prices. Overall retail electricity prices fell in 37 states from 2019 to 2024 when adjusting for inflation, the researchers said. Driven by wildfire-related costs, inflation-adjusted electricity prices surged 6.2% in California — the most among states, according to the report. Real prices also increased in the Northeast in the five-year period. Optional Caption Retrieved from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Last year, retail electricity prices ranged from less than 8 cents/kWh in North Dakota to more than 27 cents/kWh in California, according to the LBNL report. The LBNL researchers found that state energy policies can contribute to rising electricity prices. “States with the largest price increases in recent years typically featured shrinking customer loads — partially linked to growth in net metered behind-the-meter solar — and had [renewable portfolio standard] programs in concert with relatively costly incremental renewable energy supplies,” the researchers said. States with RPS programs that called for new supplies in the last five years increased retail electricity prices by about 0.4 cents/kWh, according to the study. However, electricity prices appear unaffected by “market-based” utility-scale renewable energy projects built outside of RPS mandates, the LBNL researchers found. Also, while behind-the-meter solar cut net electricity load in some states — by more than 5% in California, Maine and Rhode Island, for example — it is linked to higher electricity prices, according to the study.

A flotilla of crude oil on the world’s oceans expanded to a fresh high as producer nations keep adding barrels and the tankers sail further for deliveries. A total of 1.24 billion barrels of crude and condensate, a light form of oil recovered from gas fields, was moving on tankers in the week to Oct. 17, according to data from analytics firm Vortexa. That was up from a revised 1.22 billion barrels a week earlier.  Oil traders warned last week that a long-anticipated surplus is finally starting to materialize and the amount of cargo at sea is one indicator of that.  Production is rising from members of the OPEC+ group of nations, which are unwinding earlier output cuts — as well as countries outside the group, predominantly in the Americas, where Guyana recently started pumping from a new offshore field and US output hit a new high. The build-up comes at a time when demand growth is slowing, with forecasters predicting a surplus that could rise to as much as 4 million barrels a day in the early months of next year. Oil prices fell 0.8% on Monday, taking their decline so far this year to 18%. Eight members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies, which together make up the OPEC+ grouping, raised their collective production target by almost 2.5 million barrels a day between March and September. While increases in actual production have lagged, the group still added more than 2 million barrels a day to supply over that period. Vortexa’s figures exclude oil in floating storage, defined as being on vessels that have been stationary for at least seven days. The biggest increases have come from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Russia, whose combined output has risen by 1.77 million barrels a day.

In an EBW Analytics Group report sent to Rigzone by the EBW team on Monday, Eli Rubin, an energy analyst at the company, noted that a “bullish weather shift spark[ed]… [a] natural gas revival”. “After testing as low as $2.893 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) intraday Friday – and with weekend Henry Hub spot prices falling to $2.66 [per MMBtu] – a cooler weekend weather shift has revived bullish fortunes for the November contract,” Rubin said in the report. “Further, weekly average LNG was at a record high over the weekend and natural gas production readings slumped in the Permian and Marcellus,” Rubin added. In the report, Rubin noted that “some meteorologists reflect a larger heating demand gain, helping to explain the pop at the front of the curve”. “Cooler weather (the next three EIA [U.S. Energy Information Administration] weeks are expected to be below long-term normals) slashes risks of bearish outcomes akin to early November 2024,” Rubin said. The energy analyst stated in the report that “shorts covering some positions likely underlies the market reaction higher”. “Still, lofty storage, mild weather, and returning production remain,” Rubin warned in the report. “The $3.22-3.24 per MMBtu level is a key technical battleground, however, and if weather models continue colder or bulls lift November above key resistance, extended near-term upside potential may occur,” he added. EBW’s report highlighted that the November natural gas contract closed at $3.008 per MMBtu on Friday. This was up 7.0 cents, or 2.4 percent, from Thursday’s close, the report outlined. In a separate EBW report sent to Rigzone by the EBW team on Friday, Rubin warned that “near to medium term natural gas weakness extend[ed]”. “Yesterday’s [Thursday] EIA-reported 80 billion cubic foot injection confirmed a lofty storage trajectory, driving the November 2025 natural gas contract to

Is the oil and gas market currently in a bust cycle? That’s the question Rigzone asked James Davis, Director of Short-Term Global Oil Service and Head of Upstream Oil at FGE London, in an exclusive interview recently. In response, Davis told Rigzone, “crude oil prices have fallen year on year, and as the supply surplus continues, as evidenced by reported stockbuilds, prices will fall further”. “We’re already seeing evidence of oil companies cutting investment as a result of lower prices,” he added. “If these are the qualities of what you want to call a bust cycle, then, we’re in a bust cycle,” he said. In the interview, Davis highlighted to Rigzone that, for producers, $60 per barrel oil today doesn’t go as far as it did back in 2019. “For the average tight oil producer, $60 per barrel today gives you very little free cash flow,” he said. “However, in 2019, the average tight oil producer might have realized $10-15 per barrel of free cash flow at $60 per barrel,” he added. “While operating expenditure and capital expenditure have crept up, it is weaker gas prices that have had the biggest impact on cost exposure,” Davis pointed out. “Nonetheless operating margins are not as good at the current price deck as they would have been six years ago,” he noted. When asked if this bust cycle is going to negatively affect future production, Davis told Rigzone that FGE is already seeing evidence that the low oil price environment is impacting oil output, particularly in the United States. “While low cost producers (oil majors and international oil companies) have managed to grow output this year, the smaller, high cost producers have seen their output slump by around 200-300,000 barrels per day,” he said. “We expect more declines from high cost producers

JERA Co Inc and the Hawaiian government have signed a collaboration agreement “focusing on fuel diversity and developing pathways toward decarbonization”, the Japanese integrated power company said. The “strategic partnering agreement” between JERA and the governor’s office “is designed to help realize the Hawai’i State Energy Office’s ‘Alternative Fuels, Repowering and Energy Transition Study’, published in January 2025, which concluded in the short term that the state should accelerate its shift away from oil by using affordable and reliable alternative fuels, including natural gas”, JERA said in a statement on its website. Governor Josh Green said in the statement, “By collaborating with JERA – Japan’s largest power producer and a recognized global leader in energy transition – we are gaining access to valuable expertise and experience that will help accelerate our decarbonization journey while improving reliability and affordability for our residents”. JERA global chief executive Yukio Kani said, “As island communities, Japan and Hawai’i share similar challenges and opportunities in pursuing affordability, stability and sustainability. By working together, we aim to develop practical, innovative solutions that strengthen energy resilience and reduce costs for the people of Hawai’i”. The company added, “JERA brings extensive experience in the development and operation of large-scale, reliable energy infrastructure worldwide, with a growing focus on low-carbon fuels, hydrogen, ammonia and renewable energy integration”. In the study by the Hawai’i State Energy Office (HSEO), the agency proposed a new power plant that would run on natural gas supplied by a floating storage regasification unit. “LNG emerged as the near-term fuel with the potential to cost-effectively reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions during the transition to economywide decarbonization in 2045, but more analysis is needed to quantify a range of potential benefits and to identify how those benefits can be maximized to residents at the appropriate level of infrastructure buildout”,