Oil rose on Friday but still notched a second weekly loss as the market continued to weigh the threat to output from sanctions on Russia against a looming oversupply. West Texas Intermediate futures rose around 0.5% to settle below $60 a barrel, but were still down for the week. Adding to fears of a glut, oil prices have also been buffeted by swings in equity markets this week. Meanwhile, the White House’s move to clamp down on the buying of Russian crude led oil trading giant Gunvor Group to withdraw an offer for the international assets of Lukoil PJSC. The fate of the assets, which include stakes in oil fields, refineries and gas stations, remains unclear. One possible exception to that crackdown could emerge soon: President Donald Trump signaled an openness to exempting Hungary from sanctions on Russian energy purchases as he hosted Prime Minister Viktor Orban, briefly pushing futures to intraday lows. The development appeared to allay shortage fears, given that Budapest imports over 90% of its crude from Moscow. Senior industry figures have warned the latest US curbs on Russia’s two largest oil companies are beginning to have an impact on the market, particularly in diesel, where prices have been surging in recent days, with time spreads for the fuel signaling supply pressure. At the same time, the US measures have come against a backdrop of oversupply that has weighed on key crude oil metrics. The spread between the nearest West Texas Intermediate futures closed at the weakest level since February on Thursday. “If the market flips to contango, we may see more bearish funds enter the crude space,” said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president for trading at BOK Financial said of the potential that longer-dated contracts trade at a premium to nearer-term ones. “Most traders remain surprised

Commodity trader Gunvor Group has withdrawn its offer for the international assets of sanctioned Russian oil producer Lukoil PJSC after the US Treasury Department called it “the Kremlin’s puppet” and said the oil and gas trader would never get a license. Gunvor pushed back on the Treasury comment on social media, calling it “fundamentally misinformed and false.” The Geneva-based company said it would seek to correct a “clear misunderstanding” but that it would withdraw its bid for now. President Trump has been clear that the war must end immediately. As long as Putin continues the senseless killings, the Kremlin’s puppet, Gunvor, will never get a license to operate and profit. — Treasury Department (@USTreasury) November 6, 2025 The comment is a remarkable volte-face after a week in which Gunvor has been in talks with the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, part of the Treasury Department, and other bodies in charge of sanctions to help press its case for a deal that would have transformed it into an integrated oil producing and processing colossus. Gunvor swooped on the assets at the end of last month following the US blacklisting of Lukoil and fellow Russian oil giant Rosneft PJSC, and its exit may leave the door open to other suitors. Gunvor on Thursday also announced it had raised $2.81 billion in a credit facility financed by US arms of global banks. Like other major commodity traders, the firm funds the bulk of its trades of oil, gas and metals around the world with bank financing. For the trader, the comments are likely to revive questions about its connections in Moscow at a time when many oil industry participants are wary of any links to Russia.  The trader’s co-founder, Gennady Timchenko, is a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and when the US imposed sanctions

A tanker carrying crude from recently-sanctioned Rosneft PJSC has made a rare cargo transfer off Mumbai, as the Trump administration ramps up its scrutiny of India’s oil trade with Russia. But the unusual move has puzzled traders. The cargo was transferred from one blacklisted tanker to another sanctioned ship, meaning there’s been no attempt to hide its origin — typical of such a move — and the crude is still heading for an Indian port: Kochi in the south, rather than Mumbai on the west coast. India’s purchases of Russian oil have drawn the ire of President Donald Trump, and the US penalties on Rosneft along with Lukoil PJSC are expected to severely impact the trade. The market is keenly watching for disruptions to established flows before a grace period related to the sanctions ends later this month. “What we’re seeing now is this uncertainty in the market about what the sanctions risks are,” said Rachel Ziemba, an analyst at the Center for a New American Security in Washington. “The net result is more ship-to-ship transfers, more subterfuge, longer routes, more complicated transactions.” The Fortis took around 720,000 barrels of Russian Urals from Ailana on Tuesday near Mumbai, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, Kpler and Vortexa. The cargo was collected from the Baltic port of Ust-Luga before the US sanctioned Rosneft, and Ailana had idled in the area for nearly two weeks with no clear reason.  Ailana is on its way back to Russia, while Fortis is expected to arrive at Kochi early next week with the cargo, ship-tracking data shows. Both vessels have been sanctioned by the European Union and the UK. Fortis’ owner and manager — Vietnam-based Pacific Logistic & Maritime and North Star Ship Management — didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment. There are no contact details on maritime database

Listen to the article 4 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Dive Brief: The Southwest Power Pool board of directors on Wednesday approved an $8.6 billion slate of 50 transmission projects across its 14-state footprint. The projects are intended to help the grid operator meet peak demand, which it expects will double, to reach 109 GW, in the next 10 years. Key to the 2025 Integrated Transmission Plan is development of a 765-kV regional transmission “backbone” that can carry four times the power SPP’s existing 345-kV lines do, and do so more efficiently. The grid operator’s transmission system “is at capacity and forecasted load growth will only exacerbate the existing strain,” it said. “Simply adding new generation will not resolve the challenges.” 765-kV transmission lines are the highest operating voltages in the U.S. but are new in both SPP and in the neighboring Electric Reliability Council of Texas market. Texas regulators approved the higher voltage lines for the first time in April. Dive Insight: Transmission developers in SPP and ERCOT are turning to 765-kV projects to mitigate line losses and move greater volumes of power into demand centers at a time when electricity demand is expected to rise significantly. “With the new load being integrated into the system, SPP could see an increase in the footprint’s annual energy consumption by as much as 136%,” the grid operator said in its ITP. “Investments in transmission are the key to keep costs low, maintain reliability, and power economic growth.” Even under conservative assumptions, SPP forecasts a 35% increase in demand, “making timely transmission investment essential,” the grid operator said. SPP selected Xcel Energy in February to construct the first 765-kV lines in its footprint. Those lines were identified in its 2024 plan. AEP Texas will build

The price gas power merger and acquisitions have reached in some markets, according to energy analytics firm Enverus. The artificial intelligence boom, along with expectations of increased manufacturing and electrification, is driving a surge in natural gas investment, but thermal generation remains risky, some analysts say, drawing parallels to the dot com bubble at the turn of the century. 

Alexandra Klass is the James G. Degnan Professor of Law at Michigan Law, and Dave Owen is the Albert Abramson ’54 Distinguished Professor of Law at UC Law San Francisco. The United States faces massive growth in electricity demand. If utilities’ projections are right, data centers will drive much of that growth. And if utilities try to meet that demand in traditional ways, the results could be bad for consumers, the environment and the tech industry. Those traditional ways assume that utilities must meet the needs of electricity customers at all times. This requires utilities to build new power plants and transmission and distribution lines and (in most states) pass those costs, plus a profit margin, on to consumers. Utilities also will not allow major new users to connect to the grid until those users’ needs can be met. These principles are a poor fit for the present moment. Building new power plants and transmission lines has become increasingly difficult. If data centers must wait until that infrastructure is fully built, they may wait for years. Worse, utilities and government officials are citing the potential data-center boom as a reason to extend the life of old, expensive, and heavily polluting coal plants or to build new gas plants. If they do so, and if they pass those costs on to consumers, retail electricity prices and pollution will rise. And if current demand projections turn out to be overestimates — which has happened during past tech booms — consumers will pay for new power plants that never needed to be built. But this unfortunate scenario is not inevitable. We are scholars of energy, natural resources, and environmental law, and in a paper we explore a better way of meeting this moment. Our inspiration comes from legal systems for allocating water, particularly in