The cost of shipping Middle East crude to customers in Asia collapsed on Thursday, the latest sign of oil markets returning to normal after conflict eased in the world’s top petroleum-exporting region. Charter rates slumped by 17% to 55.50 industry-standard Worldscale points, according to data from the Baltic Exchange in London. It works out at roughly $1.60 a barrel. “Risk premiums have naturally faded,” said Fredrik Dybwad, an analyst at Fearnley Securities AS. “There is ample vessel availability, and considering normal seasonality, rates should naturally find a lower level.” Shipping prices soared two weeks ago amid concern Iran might disrupt maritime traffic around Hormuz Strait, a vital waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas must pass. After almost two weeks of fighting between Iran and Israel that began on June 13, there’s since been a ceasefire, hitting oil prices and lowering the risks for ships that enter the region. The Joint Maritime Information Center, a naval liaison with commercial shipping in the region, said Thursday that no hostilities had been reported in the Strait of Hormuz over the past 48 hours and that traffic had returned to normal levels. “A sustained period of inactivity and strengthening of the ceasefire agreement will stabilize maritime tension in the Arabian Gulf,” it said in a note.  “Now that the market has become sanguine about Iran shutting the Strait of Hormuz, ships are running fluidly again, the premium gas been removed, and rates are correcting lower meaningfully,” said Jonathan Chappell, senior managing director at Evercore ISI. The Worldscale system is designed to let owners and charterers quickly calculate the latest earnings and per-barrel costs on thousands of trade routes.  Vessels on the industry’s benchmark Saudi Arabia-to-China route are earning $35,281 a day, according to the Baltic Exchange. They were

Shell PLC and Equinor ASA have named their United Kingdom North Sea joint venture Adura, which they announced December as the biggest independent producer on the UK’s side of the sea. “Work continues towards securing regulatory approvals, with launch of the IJV [incorporated JV] expected by the end of this year”, Norway’s majority state-owned Equinor said in an online statement. Adura, which will be equally owned, combines the two companies’ offshore assets in the UK, where Shell currently produces over 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day (boed) and Equinor about 38,000 boed. “Adura is expected to produce over 140,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2025”, Equinor said. The name Adura is “rooted in their [the companies] respective heritage and focused on shaping the future of the basin in the years ahead”, Equinor explained. “Adura has been created to bring together the A of Aberdeen and the dura of durability. It’s a company built on firm foundations, much like the strong granite synonymous with the city”. “Adura will sustain domestic oil and gas production and security of energy supply in the UK and beyond”, Equinor added. Adura will include Equinor’s 29.89 percent stake in the CNOOC Ltd.-operated Buzzard field, which started production 2007; an operating stake of 65.11percent in Mariner, online since 2019; and an 80 percent operating stake in Rosebank, expected to come onstream 2026. Shell will contribute its 27.97 percent ownership in BP PLC-operated Clair, which began production 2005; a 50 percent operating stake in Gannet, started up 1992; a 100 percent stake in Jackdaw, for which Shell plans to seek a new consent following a court nullification; a 21.23 percent operating stake in Nelson, which started production 1994; a 50 percent operating stake in Penguins, which started production 2003; a 92.52 percent operating stake in Pierce,

Dive Brief: New York state is offering up to $750,000 in state cost-sharing funding for building and campus decarbonization efforts that use ground-source heat pumps, waste heat recovery, thermal energy storage and other low-emissions technologies. Applications are due July 31. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s Large-Scale Thermal program encourages property owners to pursue high-efficiency, “grid-friendly” electrification projects, NYSERDA Program Manager Sue Dougherty said in a presentation at the International District Energy Association annual conference earlier this month. The $10 million program is open to systems that provide heating, cooling and hot water to single buildings with at least 100,000 square feet of conditioned space or multibuilding campuses with at least 250,000 conditioned square feet, NYSERDA says.  Dive Insight: State funding opportunities like the Large-Scale Thermal program are key to New York’s efforts to significantly reduce the environmental impact of its roughly 6 million buildings in the coming decades, Dougherty said. The state wants 85% of its buildings to use clean heating technologies like heat pumps and thermal energy networks by 2050, the same year its statutory net-zero statewide GHG emissions target kicks in. “We’re not going to do all 6 million buildings, and we really don’t have to,” Dougherty said. “But we will need to do a significant number, and our solutions will need to address existing, older buildings and newer buildings getting built [today].”  The Large-Scale Thermal program is accepting applications for its third funding round through July. Successful applicants will receive state funding equal to 50% of total project design costs, with maximum funding up to $300,000 for new construction and $750,000 for existing buildings. The project economics tend to work best for existing facilities with aging heating and cooling infrastructure, new construction and larger buildings or campuses that can achieve “economies of scale,”

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association on Wednesday announced the publication of three standards aimed at helping utilities and equipment manufacturers develop the “digital substations” they say will underpin a modern, reliable and self-healing grid. More standards will be published in the future, with the initial set covering fault isolation and restoration issues in distributed energy resources, and on a looped single line feeder, potentially in instances of communications loss. The standards can assist utilities that want to install grid sensors, switches and automated reclosers, NEMA officials said. “You can think of them as basically blueprints for utilities to use when they are going to implement one of these systems,” NEMA Senior Vice President of Strategy, Technical and Industry Affairs Patrick Hughes said. “We’ve seen and heard from utilities that there are interoperability questions and there’s a need for technical guidance for utilities interested in installing these … self-healing grid technologies,” Hughes said. “These give utilities a very clear blueprint for how to implement these systems.” Modernized substations and automated restoration equipment will be key to managing the increasing demand for electricity across a strained grid, experts say. NEMA anticipates electricity demand in the U.S. will increase 2% annually and 50% by 2050, as more data centers are built, buildings are electrified and transportation shifts away from fossil fuels. “When you’re dealing with modern grid technologies, and it includes communication systems and smart technologies, you have a number of different vendors that are offering these technologies and the service,” Hughes said. “And it can be a little overwhelming with different manufacturers and different communication protocols and all the different specifications that go into implementing one of these systems.” Add to that, utilities must convince regulators who are concerned about how the investments are made, and whether the systems will have long-term support

Joe Brettell is a partner at Prosody Group. The promise, peril and possibilities of artificial intelligence continue to capture the cultural and business zeitgeist worldwide. Hardly a conference or long-form interview can be held these days without a panelist or pundit commenting on the technology’s implications for their profession. Yet despite being the hottest topic in every circle, AI’s ultimate challenge isn’t technological but physical. After years of breathless speculation and prediction, the issue remains the same: AI needs more energy. Amidst this backdrop, the oil and gas industry faces a similarly fundamental challenge: a shifting production frontier and evolving path to continued growth. After a decade of efficiency-driven growth, the era of easy barrels is waning. Diamondback Energy CEO Travis Stice captured the new reality in a recent letter, warning of the increasingly dim prospects for expanding production amid geological constraints and rising costs. Other energy majors have issued similar cautions, a sharp departure from the boom years of the shale revolution when abundant, low-cost reserves, followed by shareholder-focused production, made the industry a market favorite. Now, with resource intensity rising, global volatility accelerating and economic conditions tightening, the industry is under pressure to find its next value horizon. That horizon may be converging with AI. The pairing makes increasing sense. While initially circling one another warily, major players in energy and technology have become increasingly intertwined. At major gatherings like CERAWeek, energy executives and tech leaders now share the same stage — and increasingly, the same strategic questions. How do we scale the infrastructure to match exponential AI growth? Who will supply the energy to power it? And how do we do so fast enough while dealing with rising environmental, social and regulatory concerns? These challenges come amid a stark reality: AI’s computational appetite isn’t just increasing —

In an EBW Analytics Group report sent to Rigzone by the EBW team on Friday, Eli Rubin, an energy analyst at the company, highlighted an “implosion over the past week” in the July natural gas contract. “The July natural gas contract rolled off the board at $3.261 yesterday – a 72.8¢ (-18 percent) implosion over the past week as the heat wave failed to sufficiently lift physical cash prices at Henry Hub,” Rubin said in the report. “Yesterday’s 96 billion cubic foot bearish Energy Information Administration (EIA) injection, while largely a make-up for last week’s bullish surprise, further weighed on prices,” Rubin added. In its latest weekly natural gas storage report, which was released on Thursday, the EIA stated that working gas in storage was 2,898 billion cubic feet as of Friday, June 20, 2025, according to EIA estimates. “This represents a net increase of 96 billion cubic feet from the previous week. Stocks were 196 billion cubic feet less than last year at this time and 179 billion cubic feet above the five-year average of 2,719 billion cubic feet,” the EIA said in its report. “At 2,898 billion cubic feet, total working gas is within the five-year historical range,” the EIA added. In the EBW Analytics Group report, Rubin stated that the early to mid July weather outlook is warming and LNG demand is firming and highlighted that “both can develop further in a bullish direction over the next few weeks”. “Supply readings may churn higher near term, though, amid intramonth nomination patterns and concluding maintenance – potentially subduing upside into early next week,” Rubin said in the report. Rubin also pointed out in the report that, “technically, the August contract appeared to find support yesterday, bouncing 12¢ off intraday lows at $3.403”. He highlighted in the report that the