Brazil’s Raizen SA has begun to explore the sale of its oil refinery and network of gas stations in Argentina, according to people familiar with the matter. Raizen, a joint venture between oil supermajor Shell Plc and Brazilian conglomerate Cosan SA, has hired JPMorgan Chase & Co. to manage the sale, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing private matters. Press offices for Raizen and JPMorgan declined to comment.  The energy firm’s potential departure from Argentina would add to a growing list of multinational firms, including Exxon Mobil, HSBC Holdings Plc and Mercedes-Benz, that have chosen to sell operations in the country during the past year despite more investor optimism about President Javier Milei’s economic overhaul.  Brazil’s largest producer of ethanol fuel, Raizen is mulling divestments and slowing down expansions as higher borrowing costs of late in Brazil rattle its finances. Its Dock Sud oil refinery in Buenos Aires is Argentina’s oldest with a capacity of 100,000 barrels a day that only trails two facilities run by state-run oil company YPF SA. Raizen’s network of around 700 gas stations account for 18% of Argentina’s gasoline and diesel sales, second to YPF, which has more than half of the market. The fuel is branded as Shell. Raizen bought the assets for almost $1 billion in 2018 from Shell, which owned them outright, during Argentina’s last experiment with market-oriented reforms. The country then witnessed a period of big government from 2019 to 2023 before voting in libertarian Milei more than a year ago. He is on a crusade to deregulate the economy, in particular the energy and oil sectors. The divestment comes as Milei rips away controls on crude and fuel prices that were used to stem inflation. That was sometimes bad for refiners or drillers, depending on how

Dive Brief: Data center supply in major “primary” markets like Northern Virginia, Atlanta and Chicago surged 34% year-over-year in 2024 to 6,922.6 MW, with a further 6,350 MW under construction at year-end, CBRE said in a Feb. 26 report. The data center vacancy rate in primary markets fell to 1.9%, driving up the average asking rates for a 250-to-500-kilowatt requirement by 2.6% year-over-year to $184.06/kW, reflecting tight supply and robust demand for AI and cloud services, CBRE said in its North America Data Center Trends H2 2024 report. Volume-based discounts for larger tenants “have been significantly reduced or eliminated” due to rising demand for large, contiguous spaces, while data center operators grapple with elevated construction and equipment costs and “persistent shortages in critical materials like generators, chillers and transformers,” CBRE said. Dive Insight: Surging demand from organizations’ use of AI is driving the record data center development, CBRE says. The demand is giving AI-related occupiers increasing influence over data center development decisions like site selection, design and operational requirements. These occupiers are “prioritizing markets with scalable power capacity and advanced connectivity solutions,” the report says.  Demand is also showing up in pricing trends.  Last year was the third consecutive year of pricing increases for 250-to-500-kW slots in primary markets, CBRE said. Following steady single-digit annual declines from 2015 to 2021, average pricing rose 14.5% in 2022, 18.6% in 2023 and 12.6% in 2024. Robust tenant demand, healthy investor appetite for alternative real estate assets and recent interest rate declines are among the factors fueling an exponential increase in data center investment activity, CBRE said. Annual sales volumes reached $6.5 billion in 2024 as average sale prices increased year-over-year, reflecting “the growing scale of data center campuses,” CBRE said. Five transactions exceeded $400 million last year. Notable capital market developments included

Dive Brief: The Bonneville Power Administration plans to join the Southwest Power Pool’s Markets+ real-time and day-ahead market instead of a market being launched by the California Independent System Operator, BPA said in a draft policy released Wednesday. While the CAISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market may offer greater financial benefits compared to Markets+, overall the SPP market is a better fit for BPA based on market design elements covering governance, resource adequacy, greenhouse gas accounting and congestion revenue, the federal power marketer said. Bonneville expects to make a final decision in May. The BPA’s draft decision sets the stage for the creation of two intertwined day-ahead markets in the West. “The idea that there’s some West-wide market ideal out there that we can get to today is just not something that is on the table,” Rachel Dibble, BPA power services vice president of bulk marketing, said at a press briefing Thursday. “Maybe someday, in future decades, there may be a point where we could merge into one market, but right now, there are many entities who support Markets+.” Dive Insight: The BPA’s decision will have a major effect on market development in the West. It sells wholesale power from federal hydroelectric dams in the Northwest, totaling about 22.4 GW. The federal power marketer also operates about 15,000 circuit miles of high-voltage transmission across the Northwest. The BPA mainly sells its power to cooperative and municipal utilities, and public power districts. In its draft decision, BPA rejected calls to wait for the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative to complete its effort to establish an independent governance framework for EDAM.  While a bill — SB 540 — was introduced in the California Legislature last month to implement the Pathways’ second phase, it “limits the availability of full operational administrative independence by requiring that the

The US will not hesitate to go “all in” on sanctions on Russian energy if it helps lead to a ceasefire in the Ukraine war, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday. Sanctions on Russia “will be used explicitly and aggressively for immediate maximum impact” at President Donald Trump’s guidance, Bessent told an audience at the Economic Club of New York. The Trump administration is pressing Ukraine to come to the table for a ceasefire deal with Russia, and Bessent said additional sanctions on Russia could help give the US more leverage in the negotiations. Trump is ready to finalize an agreement that would give the US rights to help develop some of Ukraine’s natural resources if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy agrees to a tangible path for a truce and talks with Moscow, according to people familiar with the matter. Bessent criticized the Biden administration for not going harder on Russian energy sanctions for fear of driving up gas prices and asked what the point of “substantial US military and financial support over the past three years” was without matching sanctions. The US has paused military aid and some intelligence sharing with Ukraine in an effort to force the US ally to agree to negotiations with Russia over the end of the war. Bessent also said the US would ramp up sanctions on Iran, adding that the US will “shutdown” the country’s oil sector using “pre-determined benchmarks and timelines” and that “Making Iran broke again will mark the beginning of our updated sanctions policy.” The Treasury chief suggested that the US would work with “regional parties” that help Iran move its oil onto the market. One of those countries is likely to be Russia, which signaled earlier this week that it was willing to assist the US in talks with Iran on ending its nuclear

Oil’s one-day advance wasn’t enough to rescue prices from a seventh straight weekly decline as the prospect of a temporary truce in Ukraine capped on-again, off-again tariff news that upended global markets. West Texas Intermediate futures climbed by 0.7% Friday to settle above $67 a barrel after Bloomberg reported that Russia is open to a pause to fighting in Ukraine, raising the prospect of a resumption in Moscow’s crude exports. US President Donald Trump earlier pressured the two warring nations to hasten peace talks and the White House signaled that it may relax sanctions on Russian oil if there’s progress. Crude also found support from a weakening dollar and US plans to refill its strategic oil reserve, but still was down 3.9% on the week. The Biden administration’s farewell sanctions on Russia have snarled the nation’s crude trade in recent months, with total oil and natural gas revenue last month falling almost 19% from a year earlier, Bloomberg calculations showed. Russia’s oil-related taxes are a key source of financing its war against Ukraine. A potential reintroduction of Russian barrels to the market comes amid a gloomy period for the supply outlook, as OPEC+ forges ahead with a plan to start reviving idled output in April. Meanwhile, Trump’s trade policies have fanned concerns about reduced global energy demand. “You’re seeing some volatility as people try to interpret what they think is going to happen and what it’s going to mean, but the bottom line is Russia has been able to sell its oil,” said Amy Jaffe, director of New York University’s Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab. Trump signed orders on Thursday paring back tariffs on Mexico and Canada until April 2. That timing coincides with a date when the president is expected to start detailing plans for so-called reciprocal duties

Join Energy Voice News Editor Erikka Askeland who speaks to two high profile energy industry business leaders for International Women’s Day. We speak to Nicola Welsh, UK Country Director at geo-data specialist Fugro alongsideLinda Stewart, Director Marine Geophysical Europe, also at Fugro. Tune in to hear Nicola discuss her route from mining camps in the Australian outback to a senior leadership role while Linda charts her 19-year career journey to become Fugro’s first female director in her role in Scotland. There’s serious discussion about leaning in, the “double bind” and what the IWD 2025 call to “accelerate action” really means. This special podcast also serves and the opening of Energy Voice’s highly anticipated Women in New Energy Event which takes place in Aberdeen in June. Recommended for you Celebrating International Women’s Day with Axis Network’s Emma Behjat