European Union energy ministers agreed a joint position on plans to ban all gas supplies from Russia by the end of 2027, as the bloc looks to definitively end its reliance on energy from Moscow. A qualified majority of officials meeting in Luxembourg Monday supported the ban, which starts by prohibiting Russian supplies under existing short-term contracts by mid-June, with an exemption for landlocked countries such as Hungary and Slovakia. A prohibition on long-term deals follows 18 months later. Hungary and Slovakia did not support the ban. The deal on Monday was a procedural step on the RePowerEU regulation, which aims to permanently end Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels. Negotiations with the European Parliament, which is calling for a faster exit from Russian gas and a halting of oil imports from the start of next year, can now start. The aim is to reach a final deal before the end of the year. The EU is pursuing a two-pronged strategy to finally end its addiction to Russian fossil fuels after President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. The second strand involves a separate proposal to impose sanctions on imports of Russian liquefied natural gas from the start of 2027. It requires unanimity and is still being discussed. Europe has been under pressure from the US to speed up moves to sever its energy ties with Moscow, and buy more American LNG. A joint statement on EU-US trade pledged $750 billion in energy deals between the two over the next three years. The EU receives about 15% of its LNG supplies from Moscow, making Russia the second-largest provider of the fuel to Europe after the US, with the monthly bill for those imports ranging between €500 million ($584 million) and €700 million. “This is not just for the present conflict,”

Oil edged down slightly amid signs of easing tensions between the US and China, while traders took stock of mounting evidence that a long-anticipated surplus is finally starting to emerge. West Texas Intermediate was little changed to settle near $57 a barrel as investors rolled over positions ahead of the November contract’s expiry this week, adding to choppy trading. US President Donald Trump earlier expressed optimism about a potential deal between the world’s top oil consumers. Enthusiasm surrounding this development was limited, though, as oil stored on tankers rose to a fresh high, among the most tangible signs yet that markets are oversupplied. Oil futures have tumbled more than 20% from their summer highs as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting countries and its allies ramp up production, while major forecasters project a flood of supplies continuing into next year. Even so, WTI earlier edged into oversold territory on the nine-day relative strength index for the first time since May, a possible indication that prices lurched lower too fast. It also suggests a reversal may be in the cards. “Crude futures continue to trade on the defensive amid ideas a looming supply surplus is near,” said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president for trading at BOK Financial. Price support for WTI rests at around $56.15, though a close below $55 risks a further price slide, he added. Geopolitical forces are also at play. Prices have been weighed down by limited progress toward a de-escalation of the war in Ukraine, a scenario that could push oil toward $50 a barrel, according to Citigroup Inc. President Donald Trump last week said he would hold a second meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin seeking to end the conflict, though previous talks have done little to stem the hostilities. Meanwhile, China’s economy slowed for a second

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