(Update) January 23, 2026, 8:33 PM GMT: Article updated. US natural gas futures for February delivery surged by 70% this week as the market braced for a historic winter storm that’s poised to send temperatures plummeting and boost demand for the heating fuel. Futures settled up 4.6%, or by 23 cents, to $5.275 per million British thermal units. That settlement was up by $2.172 per million Btu from the end of last week and capped the largest weekly percentage gain by far in records going back to 1990. Natural gas prices for near-term delivery at regional trading hubs across the US also jumped. So-called cash prices for gas at the benchmark Henry Hub in Louisiana to be delivered over the weekend surged on Friday to higher than $28 per million British thermal units, according to traders. That compares with $8.42 on Thursday. Spot prices at the SoCal Citygate hub in California traded as high as $8 per million Btu as gas volumes delivered via pipeline from the Permian Basin in West Texas to the West Coast have likely been reduced, traders said. That’s up from $4.42 on Thursday. Spot prices at the Houston Chip Channel were trading at $30 per million Btu on Friday morning, traders said. The Transco zone 6 non-New York index, an indicator for prices from Baltimore to New Jersey, traded Friday afternoon at $58 per million Btu, traders said. This week’s surge has been driven by forecasts for below-normal temperatures across most of the country, threatening to boost gas consumption and drain inventories. The freeze — particularly in the southern gas-producing states — has raised concerns about water icing in pipelines, potentially disrupting output starting this weekend. One energy consultancy, Energy Aspects, raised its forecast for how much production will be lost to so-called freeze-offs over the next

ContourGlobal said it has acquired producing solar farms with a combined capacity of about 37 megawatts (MW) and an under-development battery energy storage portfolio of 500 MW/2,000 MW hours in Greece, marking the London-based green power developer’s entry into the country. “Although Greece is a relatively small power market in Europe with 24 GW [gigawatts] of installed capacity, it is the second-largest in the Balkan region and is experiencing rapid growth in renewables”, ContourGlobal said in a press release. “While historically dominated by lignite and gas, the country is accelerating renewable development, with solar and wind capacity projected to reach around 60 GW by 2060. “At the end of the current decade, nearly 70 percent of installed capacity and electricity generation are expected to come from renewable sources, increasing the need for flexible, grid-scale storage. Moreover, the country is projected to become a net exporter of electricity from 2026”. The solar purchase from QuestEnergy of Greece’s Quest Holdings comprised 26 plants commissioned between 2011 and 2022 across the Mediterranean country, ContourGlobal said. “[T]he assets are fully contracted under FiT (Feed-in Tariff) and FiP (Feed-in Premium) supporting schemes, providing both predictable and premium revenues”, it said. “The portfolio’s expected yearly generation is of approximately 51 GWh, enough electricity to power up to 15,000 Greek households per year”. “The acquisition of the Quest portfolio was one of the first transactions to be filed and approved unconditionally under the new Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) directive in Greece”, ContourGlobal added. “The FDI approval process places strong emphasis on the review of acquisitions of critical assets in energy and infrastructure through foreign investors”. Additionally ContourGlobal acquired battery energy storage system (BESS) projects across the country through transactions with Greece’s Zephiros and Spain’s Fotowatio Renewable Ventures. “The first project, Taxiarches, is a 100 MW/400 MWh ready-to-build

In an exclusive interview with Rigzone on Monday, Ole R. Hvalbye, a commodities analyst at Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (SEB), said the “massive rise” in U.S. natural gas prices today is “primarily driven by weather risk and thus tightening short-term balances, hence a continuation of the market movements we witnessed last week”. Hvalbye highlighted in the interview that “weather has re-entered the equation in force”, noting that “forecasts show a broad cold spell across large parts of the U.S., particularly the Midwest and East, with temperatures as low as 10 degrees below the 30-year normal for the end of this week”. “That has materially lifted heating demand expectations at a time when the market is already sensitive,” he added. “This is clearly reflected in Henry Hub, which has jumped to another level, and is now trading around $6.2 per MMBtu [million British thermal units], up more than 100 percent from … [around] $3 per MMBtu on January 16”, he continued. Citing Bloomberg data, Hvalbye highlighted to Rigzone that around “10 percent of U.S. gas production is estimated to be offline”. “At the same time, LNG terminal feedgas flows dropped largely to 11.1 Bcfpd [billion cubic feet per day] yesterday and are estimated at … [around] 12.5 Bcfpd today, which is well below the 18.58 Bcfpd average last week,” he said. Hvalbye went on to tell Rigzone that storage is adding some fuel to the move higher in U.S. natural gas. “U.S. inventories have been drawing faster than normal lately, and while stocks are not critically low, the drawdown rate has increased fast,” he noted. Finally, Hvalbye told Rigzone that positioning is amplifying the price action. “The market was leaning bearish after a long period of low prices, and today’s move has been intensified by short-covering (just like the spike last

S-Oil Corp on Monday reported KRW 265 billion ($184.03 million) in net income and KRW 8.79 trillion in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2025, both up from the prior three-month period “on robust fuel and lube spreads”. By annual comparison the bottom line recovered from net losses of KRW 193 billion to net earnings of KRW 216.9 billion despite revenue falling from KRW 36.64 billion to KRW 34.25 billion, according to results published online by the South Korean downstream company. October-December 2025 operating income increased 85.2 percent quarter-on-quarter to KRW 424.5 billion. Refining contributed KRW 225.3 billion, up 95.1 percent sequentially. Lubricants accounted for KRW 207 billion, up 54.9 percent compared to July-September 2025. The petrochemicals segment has remained unprofitable for the sixth consecutive quarter but Q4 2025 saw net losses narrow to KRW 7.8 billion. “Regional refining margins increased, supported by kero and diesel spreads, amid tight supply from global refinery disruptions and the Northern Hemisphere heating season”, S-Oil said of the market environment in Q4. However, regional refining margins “eased toward the end of the quarter on Russia-Ukraine ceasefire negotiations”, it noted. Nonetheless for the first quarter of 2026 S-Oil expects regional refining margins “to remain robust supported by steady demand, ongoing supply disruptions and the planned closure of an aging U.S. refinery”. “Refinery maintenance season beginning at the end of Q1 may further support margins through inventory buildup demand”, it added. In petrochemicals, the paraxylene (PX) market in Q4 “improved on new PTA startups in China with robust downstream polyester demand” while the benzene market “weakened on slow U.S. import demand and low downstream operation”, S-Oil said. For aromatics, the paraxylene market in Q4 “improved on new PTA startups in China with robust downstream polyester demand” while the benzene (BZ) market “weakened on slow U.S. import

As utilities accelerate electrification and demand-side management efforts, the need for grid-interactive, energy efficient, and customer-centric products has grown exponentially. To help identify and promote solutions capable of meeting this need, the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE), a nonprofit consortium with membership representing more than 70% of all energy efficiency program administrators in the United States and Canada, established the Integrated Home Competition (IHC). The latest IHC Grand Prize winner, the Flair Bridge Pro, offers a unique approach to meeting these goals by better enabling control of a range of often-underserved electrified loads.  Over the IHC’s five-year history, a consistent challenge has emerged: while heat pumps have become a cornerstone of electrification planning, much of the existing residential heating and cooling landscape remains difficult to integrate into existing load management frameworks. Specifically, much of today’s load management infrastructure remains designed around central HVAC architectures, with limited support for non-ducted and hybrid systems. In reality, millions of homes rely on boilers, electric baseboards, mini splits, PTACs, and other non-ducted systems. These systems represent a significant share of residential electric heating and cooling load, yet they remain difficult to integrate into energy efficiency, demand response, and load management programs. For utilities, this creates a growing blind spot: a large, potentially flexible load that is effectively unservable with traditional control approaches. The “messy middle” of electrification Electrification is rarely a clean, one-system transition. Across much of North America, homeowners with traditional heating systems are increasingly adding heat pumps to boilers or electric resistance heating systems — including for home additions and the conversion of non-ducted spaces — creating hybrid configurations that aim to balance cost, comfort, and overall system performance. For many homes, these hybrid systems function as a transitional approach to electrification, enabling meaningful emissions reductions without a full system replacement. From

Why getting AI‑ready is now critical Electric and water utilities are entering an era of higher demand, aging infrastructure, workforce constraints, extreme weather, and rising expectations from regulators and customers. Deloitte’s latest industry outlook notes mounting reliability pressure as utilities race to deliver firm capacity while modernizing grids and balancing affordability—conditions that make smarter operations and faster decisions indispensable. At the same time, leaders are recognizing that AI will only deliver its full value when built on a foundation of trusted data and governance. Accenture’s Technology Vision Utilities research finds that “74% of utility executives believe that AI’s full potential can only be realized when it is built on a foundation of trust.”  For utilities—where safety, compliance, and service continuity are non‑negotiable—being “AI‑ready” isn’t a buzzword; it’s a critical corporate strategy. How to get AI‑ready: Build data trust across the full information lifecycle for utilities A practical approach to becoming AI-ready starts with a trusted data foundation: Unify, govern, and activate enterprise information so AI operates with context, auditability, and confidence. This framework spans five capabilities—discover, derive insights, manage, protect, monitor—that utilities can apply across assets, operations, customer service, and compliance. DiscoverSurface and connect the data hiding in silos—engineering files, asset histories, SCADA logs, work orders, permits, and customer records—so it’s accessible and searchable. Discovery establishes lineage and metadata so teams know what information exists and where it came from. Derive insightsTurn raw content into intelligence with analytics and AI to spot patterns (leaks, outages, transformer stress), predict failures, and optimize crews. OpenText’s data discovery and analytics tools are designed to handle petabyte‑scale information and create auditable, explainable outputs that operations can trust. ManageGovern content and data across lifecycles—from engineering drawings to maintenance records, supply chain information, and financial controls—to ensure the right context, access controls, retention, and interoperability. Unifying