Oil climbed in light pre-holiday trading after US President Donald Trump said he had reached a trade deal with Vietnam. West Texas Intermediate rose 3.1% to settle above $67 a barrel after Trump said he had reached a pact with the Southeast Asian nation that eliminated the nation’s import tariff on US goods. The deal is the third announced following agreements with the major trade partners UK and China, with investors pricing in a tentative optimism that more will be reached ahead of a July 9 deadline. Oil’s jump was probably amplified by low liquidity ahead of Friday’s July Fourth holiday in the US. The price gains came despite government data Wednesday showing a buildup in US crude inventories of 3.85 million barrels. The increase is the largest in three months, and more than five times the 680,000 barrel increase projected by the industry-funded American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday. Trading activity in crude futures has declined overall since the truce between Israel and Iran led prices to plunge early last week, with volatility returning to the lower levels seen before the war. The market is likely to turn its attention to a glut forecast for later this year, with an OPEC+ meeting this weekend expected to deliver another substantial increase in production quotas. “Speculators who are already net-long are trying to protect their position,” said Robert Yawger, director of the energy futures division at Mizuho Securities USA. “The problem is that they are running into a OPEC+ meeting with no place to hide over the long weekend.” Investors will also hone in on a slew of inputs expected in the coming days, ranging from a jobs report Thursday to an OPEC+ output decision at the weekend. Oil Prices WTI for August delivery rose 3.1% to settle at $67.45 a barrel

Chevron Corp. and TotalEnergies SE are competing in Libya’s first energy exploration tender since the 2011 conflict, the country’s state-run oil firm said, as the OPEC member looks to oil majors to help ramp up production to a record. Eni SpA and Exxon Mobil Corp. are also among the 37 companies that have lodged interest, with contracts due to be signed with successful bidders by the end of 2025, National Oil Corp Chairman Massoud Seliman said in an interview in the capital, Tripoli.  “Almost all well-known international companies” are vying for the 22 offshore and onshore blocks, he said. Foreign firms stepping back into exploration would mark a watershed for the North African country, which is home to the continent’s largest reserves but has seen production hobbled by more than a decade of conflict.  Libya is split between dueling governments in its east and west, and sporadic stoppages and rounds of violence have left much of its energy infrastructure neglected and damaged. A representative for TotalEnergies declined to comment. Eni and Exxon Mobil didn’t respond to requests for comment. Chevron said it constantly reviews new exploration opportunities, but doesn’t comment on commercial matters. Authorities target daily oil output of 2 million barrels before 2030 — surpassing the 1.75 million-barrel peak reached during strongman Muammar Qaddafi’s reign in 2006. Libya currently pumps about 1.4 million barrels a day. Libya last held a bidding round in 2007, four years before the NATO-backed uprising in which Qaddafi was killed. Winners of the new tenders will bear the costs for seismic surveys and other exploration steps though they can recoup those if commercial quantities of hydrocarbons are discovered, the chairman said. NOC is awaiting approval of a development budget of about $3 billion, which will help raise output to 1.6 million daily barrels within a year, according

Dive Brief: California Gov. Gavin Newsom, D, approved a $321 billion state budget last week that cut about $18 million in previously appropriated funding from grid reliability programs and deferred decisions about future spending on the programs to a later date, clean energy advocates said. The affected programs — Demand Side Grid Support and Distributed Electricity Backup Assets — are designed to shore up the state’s energy resources by providing on-call emergency supply or load reduction resources during extreme weather events such as heat waves or other grid emergencies. Earlier proposals called for allocating $473 million to the programs through 2028, an amount that was later reduced to $50 million in a revised draft budget in May. The final adopted budget cut $18 million from DSGS without including any new funding for either program, advocates said, as legislators and the governor agreed to hold off on most decisions about the state’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and voter-approved climate bonds. Dive Insight: Advanced Energy United, a trade group representing a diverse array of energy, transportation and tech companies, said in a statement that the budget leaves “crucial clean energy and climate programs in limbo” at a time when California is facing heat waves that strain the grid and a pullback of federal support.   “We recognize the difficult fiscal environment and uncertainty around federal funding, but California cannot keep deferring on tough decisions,” said Edson Perez, California lead at the organization. “Reliability programs like DSGS have delivered real results by keeping the lights on with clean energy and should be strengthened, not scaled back.”  Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In his past public statements, the governor blamed California’s budget shortfall on President Donald Trump’s “economic sabotage,” including his on-again, off-again tariffs, and market volatility. The state’s finance department had not updated its budget

Iraq’s electricity grid lost around 15% of its generation capacity after gas supplies from neighboring Iran were more than halved on Tuesday, highlighting the country’s vulnerability to energy shocks despite its oil wealth. Iranian gas deliveries currently stand at 25 million cubic meters per day, less than half the 55 million cubic meters agreed under a bilateral deal, Iraq’s Electricity Ministry said in a statement. The lost volumes have resulted in the shutdown of some gas-fired power plants and a loss of about 3,800 megawatts of generation.  High domestic demand combined with maintenance work in Iran was cited as the reason for the drop in gas supply, said Saad Freih, director of the ministry. The shortfall has strained Iraq’s already fragile power grid at a time of high summer demand and the ministry said it’s coordinating with the Oil Ministry to secure diesel as an emergency fuel. Iraq, OPEC’s second-biggest oil producer, doesn’t have enough gas to operate its mostly gas-fired power plants and suffers from crippling blackouts every summer when demand peaks. It’s also been trying to reduce the amount of wasteful gas flaring from its own fields, and has been looking at buying LNG for years as a way to fill the shortages. Iraq receives Iranian natural gas from two pipelines, but flows have been interrupted several times in recent years. In 2023, Iran cut volumes in half because of unpaid bills, which Baghdad said arose due to US sanctions on Iran.  WHAT DO YOU THINK? Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

HVAC and other industry groups are trying to retain a federal incentive for making commercial buildings more energy efficient after the U.S. Senate eliminated the Section 179D Energy Efficient Commercial Building Deduction in the 940-page domestic policy bill it passed Tuesday morning. “Section 179D … helps HVACR contractors, building owners, and the broader skilled-trades community improve energy efficiency and strengthen America’s built environment,” Air Conditioning Contractors of America said in a letter to congressional leaders last week. The group shared a summary of the letter on its website.  The provision lets owners deduct more than $1 per square foot on their federal taxes for installing LED lights, replacing old HVAC systems and making envelope renovations that improve the efficiency of their buildings. The deduction can increase to more than $5 per square foot if prevailing wage and other labor requirements are met. Supporters say the deduction has grown in value in amendments Congress has made to it since its enactment in 2005.   “Section 179D is no longer a niche benefit — it is a mainstream, high-impact opportunity when making energy-efficient upgrades,” Carey Heyman and Agatha Li of accounting firm CliftonLarsonAllen say in an information page on the provision.  In their article on the program, the accountants said they worked with a company last year that owns a 250,000-square foot Class A office building. The company was able to get a $3-per-square-foot deduction — $750,000 total —  after installing LED lights and upgrading the HVAC system while achieving compliance with prevailing wage standards. “This deduction significantly reduced the firm’s taxable income, offset the capital improvement costs, and increased the building’s appeal to sustainability-conscious tenants,” the accountants said.  In a letter last week to congressional leaders, the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association called the deduction the most important of

Dive Brief: South Central Texas cooperative Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative has partnered with distributed energy developer Base Power on a 2-MW virtual power plant that will provide residential customers with electricity in the event of a blackout, while also allowing the utility to use home batteries for price arbitrage and transmission cost management. The battery systems are installed in new homes constructed by Lennar and will be operated directly by GVEC using Base Power’s proprietary software platform. In the future, GVEC and Base Power will work together to qualify the aggregated battery capacity in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ aggregated distributed energy resource, or ADER, pilot program, Gary Coke, GVEC power supply manager, said in an email. The batteries will be owned by Base Power. Dive Insight: The virtual power plant builds on Base Power’s ongoing collaboration with Lennar to install batteries in new homes. “GVEC has no direct relationship with our members in relation to this program,” Coke said. “The member selects the system as an option on the home and as a part of that selection acknowledges GVEC has the right to control the system, and we compensate Base for the exclusive right to access the batteries.” The program has already begun, with nine battery systems installed for just over 100 kW of capacity and 225 kWh of energy, Coke said. “We expect to reach 20 systems by the end of July.”  GVEC is already operating the installed batteries for transmission cost reduction during the summer and will continue to do so through September, corresponding to ERCOT’s 4CP program managing peak demand. The cooperative will also regularly operate the batteries for price arbitrage during periods of high pricing in the ERCOT market, Coke said. And the utility will work with Base Power to qualify the batteries for ADER. ADER launched in