Oil was little changed for a second day as investors await clarity on how latest US sanctions on top Russian producers will affect flows to India and if progress in trade talks will revive American crude shipments to China. West Texas Intermediate rose about 0.1% to settle below $61 a barrel. Some Indian refiners have paused purchases of Russian fuel following the US blacklisting of two major Russian producers last week. Earlier in the week, however, Indian Oil Corp said that the company is “absolutely not going to discontinue” its purchases of Russian crude. The boss of TotalEnergies, meanwhile, said on Thursday he thinks that the oil market is underestimating the impact of the sanctions. Traders are keeping a close eye on next moves by India and China, top buyers of Moscow’s supplies, for clues on impacts to global balances. US President Donald Trump said China would buy more US energy as part of a wider trade truce but investors are still waiting to see signs that the purchases will materialize. China last imported US crude oil in May and liquefied natural gas in February, according to Customs data. Offering a ceiling to prices, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday tempered expectations for another December rate cut as Fed officials navigate a slowing labor market and above target inflation. That stoked worry that the second-largest crude importing economy won’t get a boost from lower rates just as excess supplies are expected to hit the market. “The quarter percentage point cut in interest rates was within expectations, however the Fed Chairman’s comments are a near-term pressure point for crude,” said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president for trading at BOK Financial. WTI front-month futures will be met with technical support at the $58.18 level, he added. Crude remains on track for

TotalEnergies SE said debt came down in the third quarter and will likely fall further by the end of the year as more asset sales complete. Net debt receded to $24.6 billion at the end of September from $26 billion at the end of June, the French energy major said in a statement. It also reported quarterly earnings that met analyst estimates. Total’s shares have trailed those of US and UK peers for much of the year as debt ballooned. Investor concerns about borrowings prompted the company to reduce its quarterly share buybacks last month, and it signaled repurchases may fall further next year if oil prices continue to weaken. The stock dropped as much as 3.2% on Thursday, potentially reflecting plans by the French opposition National Rally to make buybacks more expensive. The lower house — where no party or coalition has an outright majority — has adopted an amendment proposed by the far-right group, which would raise a levy on repurchases to 33%. “This has something to do with the underperformance” of Total today, said Ahmed Ben Salem, an analyst at Oddo BHF. It’s unclear whether the amendment will remain the same in the final budget bill, he said. The shares traded down 1.7% at €53.22 as of 3:53 p.m. in Paris. There’s “big fiscal creativity” in parliament, Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said on a conference call. “There is a huge debate making a lot of noise, but I trust that at the end of the day we land on a reasonable” path. Profit Falls Total posted a 2.3% decline in quarterly adjusted net income, citing lower oil and gas prices, while hydrocarbon production increased. Gearing — a measure of indebtedness — eased to 17.3% at the end of the period and is seen as low as 15% at

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the US is prepared to sell more oil and natural gas to China if Beijing cuts back on purchases from Russia.  “There’s so much space for mutually beneficial deals between the US and China,” Wright said Thursday during a Bloomberg Television interview, noting that the US is the world’s largest oil and gas exporter, while China is the biggest importer.  The energy secretary plans to travel to Asia within weeks, or possibly sooner, following President Donald Trump trip to the continent this week.  During his trip, Trump said he reached deals with Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korea President Lee Jae Myung to buy more US oil and gas. Trump also cited a “very large scale” transaction involving Alaskan oil and gas in a post on the social media site Truth Social but didn’t provide more details. “There is lots of room from the United States to grow our role in supplying natural gas, oil, and frankly nuclear technology to South Korea,” Wright said in the interview.  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.

8.4 GW data center pipeline DTE Energy has signed agreements to serve a 1.4 GW hyperscaler and has line of sight to another 7 GW of potential large loads, officials said. $30 billion investment pipeline DTE plans to invest $30 billion in generation, distribution and other infrastructure across the 2026-2030 timeframe. 12 GW New generation DTE expects to add from 2026 to 2032, including batteries, renewables and gas. DTE Energy has signed a 1.4 GW agreement to serve a hyperscale data center and sees “transformational growth” ahead in a project pipeline that could represent up to an additional 7 GW of load. It is the utility’s first hyperscaler agreement at a time when data centers are rapidly expanding around the United States.  Large loads, including AI data centers, could ultimately add 20% to U.S. utilities’ peak demand, most within the next decade, Wood Mackenzie said in a September report. DTE serves about 2.3 million customers in southeast Michigan, including Detroit. “This is an exciting milestone,” DTE President and CEO Joi Harris said in a Thursday call with analysts. “Aside from the 1.4 GW of new load, we are still in late-stage negotiations with an additional 3 GW of data center load providing potential further upside to our capital plan as we advance these negotiations. … And we have a pipeline of an additional 3-4 GW behind that.” The data center contract of 1.4 GW increases DTE’s electric load by 25%, officials said. “We also expect longer-term growth opportunities through the expansion of these initial hyperscaler projects,” Harris said. The generation investment needed to support the additional load “could very well come into the back end of our five-year plan, providing incremental capital investment.” The utility has added about $6 billion to its five-year plan and now expects to invest $30 billion in

$72 billion capital expenditure plan Up 33% from AEP’s previous five-year capex plan, partly driven by 765-kV transmission projects in Texas and the PJM Interconnection region. 65 GW peak load in 2030 Up 76% from AEP’s summer peak, driven by 28 GW in data center and other large load agreements. $2.6 billion year-to-date operating earnings Up 13% from a year ago, partly driven by 765-kV transmission projects in Texas and the PJM Interconnection region. 7% to 9% earnings per share annual growth rate Up from 6% to 8% previously. AEP’s stock price jumped 6% Wednesday to $122.11/share. 3.5% Annual residential rate hikes AEP expects its customers will face over the next five years. Surging loads In the last 12 months, AEP’s utilities sold 6% more electricity compared to the previous year, with residential sales up 2.3% and commercial sales up 7.9%, and those sales are expected to continue growing, according to the company. About 2 GW of data centers came online in the third quarter, Trevor Mihalik, AEP vice president and CFO, said Wednesday during an earnings conference call. AEP expects its peak load will hit 65 GW by 2030, up from 37 GW, with demand surging in Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas, according to William Fehrman, AEP chairman, president and CEO. The growth estimate includes 28 GW of customers with electric service agreements or letters of agreement, he said. About half of that 28 GW is in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas market, 40% in the PJM Interconnection and 10% in the Southwest Power Pool, according to Fehrman. About 80% of that pending demand is from hyperscalers such as Google, AWS and Meta, Mihalik said. The remaining demand growth is from industrial customers with projects such as a Nucor steel mill in West Virginia and Cheniere Energy’s liquefied

Melanie Davidson is a hydrogen policy and markets expert. Most recently she led clean fuels strategy at San Diego Gas & Electric. She is former board member of the California Hydrogen Business Council and was a founding staff member of the Green Hydrogen Coalition. Recently, over $2 billion of federal funding for the U.S. Department of Energy California and Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hubs was terminated. These Hubs were premised on the use of “renewable, electrolytic hydrogen” — meaning hydrogen generated by using renewable electricity to power water-splitting electrolyzers. The resultant hydrogen would have replaced fossil fuels for heavy duty transportation, port operations, and power generation.  The idea of a fully renewable, water-based, hydrogen economy for the West was an exciting one — both in its altruism and the premise, backed by the DOE’s 2021 “Hydrogen Shot.” The idea was for cheap, abundant solar and rapidly declining electrolyzer cost curves to generate hydrogen from water with zero emissions — for $1/kg by 2030, no less.  However, cuts in Hub funding, together with a 2027 sunset date for projects to qualify for the hydrogen production tax credit, are just two more blows to the many pre-existing economic challenges facing a renewable hydrogen future. At least in California, those challenges include rising (not falling) capital costs for electrolyzers and electrical equipment, high interest rates, a scarcity of water rights, and high costs of grid electricity, qualifying renewable energy credits, and land.  The renewable Hubs were anchored on the idea that by leveraging otherwise curtailed solar (terrawatt-hours worth annually), we could generate cheap, abundant, seasonally stored renewable electrolytic hydrogen at distributed locations, then convert the hydrogen back to the grid via fuel cells as needed. It’s an elegant idea, but it doesn’t pencil. The capital costs of those electrolyzers, compressors, liquefiers, hydrogen storage vessels and fuel