The solar plant is expected to reach commercial operation in 2028, followed by the lithium-ion battery in 2029 and the LDES system in 2030. The project will be the first commercial-scale LDES deployment in West Virginia, according to the companies.
MN8 said the project has been designed as a single dispatchable resource, combining short- and long-duration storage with solar generation to better match the electricity demand profile of data centres.
Google will purchase the project’s energy, capacity and clean energy attributes under the agreement. The deal forms part of Google’s wider programme to support the commercialisation of LDES and add new electricity generation capacity to the grids where it operates.
“This project reflects what MN8 does best: understanding a customer’s unique energy profile and building a solution around it,” said Jon Yoder, president and CEO of MN8 Energy. “Because Google was willing to pair next-generation storage with utility-scale solar, we could engineer proven and emerging technologies into one dispatchable resource – and deliver clean, around-the-clock power where the grid needs it most.”
The project will be built on a reclaimed coal mine and is expected to represent up to US$350 million in capital investment, according to MN8. The construction is expected to create around 200 jobs locally.
The project also brings together US-based supply chains, with Eos manufacturing its zinc-based storage systems in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, while MN8 operates a portfolio of energy projects across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
New York-headquartered MN8 has more than 4GW of operating and under-construction renewable assets across 29 states. Founded within Goldman Sachs, the company recently reached commercial operations at two utility-scale solar PV plants totalling 260MW in the US.
Recently, MN8 agreed to acquire US independent power producer (IPP) Greenbacker Renewable Energy, creating a renewable energy platform with more than 6GW of operating and under-construction capacity across 33 states. The deal combined the company’s 4.3GW portfolio with Greenbacker’s approximately 1.9GW fleet.
The technology trends shaping US PV manufacturing will be under discussion at our PV CellTech USA event in California on 13-14 October.
In brief: Chinese industrial and technology parks are attracting companies from Russia’s Far East with lower taxes, loans carrying 3% interest and capital investment grants. A Russian business leader said several firms had already registered in China, although consultants reported no significant wave of relocations.
by Kyiv Post | Sept. 4, 2026, 6:27 pm
Russian traders arrive with their goods at the railway station, after purchasing them at the Chinese border town of Suifenhe in northeastern Heilongjiang province July 7, 2006. (Photo by GOH Chai Hin / AFP)
Chinese industrial and technology parks have begun luring companies from Russia’s Far East to re-register across the border by offering cheaper financing, lower taxes and investment grants, a Russian business leader said on Friday, Sept. 4.
According to Russian business newspaper Vedomosti, rising labor and borrowing costs, combined with Russia’s high fiscal burden, have prompted some Far Eastern companies to move their legal registration to China.
Alexander Kalinin, head of the Russian small-business association Opora Rossii, said Chinese partners were actively approaching companies during remarks on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.
“Our Chinese comrades are already enticing Far Eastern companies to re-register in Chinese industrial and technology parks – across the river, roughly speaking,” Kalinin said.
Russia and China share a lengthy border, with the Amur River separating several Russian Far Eastern regions from northeastern China.
Kalinin said Chinese industrial parks were offering Russian businesses lower taxes, loans at annual interest rates of just 3%, and grants covering capital expenditures.
Several companies from Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District have already begun registering in China, he said.
Relocation is considered most economically viable for businesses whose operations, customers or supply chains are already closely connected to the Chinese market.
However, consultants interviewed by Vedomosti said they had not recorded a significant surge in companies moving their registrations out of Russia.
Tatiana Kofanova, a partner in the tax and legal department at consulting firm DRT, said interest in China remained strong but that her company had not observed a large-scale business exodus.
The reported recruitment efforts highlight the widening disparity between business conditions on both sides of the border, as Russian companies face expensive credit, rising labor costs and heavier fiscal pressure while Chinese regions compete for investment.
Comments: BY TARA SUTER - 09/07/26 2:46 PM ET
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to accurately reflect the length of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff touted “substantive progress” in the wake of U.S. talks on the Russia-Ukraine war with both sides.
“United States negotiators visited both Moscow and Kyiv in order to facilitate additional dialogue to end the Russia-Ukraine War. Ahead of the trip, the Russians and Ukrainians agreed to a three-day no-shoot policy to enable these discussions to occur,” Witkoff said in a statement obtained by NewsNation’s Hannah Brandt.
“Special Envoy Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and officials from the National Security Council, State Department, and Treasury Department met with both President Putin of Russia and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine in order to discuss each side’s proposals with the other,” he added.
Witkoff added later in the statement that “substantive progress was made, including movement on scheduling additional trilateral talks.”
The war between Russia and Ukraine has been one of the main foreign policy problems dogging the U.S. in the last few years, and if the conflict continues past next February, it will cross the five-year mark.
On Sunday, Witkoff said the U.S. was confident that trilateral talks will lead to a “good resolution” to the war in Ukraine after he and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, met with officials in Kyiv.
According to CNN, Sunday was the envoys’ first time visiting Kyiv to negotiate an end to the war. Witkoff said in a press conference that their discussions were “substantive” and that he had confidence “that there’ll be a good resolution here.” Witkoff and Kushner met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/6075212-witkoff-progress-russia-ukraine-talks/
KEY POINTS
Vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, Aug. 31, 2026.
Oil prices rose to a six-week high on Monday as the U.S. and Iran traded strikes over the weekend, ratcheting up tensions in the Middle East.
Brent crude oil futures, the international oil benchmark, rose 1.5% to $97.73 per barrel on Monday and reached as high as $97.93 a barrel at one point, the highest since July 23. West Texas Intermediate , the U.S. oil benchmark, climbed 1.8% to $93.10, also the highest since late July.
"Strike our assets and you get struck," Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf wrote Monday in a post on X.
That post was in response to an earlier one by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who wrote that the U.S. "will destroy (and sink)" Iranian oil tankers if Iran fires on U.S. vessels.
Saudi Aramco oil facilities were hit in fresh attacks on Monday, according to a report by the Financial Times. Damage was still being assessed on the facility in the Saudi Arabian city of Jizan, home to a 400,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery, and it's not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack, according to the FT.
The Centre has reduced the mandatory gap between domestic LPG refill bookings for rural consumers from 45 days to 25 days, bringing them on par with consumers in urban areas.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has directed the country's three major oil marketing companies- Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL)- to implement the revised 25-day inter-refill booking interval with immediate effect.
The decision comes in view of the improvement in the LPG supply position and a considerable reduction in refill backlogs. Restrictions were put in place following the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East, which disrupted the flow of petroleum and natural gas to India.
The Ministry had prescribed a 25-day booking interval for urban consumers and 45 days for those in rural areas in March as a temporary demand-management measure.
The government has now decided to prescribe a uniform 25-day inter-refill booking gap for all domestic LPG consumers, irrespective of whether they live in urban or rural areas.
Union Minister of State and Thrissur MP Suresh Gopi announced the change in a social media post. He said the relaxation was introduced as the LPG supply situation had improved and refill backlogs had declined significantly.
The move comes as a relief for LPG consumers in rural areas, especially in Kerala, where a majority of households depend on LPG cylinders for cooking.
The Ministry has advised the oil marketing companies to take necessary steps to implement the revised interval across the country with immediate effect.
Supply of fuel oil for the shipping industry is getting squeezed by the war-driven tightness in diesel fuel, as refiners prioritize the latter over the former, Reuters has reported, with Asia set to suffer the most severe blow.
The shortage is seen at 218,000 barrels daily in the current quarter, according to Energy Aspects, as quoted by Reuters, which would be the first quarter of a shipping fuel shortage since 2025. At that time, the shortage was much smaller, at just 6,000 barrels daily.
“Due to the protracted supply disruption in the Middle East, we expect fuel oil supply to remain critically tight in the third quarter,” a Rystad Energy analyst told the publication.
Refinery margins are running at record highs across the world as the energy crisis unfolds. The first aspect of this crisis is , of course, the tighter supply of crude from the Middle East. Yet there has also been refinery damage in the Middle East. In fact, per the International Energy Agency, as much as a fifth of that refining capacity, totaling some 9.6 million barrels daily, has been knocked out by hostilities.
In addition to the Middle East disruption, Ukrainian drone attacks have affected diesel production in Russia, to the extent that the country imposed a ban on diesel exports, adding to the tightness in supply.
In response to that tightness, refiners have prioritized diesel fuel production, which means they are making less fuel oil, which is used to fuel ships but also in some power plants. What makes the fuel oil situation worse is that refiners have to reason to change their priorities anytime soon.
“Record-low gasoline and diesel inventories will incentivise refiners globally to maximise secondary unit runs with more fuel oil feedstock barrels, in turn tightening fuel oil balances,” Energy Aspects analyst Royston Huan told Reuters.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
Iran will declare a new “restricted” maritime zone outside the Strait of Hormuz in the coming days, the country’s top national security official has said, warning that any vessel entering the area would be placed on a sanctions list.
In a televised interview late on Sept. 6, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said the zone will begin from the U.S. Navy’s blockade line and extend into parts of the Gulf, according to the Iranian state-run Press TV.
“Any vessel entering this new zone will be placed on a sanctions list,” he said.
Rezaei also said Iran and Oman would sign an agreement in the coming days on the new corridor through Hormuz, with its entry and exit points under Iranian control.
He said the Strait of Hormuz was “completely closed and under the control of the armed forces,” dismissing U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that the strategic waterway remained open as a “big lie.”
Before Iran closed the strait, more than 100 ships carrying over 100 million tons of cargo passed through it daily, Rezaei said. He added that only seven or eight ships carrying essential goods for Iran were now transiting the waterway.
“The Americans are trying to smuggle five to six vessels through at great expense, but these ships are usually struck,” he said, without elaborating.
Rezaei said Iran had decided against sinking the vessels because they were carrying oil and doing so would damage the region’s environment.
He also claimed that Iran had successfully tested a new anti-ship missile above a US Navy vessel 48 hours earlier.
“For the first time, we tested our anti-ship missile above an American warship,” he said.
“This special missile created hell for the Americans, and they fled,” he added, without identifying the vessel or specifying where the test occurred.
He separately rejected claims that the US economic blockade was causing widespread famine in Iran.
“The claim that the U.S. economic blockade is causing a major famine in Iran is a big lie,” Rezaei told Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.
“The Iranian government has been preparing for this for a long time and has sufficient stocks of food and essential goods,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Sept. 7 warned South Korea against military deployment or involvement in U.S. operations in the Strait of Hormuz, saying such a move would have “serious consequences.”
On Sept. 4, Seoul said it was considering “contributions” to U.S. security efforts in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran has largely controlled since the outbreak of war against the United States on Feb. 28.
By Tsvetana Paraskova - Sep 08, 2026, 5:00 AM CDT
China’s crude oil imports rose for the second consecutive month in August as refiners turned to additional non-Middle Eastern supply and boosted overseas fuel shipments amid eased export restrictions.
China imported 37.93 million tons, or 8.93 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in August, up by 6.2% compared to July, and further recovering from the decade-low seen in June, official Chinese customs data showed on Tuesday.
The August import level was still 23.4% lower compared to the same month last year, but it’s a marked improvement from the June lows of just 7.1 million bpd.
China slashed its total crude oil imports to a decade low in June, culminating three months of very low import levels amid high prices and constrained supply from the Middle East.
Beijing, having amassed about 1.4 billion barrels of crude before the war, could afford to dramatically reduce its crude buying, slashing import volumes in June by an estimated 4.4 million bpd compared to the 2025 average.
Chinese imports began to rebound in July, with the trend continuing into August, as flows from the Middle East ticked up, and Chinese refiners boosted Russian ESPO grade buying and turned to previously exotic and rare supply destinations such as Argentina.
China’s eased restrictions on fuel exports were another major driver of the higher Chinese crude oil imports in August. The eased export curbs prompted refiners to restock and capture decent refining margins amid a global fuel supply crunch, especially of diesel.
The export figures from China’s customs showed that refiners have boosted imports of crude oil and exports of fuels in recent weeks.
Chinese refined oil product exports jumped by 29% from July to 6 million tons in August, also topping the 5.33 million tons of fuel exports in August 2025, the customs data showed.
“The month-on-month increase in crude imports is in line with the surge in fuel exports in August and continued strong exports in September,” Emma Li, analyst at ship-tracking firm Vortexa, told Reuters.
ASX‑listed tungsten miner EQ Resources released its August operational update on September 1. The group posted total revenue of A$55.1 million, marking its second consecutive monthly revenue record.Consolidated tungsten production stood at 19,068 mtu in August, rising 34% month‑on‑month from July. Sales totalled 17,246 mtu at an average realised price of US$2,269 per mtu, subject to final assays and reconciliation.
By mine: Spain’s Barruecopardo project produced 12,719 mtu, up 32% month‑on‑month and hitting an all‑time monthly output record for the site. It contributed A$35.2 million in revenue with an average realised price of US$2,368 per mtu. Australia’s Mt Carbine operation generated 6,349 mtu, a 38% month‑on‑month increase, bringing in A$19.9 million in revenue.
Highlights
South Korea sees another route around China's rare-earth dominance: recover strategic metals already above ground. Korea Development Bank has identified Korea Zinc as a potential leader because of its deep smelting and recycling expertise. South Korea also targets recycled material supplying 20% of demand for ten strategic critical minerals by 2030, including Nd, Dy and Tb. The strategy is credible. Korea Zinc's commercial rare-earth capability remains unproven.
REEx Insight — Korea Has the Factory DNA
The rare-earth bottleneck is increasingly industrial competence, not simply geology. Korea Zinc brings more than 50 years of metallurgical experience. Its Onsan complex processes complicated feedstocks and recovers multiple metals; Project Crucible is designed at roughly half Onsan's scale. The bigger opportunity is circularity. End-of-life NdFeB magnets can become concentrated secondary feedstock for NdPr and, depending on composition, valuable Dy/Tb. South Korea already possesses automotive, electronics and advanced-manufacturing industries capable of supplying scrap and consuming recovered material. That creates a potential closed loop: Magnets → Recycling → REE Separation → Metals/Alloys → New Magnets.
But Korea Zinc has not yet demonstrated the crucial middle steps commercially. Investors need recovery rates, oxide purity, individual REE separation capacity, costs and customer qualification.
Project Crucible Is Not a Rare Earth Plant
The proposed Clarksville, Tennessee complex represents $7.4 billion in total investment, approximately 1.1 million tonnes of annual feedstock and 540,000 tonnes of products. Phased production is targeted from 2029. Korea Zinc currently identifies 13 planned nonferrous-metal products, including zinc, copper, antimony, gallium and germanium. None is a rare earth element. Crucible therefore demonstrates Korea Zinc's industrial scale—not REE separation capability.
REEx Bottom Line: If Korea Zinc proves commercial magnet-to-oxide recovery and REE separation, South Korea already possesses much of the ecosystem needed to become a significant ex-China circular rare-earth hub.
https://rareearthexchanges.com/news/korea-zinc-rare-earth-recycling/
Prices Reclaim A Key Level
After spending much of the summer below the psychologically watched $100 threshold, iron ore futures in Singapore rose as much as 1.6% to $101.10, the highest intraday print since July 2. By 12:45 p.m. local time, the contract was up 1.1% at $100.60 a ton. Futures priced in yuan rose by as much as 1.8%.
What Lit The Fuse
The kick came from a popular spread being unwound. S&P Global Energy's Pranay Shukla, who oversees research on dry bulk freight and commodities, said, "It's largely being driven by positioning unwinds, as market participants who were previously running a long coking coal, short iron ore spread are now closing out those positions," That is "creating buying pressure and driving upward momentum in iron ore," he added.
The Other Supports In Play
Fundamentals are adding some muscle too. Traders are betting mills will rebuild iron ore stocks before China's National Day holidays in October, and they are looking for the usual September pickup in construction. Shipping costs are another tailwind, with dry-bulk rates in London hitting the highest level in nearly five years on Friday. Across industrial metals in London, the tape was mixed, with copper and aluminum slightly lower while lead and zinc pushed higher.
Policy Backdrop And The Read-Through
Mood music from Beijing helped. On China's exchanges, Dalian iron ore futures rose 1.3%, while Chinese coking coal eased 3% after a recent rally.
For everyday investors, the takeaway is simple: short-covering, seasonal demand, higher freight, and policy moves can stack up fast in raw materials. If you have exposure tied to steelmaking or miners, this is a reminder that positioning shifts and China's calendar can move prices in a hurry.
https://www.briefs.co/news/iron-ore-pops-back-above-100-as-coal-spread-unwinds/
