In a landmark shift for global energy markets, Venezuela has officially signed major oil production and development contracts with two prominent United States energy firms. The agreements, formalized on Tuesday evening in Houston, Texas, signal a rapid acceleration in the rehabilitation of Venezuela's decimated oil sector following the dramatic geopolitical upheaval earlier this year.
The re-entry of American capital into the world's largest proven oil reserves carries massive implications for global crude supplies. For net-importing regions across Africa and Asia, the prospect of an additional several hundred thousand barrels per day hitting the market offers a potential buffer against the price shocks currently emanating from the Middle East.
The Houston Agreements
The signing ceremony marked a historic reconciliation between Caracas and the US private sector. Representing the Venezuelan government, Oil Minister Paula Henao confirmed the execution of the contracts with the state-run petroleum company, PDVSA. The primary American partners are oilfield-services giant SLB Ltd. (formerly Schlumberger) and the independent Dallas-based producer, Hunt Oil Company.
According to Ministry officials, the pacts are structured as hydrocarbons production participation agreements designed specifically to enhance output at the onshore Caro and Carisito oil fields located in eastern Venezuela.
What separates the funded from the stranded
Washington is pouring money into critical minerals. But a good deposit is no longer enough to win it. The U.S. government is taking equity, guaranteeing offtakes and setting price floors, changing what makes a mining project financeable.
On The Northern Miner Podcast, Baker Botts partner Rebecca Seidl-Inglesby said the problem was never simply capex. It was revenue certainty. That is reshaping where strategic capital goes.
Projects increasingly need four things: a credible buyer, advanced permitting, a clear processing route and an ownership structure that can survive foreign investment scrutiny. Investors want to know not just what is in the ground, but who will process it, who will buy it and at what price.
Paraphrasing the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Gracelin Baskaran, she put it this way: a mine without a refinery and a customer risks becoming a stranded asset.
Three companies worth watching fit neatly into that framework.
MP Materials (NYSE: MP) | US$58.44 | 52 week range: US$37.81 to US$100.25
MP Materials has become the reference case. Its Pentagon package combined a price floor, a 10 year offtake, a loan and an equity investment that positioned the Department of Defense to become its largest shareholder.
The structure gives MP something miners have historically struggled to secure: long term revenue visibility. But markets remain skeptical. MP shares more than tripled last year, while the Financial Times reported rising short positions against MP, United States Antimony Corporation and American Resources Corporation amid concerns the rally had moved faster than the supply chains themselves.
Energy Fuels (TSX: EFR; NYSE American: UUUU) | C$20.88 | 52 week range: C$11.31 to C$38.37
Energy Fuels is going after the part of the supply chain capital increasingly cares about: processing. Its White Mesa Mill expansion in Utah is designed to add capacity including roughly 120 tonnes of dysprosium and 140 tonnes of samarium annually, plus 20 tonnes each of terbium and europium.
The roughly US$104 million project is expected to be supported largely through government loans and grants. Energy Fuels has also announced a conditional commitment of up to US$725 million from the U.S. Office of Strategic Capital and is pursuing a US$1.9 billion acquisition of Germany's Vacuumschmelze alongside Australian Strategic Materials.
The strategy links processing with downstream magnet production, the kind of integrated system Seidl-Inglesby said is easier to finance.
Canada Nickel (TSXV: CNC) | C$1.51 | 52 week range: 77¢ to C$2.59
Canada Nickel is tackling another barrier to capital: permitting. Its Crawford nickel project became the first mining project to receive a Decision Statement under Canada's Impact Assessment Act.
CEO Mark Selby said the federal process took four years, while Crawford advanced from its fifth drill hole through feasibility to approval in under seven. Detailed engineering, financing and additional permits remain outstanding.
Share prices and 52-week ranges as of midday Aug. 17, 2026.
Source: alerts@e.northernminer.com
Times Radio: Iran's missile threat to bases in Europe
19 August 2026
Featured in Times Radio
IRAN AND THE US
The Iranians do have ballistic missiles that could strike targets in south-eastern Europe but practically what they can achieve is limited because they have fewer of these longer range missiles, and to cross larger distances they might have to sacrifice payload, and the longer distance over which a missile is fired the less accurate it is."
https://www.rusi.org/news-and-comment/in-the-news/times-radio-irans-missile-threat-bases-europe
By Julianne Geiger - Aug 14, 2026, 2:39 PM CDT
Oracle’s proposed $165 billion data center project in New Mexico has run into a decidedly low-tech problem: the natural gas pipeline meant to help power it won’t be ready on time.
Energy Transfer subsidiary Transwestern Pipeline pushed the expected in-service date for its Green Chile Project from August 15 to February 1, 2027, according to a regulatory filing Friday.
That six-month delay threatens the schedule for Oracle’s Project Jupiter, a proposed data center development in Doña Ana County near the U.S.-Mexico border.
The scale is substantial. Project Jupiter could use as much as 2.5 gigawatts of gas-powered fuel cells supplied by Bloom Energy, while Green Chile is designed to deliver up to 400 million cubic feet per day of natural gas to the site. That is equivalent to roughly 0.4% of total Lower 48 U.S. gas production.
Oracle warned federal regulators in May that “time is of the essence” and said delays to Green Chile could jeopardize the broader project.
New Mexico’s State Land Office has repeatedly declined to approve Energy Transfer’s proposed pipeline route, which crosses a small section of state-owned land.
The setback illustrates one of the constraints emerging alongside the AI data center buildout. Developers increasingly want dedicated generation rather than waiting years for grid connections, but behind-the-meter power still requires fuel, pipelines and permits.
Energy Transfer is already benefiting from that shift elsewhere. The company began supplying gas this year to an Oracle data center campus near Abilene, Texas, and has signed agreements representing more than 6 billion cubic feet per day of new demand across data centers, utilities and power plants.
Oracle shares were down 4% Friday afternoon, while Energy Transfer gained 1.4%.
Guyana is now entitled to 39.8% of the oil produced in the Stabroek block, the country’s president, Irfaan Ali, announced on August 18. This figure already includes a 2% royalty and is not added separately, according to The Rio Times.
The government’s share increased without any revision to the contract. According to the publication, the consortium led by ExxonMobil has recouped the $55 billion in investments made in the block’s development since 2014. Exxon’s CFO told investors on July 31 that this happened about two years earlier than the company had forecast.
The production-sharing agreement allows operators to allocate up to 75% of monthly production to cover costs—so-called compensation oil. The remainder is considered profit oil and is split equally between the state and the consortium. Guyana also receives a 2% royalty on the total volume of production.
With maximum cost recovery, Guyana’s share of profit oil was 12.5%, and including royalties, it was about 14.5%. After the bulk of the costs were reimbursed, the share of compensation oil fell to about a quarter of total production, increasing the country’s total share to 39.8%. Calculations are made monthly, and development costs for the Uaru, Whiptail, and Hammerhead fields may affect this figure in the future.
In June, four floating production vessels in the Stabroek block produced approximately 869,000 barrels per day, while in the first quarter, the figure was about 914,000 barrels per day. The fifth vessel, the Errea Wittu, designed for the Uaru project with a capacity of 250,000 barrels per day, departed from Singapore in June. According to Ali, it is expected to arrive in Guyanese waters this week, with first oil planned for the fourth quarter.
ExxonMobil is the operator of the Stabroek block with a 45% stake. Hess, now part of Chevron, holds 30%, and CNOOC holds 25%.
https://ua.news/en/energetika/chastka-gaiani-u-vidobutku-na-blotsi-stabroek-zrosla-do-39-8
By Anushree Ashish Mukherjee August 13, 2026
Summary
Aug 13 (Reuters) - As the U.S.-Iran war drags on with no end in sight, oil traders and policymakers are grappling with a critical question: are global oil stocks enough to offset what could become the biggest supply disruption on record?
The answer is far from clear, depending not only on how much oil remains in storage, but also on how much of it can actually be released.
DISRUPTION DOESN'T GET ANY EASIER
How long reserves would last can only be ascertained by figuring out the size of the current disruption.
The head of Saudi Aramco believes the world has lost 2.6 billion barrels of oil since the start of the war, making it the largest supply disruption ever in cumulative terms apart from the 1979 Iranian revolution, according to Reuters calculations.
That amounts to a massive 25 days of global consumption based on pre-war global oil demand of 103 million barrels per day.
However, China cut demand in recent months and that means the world is consuming less oil.
Most analysts believe the daily supply gap to cover demand amounts to 5 million bpd even though Aramco says the world is losing 11 million barrels of supply from the Gulf daily. The gap might have widened in July after Ukrainian drones shut the Kazakh CPC pipeline, pumping 1.8 million bpd.
EMPTY AFTER 180 DAYS
The West's energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency, in March announced a release of 400 million barrels from emergency reserves and says the global economy still has substantial stocks.
The IEA was created in 1974 in response to another major oil crisis — the Arab oil embargo.
IEA stocks consist of government-held stocks and commercial stocks — together standing at 1.5 billion barrels and enough to cover the current estimated supply gap of 5 million bpd for 300 days.
IEA emergency oil stocks vs current release
However, the IEA cannot order the release of commercial stocks, such as those held by refiners for operational reasons.
That leaves only 0.9 billion in government-held stocks — enough to cover the supply gap for 180 days.
IEA members release three quarters of pledged oil stock withdrawal
The IEA said it is ready to release more if the crisis worsens.
AS EMPTY AS DURING REAGAN'S PRESIDENCY
The IEA does not disclose the precise make-up of stocks.
Of its remaining government-held stocks, one-third is held in the United States.
Crude oil stocks in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell to the lowest levels since January 1983, when Ronald Reagan was president.
Top 10 contributors to the IEA's 400-million-barrel oil release
The U.S. Government Accountability Office warned, opens new tab in May that SPR's infrastructure was deteriorating fast and that a quarter of reserves is no longer available.
This implies that over 100 million barrels have become impossible to release, according to analysts from Rapidan Energy.
If the U.S. has only 200 million barrels of accessible SPR stocks left, they can cover just 40 days of the current supply gap.
DIESEL SHORTAGE
A new IEA release is unlikely as many countries have limited stocks left, said Christian Egeland from Energy Aspects.
The depletion of inventories has reduced the buffer against supply shocks, leaving the oil market vulnerable to sharp price rises, said Hamad Hussain from Capital Economics.
Crude oil stocks shrink across key countries in early 2026
Global stocks of diesel and jet fuel are currently at the bottom of their five-year range, according to Morgan Stanley.
The wars damaged Middle Eastern and Russian refineries and have hit diesel and jet fuel particularly hard, said Survo Sarkar of DBS Bank.
CHINA COULD WITHSTAND THE CRISIS FOR MUCH LONGER
Total global oil stocks, including all types such as commercial stocks, the U.S. SPR, Chinese stocks and stocks on water, look fairly comfortable, according to the IEA.
Global oil stocks fall below 7.9 billion barrels in July, down from a 2026 peak near 8.3 billion in February
But a big chunk of those are not real supply buffers as stocks on water, for example, often represent oil and fuel already sold and in transit.
China doesn't disclose its reserves.
Energy Aspects estimates China held nearly 1.7 billion barrels of crude in July.
However, estimates between consultancies vary at 1.0 billion to 1.7 billion.
In addition, there are unknown quantities of fuel and petrochemicals held in inventories.
With a reserve of 1.7 billion, China could cover its pre-war imports through the Strait of Hormuz, about 5.5 million barrels per day, for almost a year, one of the most comfortable levels in major economies alongside Japan.
POSCO Holdings-Longbai MOU Push to supply battery-grade lithium hydroxide Chang In-hwa's resource-focused investment pays off
사진 확대 POSCO Group Chairman Chang In-hwa speaks about the group's business portfolio strategy at the CEO Investor Day held on July 2.
POSCO Group will supply battery-grade lithium to China, the world's largest producer of battery materials.
POSCO Holdings Inc. said on the 19th that it signed a strategic memorandum of understanding on its secondary battery materials business with China's Longbai Group at POSCO Center in Daechi-dong, Seoul, and agreed to cooperate across the entire value chain, from lithium supply to used-battery recycling.
Longbai Group is a leading Chinese battery materials company that dominates the global high-nickel cathode materials market. Under the agreement, POSCO Group will mobilize its three major lithium production bases — Posco Pilbara Lithium Solution, which uses Australian ore; POSCO Argentina S.A.U., which uses Argentine brine; and POSCO HY CLEAN METAL, which handles recycling through used-battery extraction — to supply battery-grade lithium to Longbai Group.
The two companies will first complete quality certification for ore-based battery-grade lithium hydroxide produced by Posco Pilbara Lithium Solution by the fourth quarter of this year and then begin full-scale mass supply.
They will also build a virtuous cycle for resource circulation through used-battery recycling. Based on the trust it has built by supplying nickel, cobalt and manganese to Longbai Group's plant in China and to EMT, its domestic precursor subsidiary, POSCO HY CLEAN METAL will work with Longbai Group to strengthen a closed-loop system that connects the entire process of global used-battery collection and recycling.
The agreement is significant because it demonstrates POSCO Group's competitiveness in the lithium production value chain, from raw materials to finished products, while also opening a path to export high-quality lithium to China, the world's No. 1 producer of battery materials.
It is also seen as evidence that the resource-centered preemptive investment and global order diversification strategy emphasized since Chang In-hwa took office as POSCO Group chairman is beginning to bear fruit.
Going forward, POSCO Group plans to expand its cooperation with Longbai Group across the board, including lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery materials for energy storage systems (ESS).
This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.
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On-warrant copper stocks have risen by 63kt over the last three days, a more than 50% increase. This global rise – seen in Asia, the US and Europe – is a response to the large backwardation that has opened up over the last couple of months, hitting particularly wide-levels in the last week.
Total stocks have pushed up 28kt with deliveries flowing onto the exchange. Beyond this a significant amount of cancelled stock has been re-warranted.
The deliveries caused the LME cash-to-three month spread to fall significantly to around USD 175/t from over USD 550/t at points on Monday. As of Wednesday 19 August, the LME three-month copper price is at USD 13,885/t, down nearly USD 300/t since Monday.
"The deliveries alleviate the fears of extreme nearby tightness for now, and LME inventories will be closely watched for signals on price movements," said Albert Mackenzie, a copper analyst at Benchmark.
Why have copper stocks risen?
The backwardation had grown as result of perceived tightness relating to declining stocks on the LME. These deliveries were a natural response to the backwardation which incentivised deliveries.
Sources noted to Benchmark that they believed one large trading company was behind the deliveries. Though sources in China believe that some deliverers may have come from Chinese market participants.
The increase in stocks has come a time of perceived acute tightness as on-warrant stock fell 100kt across July and 75kt across June.
This tightness caused the copper cash-to-three month backwardation to increase significantly, reaching close to USD 550/t, the highest level in over 5 years. A significant amount of that arbitrage was in the front month with over USD 400/t of backwardation in the spread between August and September.
"Lots of the current odd dynamics have come as huge amounts of copper heads to the US due to the high arbitrage caused by tariff uncertainty, making the global market feel tighter than it really is," Mackenzie said. "As long as there is uncertainty on tariffs, situations like this could arise again."
South Africa's chromium sector remains split between two very different trajectories. Chrome ore exports stayed structurally strong in June at 2.404 million tonnes, up nearly 39% year-on-year, with China absorbing more than two-thirds of that volume, and PGM producers including Sibanye-Stillwater, Northam Platinum, Eastplats and Southern Palladium's Bengwenyama project all adding further ore supply through chromite by-product growth. Ferrochrome, by contrast, is recovering only slowly despite real intervention — NERSA's 62c/kWh tariff, the Lion Smelter's phased restart, and the withdrawal of Section 189 retrenchments. Merafe's full H1 results, released 11 August, showed production still down 75% year-on-year, with sales held up mainly by drawing down existing inventory and by firmer prices, not by smelters running at anything close to pre-crisis capacity.
That gap is being reinforced from multiple directions at once. The 13 August tailings dam failure at Samancor's Dikwena Chrome mine served as a reminder that even the ore-export side of the business, for all its trade-data strength, is not without operational risk. Further afield, the international market's expectations are evolving too: Kazakhstan's Kazchrome secured a registered Environmental Product Declaration for its ferrochrome in March, following Finland's Outokumpu, which set the industry precedent in 2023, pointing to a growing role for verified carbon credentials in how ferrochrome buyers assess supply options. With tariff relief and smelter restarts having done enough to arrest ferrochrome's decline but not yet enough to restore meaningful production growth, South Africa's chrome industry enters the second half of 2026 still leaning on ore exports and drawn-down inventory to carry its earnings, even as the broader market it sells into continues to evolve.
Russian aluminium giant Rusal swung to a first-half adjusted net profit on Wednesday, driven by higher aluminium prices linked to heightened global volatility.
The world's largest aluminium producer outside China, posted adjusted net profit of $196-million for the six-month period ended June 30, a sharp turnaround from a loss of $194-million a year earlier. Revenue increased 10.9% to $8.34 billion.
"Aluminium prices surged to four-year highs within just a couple of months, and then rapidly retreated to their starting point," said chairperson Bernard Zonneveld.
"In many markets where Rusal served as a responsible and reliable supplier, aluminium premiums reached historic levels."
Total sales cost rose 3.3% to $6.31-billion, driven by higher energy costs.
"Currently, the group believes this tariff increase as temporary and expects tariffs to stabilise in the medium term," Hong Kong-listed Rusal said, referring to electricity tariffs.
"However, should electricity prices rise to the average levels of 1H 2026, other variables being unchanged, an impairment charge would be recognised in the consolidated financial statements of the group."
Hindustan Zinc, India’s largest integrated zinc producer, has increased the share of renewable power in its current overall power consumption to 22 per cent, up from about 18 per cent in FY26.
The company targets to achieve 70 per cent of its overall power requirements through renewable energy by FY28, as it scales clean energy adoption across its mining and smelting operations.
Across its business units in Rajasthan and Uttarakhand, Hindustan Zinc has continued to strengthen its renewable power generation capabilities.
During FY26, the company generated 892 million units of green power, compared with 632 million units in FY25. The increase in green power generation, along with renewable power procurement, has contributed to the steady growth of renewable energy in the company’s overall power mix.
Hindustan Zinc expanded its round-the-clock renewable energy power delivery agreement with Serentica Renewables from 450 MW to 530 MW. In addition, Hindustan Zinc is advancing its energy transition by upgrading power connectivity from the state transmission network to the central transmission utility, alongside implementing innovative in-house projects that support a cleaner, more resilient and energy-efficient future.
Amarendu Prakash, CEO, Hindustan Zinc, said with renewable power now accounting for 22 per cent of power consumption and our ambition to take this to 70 per cent, the company has demonstrated that clean energy is not only a decarbonisation lever but also a fundamental in creating a more resilient, competitive and responsible business.
Published on August 19, 2026
Posted on 19 Aug 2026
Fortescue says it has produced first hot metal at its Green Metal Project at Christmas Creek, in Western Australia, marking the first successful operation of its electric smelting process and a major step towards producing green metal in Australia.
The pilot project was built to test new technology and develop a pathway for ultimately producing green metal using Pilbara ore.
Commissioning of the project will continue in stages, allowing the team to safely test, refine and optimise the process before progressing to larger-scale production.
Fortescue Metals Chief Executive Officer, Dino Otranto, said: “This is a significant milestone for our Green Metal Project and another step towards producing commercial-scale green metal in Australia. For decades Australia has exported iron ore to the world. The next opportunity is to create more value from that ore by producing green metal here at home.
“Australia has some of the world’s best renewable energy resources and one of the world’s largest iron ore industries. That’s a competitive advantage we should be building on. If we don’t, other renewable-rich countries will. The real opportunity goes beyond green metal. It’s about building a new industrial economy around Australia’s renewable energy advantage.
“Nobody has solved green metal production using Pilbara ore at commercial scale yet. That’s the challenge we’re taking on.”
First hot metal means the project has successfully produced molten metal in its electric smelting furnace. As part of commissioning, this has initially been produced using a blended feedstock while the facility is progressively brought online.
