9th October 2025

Good morning ladies and gents. Here what hit the wires today in all things oil, gas, and energy:

• ❓ Are hurricanes getting worse?

• ⏫ New highs for gas and power

• 🎰 Equinor’s big wind bet

• 🇯🇵 Chevron sale to Tokyo Gas

• ➕ plus Norwegian drilling IPOs; Shell vs Nigeria legal latest; Libya back to full tilt; CO2 emissions peaking?; build your own power; India’s hurry; and plenty more.

Let’s take a peek…

📈 THE NUMBERS

After sinking by ~4% yesterday as traders took profits after the recent surge, oil prices have steadied today.

🗞️ WELL-HEADLINES

 🗽 North America

• Chevron mulling Texas asset sale to Tokyo Gas - the rumoured deal is said to be worth $1bn and involves ~72,000 acres of most undeveloped land in Haynesville. Tokyo Gas is Japan’s largest gas provider and is looking to secure steady supplies from abroad, while Chevron is slimming down as it digests Hess.

• Milton incoming - some platforms in GoM have been evacuated as the powerful Hurricane Milton closes in, just two weeks after Helene caused major damage. Milton is set to wreak havoc on Florida but its projected path avoids most GoM O&G infrastructure.

• Gas and power hitting new highs - US gas and power demand set new records this summer, according to the EIA, climbing by 1% and 3%, respectively, over the year. Expect these records to keep getting broken.

• McDermott offloads CB&I storage biz - the $475m sale to a consortium of investors led by Mason Capital Management closes out 6 years of McDermott ownership. CB&I designs and builds energy storage facilities, tanks and terminals around the world.

• Conoco picks up Chevron Alaska interests - the $300m deal involves stakes in the Kuparuk and Prudhoe Bay oil fields, with net production of 5 kboe/d. Conoco is one of few large E&Ps doubling down on Alaska, while others retreat south.

• Build your own power - this is the message being sent by utilities in Texas to tech companies wanting to build data centers in the state. Texas’ grid is already heavily strained and some estimates suggest that peak power demand in the Lone Star State might double by 2030!

• Wildfires hitting ND output - oil production in North Dakota is down by 60-90 kb/d due to large wildfires that flared up last week.

  

  Milton’s path and O&G infrastructure. Hang tight Florida.

🏰 Europe

• Vantage Drilling confirms Oslo listing - the Dubai-based deepwater driller joins a long list of drilling services companies that have floated in Norway this year where investors generally understand and appreciate the sector. Which is more than can be said for many other jurisdictions these days.

🕌 The Middle East

• ADNOC pulls plug on Das Island expansion - without saying why, ADNOC has announced that it is scrapping plans to expand the facility which included adding 0.9 mtpa to of LNG export capacity.

⛩️ Asia & Oceania

• India hurrying to boost O&G production - the government is in a rush to ramp up production asap before energy transition pressures hit the value of their hydrocarbons. Don’t worry, India, the “transition” ain’t happening anytime soon.

• Pertamina hits big in Indonesia - it’s hoped that the large offshore gas discovery in Central Sulawesi can act as the basis of a new gas hub.

🦁 Africa

• Libya back at full tilt - for now. Oil output has risen back above 1 mmb/d after the two competing governments reached a deal on the country’s new central bank boss. The feud knocked off about 700 kb/d of oil supply for several weeks.

• Shell and Nigeria back in court - a legal case that has been dragging on for 10 years between Shell and Nigerian communities over responsibility for oil spills is back in the dock, in what is said to be a critical court hearing in London.

• BP wins Komsos LNG ruling - a court has ruled that Kosmos is prohibited from selling LNG from the new Greater Tortue project offshore Senegal and Mauritania to anyone other than a BP subsidiary. BP and Kosmos are partners in the 2.5 mtpa project.

🗿 Central & South America

• Petrobras and Wood join forces on FPSOs - the world’s largest FPSO owner and the UK engineering house are partnering up to develop the next gen of FPSOs, aimed at reducing emissions and enhancing performance.

• Pemex gearing up for its deepest ever well - the Kuajtla 1 well in the Mexican GoM is going to cost ~$180m and will reach depths of 8,900 meters, targeting hundreds of millions of barrels of reserves.

• Ecopetrol’s $1.25bn refinancing - the Colombian NOC is buying back bonds with money raised from the issuance of new bonds.

🌍 GEOPOLITICS & MACRO

• China equities roller-coaster - after surging ~30% over the past few weeks, Chinese stock indices fell by ~7% today, their largest daily decline since COVID, as investors were left disappointed by the lack of new economic stimulus measures. This sentiment is probably responsible for dragging down oil prices yesterday.

💨 CARBON, CLIMATE, & OTHER ENERGY STUFF

• World not on track to hit renewable target - according to the IEA, the world will miss its COP28 target of 3x capacity by 2030. It forecasts 2.7x growth which, if you ask me, is still terrifying quantities and represents a huge misallocation of capital…

• Equinor’s big wind bet - Equinor has splashed out $2.5bn acquiring a 9.8% interest in Orsted, the Danish offshore wind company which has ~10.4 GW of low carbon power generation capacity. Orsted’s shares had fallen by 69% since all time highs in 2021 and Equinor’s CEO remarked that the buy was a “good counter cyclical move”. Equinor said it wouldn’t look to raise its stake above 10%.

• Total buys into German offshore wind - it has acquired 50% stakes from RWE in two undeveloped German offshore wind projects due to be operational in the early 2030s.

• Energy-related CO2 forecast to peak this year - according to a report from consultancy DNV, which thinks that expanding wind, solar, and battery capacity is displacing enough coal to bend the curve of emissions. Energy is responsible for ~70% of total CO2 emissions, with the rest coming from agriculture, deforestation, waste etc.

🛢️ BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

With a raging Milton following soon after the destructive Helene, it might seem like hurricanes are getting more frequent and more intense.

At least that’s what the climate hysterics would like you to believe.

But I prefer data to headlines, anecdotes, and emotion. So let’s look at the numbers.

This is sourced from the the US govt’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and shows all hurricanes, split by intensity, to have made landfall in the US since 1851 when records began:

What do you notice?

Almost nothing, right.

There’s no discernible change in pattern of frequency or intensity of US hurricanes.

In fact, the total trendline is heading downwards over the last ~150 years.

This is no consolation for those currently in Milton’s cross hairs, but the cold hard data tells a very different story to the sensationalist news.

In the climate debate, there are many such examples…

👋 BEFORE YOU GO

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Thanks for reading. Have a day out there. 🛢️🛢️

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