Tag: oil

HUGE BLOW TO HOCHUL: Obama-Appointed Federal Judge Strikes Down New York’s $75B “Superfund” Climate Law Fining Fossil Fuel Companies

New York Democrats’ scheme to extract a staggering $75 billion from energy producers has been struck down by a federal judge.

Chief U.S. District Judge Brenda K. Sannes, an Obama appointee, ruled that New York’s so-called Climate Change Superfund Act was preempted by federal law and could not be enforced.

The sweeping law, signed by Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul in December 2024, sought to force oil, natural gas, and coal companies to pay $3 billion annually for 25 years into a state-controlled climate fund.

“With nearly every record rainfall, heatwave, and coastal storm, New Yorkers are increasingly burdened with billions of dollars in health, safety, and environmental consequences due to polluters that have historically harmed our environment,” Governor Hochul said.

“Establishing the Climate Superfund is the latest example of my administration taking action to hold polluters responsible for the damage done to our environment and requiring major investments in infrastructure and other projects critical to protecting our communities and economy,” she added.

Under the law, companies determined by New York regulators to be responsible for more than one billion tons of greenhouse-gas emissions between 2000 and 2024 would have faced strict liability, regardless of whether they violated any law.

The scheme was not limited to activity inside New York. It attempted to calculate emissions connected to fossil-fuel extraction and refining around the world and then send massive “cost recovery demands” to the targeted companies.

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Norway Rejects Climate Orthodoxy’s False Choice, Builds Wealth

Norway’s Minister of Energy Terje Aasland told Reuters that his country will keep developing oil and gas in the Barents Sea irrespective of a European Union (EU) ban on Arctic drilling.

“In today’s geopolitical and security environment… I believe continued activity in the Barents Sea serves both Norwegian and European interests,” said Aasland.

Although not an EU member, Norway is a close ally and Europe’s largest gas supplier, meeting about 30% of the demand across the European Union and Britain. Last year Norwegian gas output ran near record levels, and oil production hit its highest mark since 2009. 

Without new fields, however, official projections show output dropping sharply after 2030. But Aasland intends to hold production and exports near current levels until at least 2035, and he has said that the Arctic is important to Norway remaining a long-term supplier.

The EU currently backs a ban on new Arctic drilling on environmental grounds, while buying the gas that keeps its factories running. Anders Opedal, CEO of Norwegian multinational energy company Equinor, has said that producers of Barents oil and natural gas will find buyers somewhere else if Europe refuses to buy. 

Even Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and a promoter of transitioning away from fossil fuels, has urged the EU to reconsider its opposition to Arctic development for the sake of energy security.

Europe has already suffered economic damage from its “green” pretense. The IEA reports that EU electricity prices for energy-intensive industry averaged more than double American levels in 2025 and were nearly 50% above China’s. A 2024 report on European competitiveness warned that such costs are hollowing out manufacturing.

Here is where the story stops being about the Arctic and becomes about everyone else.

Norway is not a struggling petro-state rationalizing a bad habit. It is among the richest societies ever built, with per capita gross domestic product above $105,000 and a sovereign wealth fund that crossed $2.39 trillion in June. Five and a half million people have converted seabed hydrocarbons into universal healthcare, free universities, and pensions for grandchildren not yet born.

If Norway considers oil and gas indispensable to its economic position, it is unreasonable to demand that poorer countries abandon their own resources. This matters enormously for Africa, South Asia, and other rapidly developing regions. For many African households, unreliable energy can be catastrophic.

Delay of fossil fuel projects costs in ways spreadsheets miss. A gas project blocked by climate posturing means that engineering teams disband, drilling rigs go elsewhere, borrowing costs rise, and the fertilizer plant that would have used the hydrocarbon feedstock never gets built. A decade of compounding benefits is lost to a national balance sheet.

Western proponents of climate orthodoxy declare immoral the ladder their societies climbed to unprecedented prosperity. Every advanced economy industrialized with coal, oil, and gas. Norway is still doing it with a $2 trillion cushion. Norwegian leaders recognize oil and gas are critical to their nation’s future, unlike their counterparts in the EU, Canada, and Australia.

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EU Commandos Board 6th Russian ‘Shadow Fleet’ Tanker After Putin Threatened Reverse Action

Another Russian ‘shadow fleet’ tanker has been boarded by European forces – and this time the provocative action took place in Mediterranean waters. In a Monday post on X, Kaja Kallas announced the action by troops under the EU’s Operation Irini. They boarded the MV Sun tanker for “flag verification,” following suspicions that the vessel was in violation of international law.

“Illegal oil sales from shadow fleet ships are a critical lifeline for Russia’s war in Ukraine, and we’ll continue to cut them off,” Kallas wrote of what marks the sixth shadow fleet ship to be boarded in recent months. Most of these have happened in northern European waters, with Mediterranean incidents being more rare.

It was specifically the Italian Defense Ministry that carried out the EU action, with Italian navy’s Thaon di Revel ship conducting the boarding which occurred to the west of the island of Pantelleria as the targeted vessel was progressing from the port of Cotonou in Benin to Istanbul.

Russian President Vladimir Putin just a little over two weeks ago threatened to do the same in reverse, after the past year saw several examples of EU intercept action, sometimes involving French or Swedish commandos descending onto a tanker’s deck from helicopters and arresting crew members. The seized vessels are then typically taken to nearby European ports.

The latest European Union sanctions package passed last month stipulates that EU members can sell the oil or any seized cargo obtained from these ‘shadow fleet’ vessels.

Putin has reiterated Kremlin outrage at this scheme, condemning it as “piracy and banditry”. This also after Sweden has lately declared its intent to hand seized Russian grain over to Ukraine.

“We will be forced to respond in kind,” Putin said in mid-August. Russian forces will act “wherever we ourselves deem necessary and appropriate — anywhere,” he added.

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Trump Says Iran’s Oil Hub Kharg Island Is Being Blown “TO SMITHEREENS”

President Trump issued a stunning message Sunday night indicating that Iran’s most important oil-export hub was under devastating attack.

“Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT,” Trump announced on Truth Social.

Trump’s post included a dramatic AI-generated video depicting explosions across the island.

Neither the White House nor the Department of War had publicly confirmed a new attack on Kharg Island’s oil facilities. Reuters reported that Iranian state media had also issued no immediate response.

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US Looks To Revive ‘Prize Courts’ For Iranian Oil Seizures

The US government is exploring an unusual legal route for dealing with Iranian oil and ships captured as part of its blockade: bringing back a wartime maritime system that has barely been used for generations, according to Bloomberg.

The Justice Department, working with the Pentagon, is preparing to use prize law, which historically allowed courts to decide whether vessels and cargo captured during armed conflict could legally become property of the United States. The mechanism was once commonplace in naval warfare but largely disappeared from American practice after the 19th century and has been dormant since World War II.

The appeal for the administration is largely practical. At present, the government generally relies on civil forfeiture to take ownership of vessels accused of sanctions violations or other offenses. Those cases can become complicated and slow, particularly when shipping companies, creditors, terrorism victims or other parties assert competing rights to the ship or its cargo. A prize proceeding could potentially narrow those disputes and allow captured oil to be sold more quickly, with the proceeds going to the US Treasury.

Bloomberg writes that Houston is being considered as a central venue for these cases. The Southern District of Texas has jurisdiction over a major port and sits alongside the country’s largest concentration of petrochemical infrastructure, giving it the capacity to receive and store substantial quantities of crude. US Attorney Aaron Reitz, whose office is working with DOJ officials in Washington, said the department is “now reviving” prize courts, describing the concept as an “ancient body of maritime law.”

The effort comes as Washington looks for additional ways to put economic pressure on Iran. US forces have already intercepted Iranian-owned or Iran-linked vessels since the blockade was imposed in April. Using prize law could turn those captures into a more direct financial tool: ships and oil deemed lawful prizes could be liquidated, potentially generating revenue while depriving Iran of valuable exports.

Supporters also see a strategic purpose beyond the money. Reviving the system would reinforce the message that the US considers the blockade a serious wartime measure rather than simply another sanctions regime. It could also make it more difficult for neutral commercial vessels to continue transporting goods that Washington believes support Iran.

But there is considerable uncertainty over how a centuries-old framework would operate under modern international law. “This really is a historical area of law that is not tested in modern times,” maritime attorney Allison Luzwick said. Courts could be asked to determine whether the current conflict provides sufficient legal grounds for invoking prize authority at all, particularly given questions surrounding congressional authorization for the hostilities.

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Trump Strikes “Biggest Oil Deal In History”: US To Take Majority Stake In Over 65BN Barrels Of Venezuela Reserves

President Trump has made it official with a late in the day Friday Truth Social Post, announcing a deal has been struck with Venezuela for a US majority stake in more than 65 billion barrels of oil reserves, after six months of administration scrambling to control the Strait of Hormuz crisis.

On Truth Social he called it the biggest oil deal in world history which comes “at no cost to” U.S. taxpayers and which more than doubles the US oil reserve.

“This Transaction will greatly strengthen the already growing relationship between Venezuela and the United States,” Trump wrote in the post. Also…

Trump said the Venezuela deal should bring down prices at the pump. The average price of a gallon of gas in the U.S. reached around $4.09 on Friday, a 27% increase year over year, according to AAA.

Over a dozen productive oil fields are said be central to deal, following US officials having long hyped Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine” and what it can do to bolster American energy independence and security. Of course, instead of ‘talks’ or ‘negotiations’… in reality this is more simply about demands be dictated to the ‘new’ post-Maduro US client state in South America.

Focus on the Strait of Hormuz is shifting to South America late in the week as the Trump administration moves to secure new long-term crude supplies in Venezuela. The U.S. is nearing an agreement that could place 17 Venezuelan oil fields under 100-year leases operated by U.S. oil companies.

According to Bloomberg, sources told the outlet that Caracas has discussed a possible exit from OPEC with U.S. officials. The sources said no final decision has been made, but the discussions come as the U.S. negotiates 100-year leases on several Venezuelan oil fields that require billions of dollars in investment.

Such an exit from OPEC would be symbolic, given that the South American country was one of the organization’s five founding members in 1960 and played a key role in establishing the expanded OPEC+ alliance with Russia in 2016.

More recently, the United Arab Emirates became another producer to announce its departure from OPEC. Venezuela is only considering withdrawal, while Iraq has expressed frustration but has yet to announce a formal exit.

A Venezuelan exit would not result in an immediate surge in crude production because of years of underinvestment, which is why the U.S. is seeking to take a large stake in the nation’s oil fields.

Venezuela currently produces about 1.16 million barrels per day, according to a Bloomberg survey, and is not subject to an active OPEC quota.

For President Trump, a U.S.-Venezuela energy alliance could prove very valuable by weakening OPEC, increasing non-Middle Eastern crude supplies, pressuring oil prices and locking down a massive reserve base in America’s backyard.

Trump Close To ‘Massive’ Deal For Seizing Stake In Venezuela’s Vast Oil Fields

Amid ongoing global oil supply disruptions due to the Iran war and Hormuz Strait crisis, and also as Ukraine’s war on Russian oil refineries and export terminals heats up, the Trump administration has been scrambling to tap new reliable and long-term energy sources.

Now, nearly eight months since the US miliary raid on Caracas which removed from power and captured socialist President Nicolás Maduro, and the Trump administration is said to be on the brink of a massive deal to gain ownership stake in the countries vast oil resources.

Axios is newly reporting Thursday of ‘negotiations’ (sure) in the works: “The historic deal would more than double U.S. oil reserves by drawing from a country that has the world’s largest proven reserves.”

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Big Oil Is Seeing Windfall Profits as Trump’s War on Iran Drives Up Prices

While the U.S. war on Iran is broadly unpopular in the U.S, including among a growing number of Donald Trump voters, at least one of the president’s core constituencies is happy: Big Oil.

The war’s straining of the global oil supply chain has delivered windfall profits to major fossil fuel corporations. The top two U.S. oil companies, ExxonMobil and Chevron, recently disclosed an astounding $26.5 billion in net income during the second quarter of 2026. Top independent U.S. oil refiners like Marathon, Valero, and Phillips 66 are seeing similar explosions in profits. Globally, a Guardian study found that eight of the world’s top oil companies took in more than $90 billion, or “more than $700,000 of profit every minute over the spring quarter.”

The word “oil company” might evoke generic imagery of rigs and refineries. But behind these entities are executives, board members, and top investors who are primary beneficiaries of Big Oil’s war profiteering and who hold commanding power within a fossil fuel power structure that stretches well beyond oil company boardrooms and into Wall Street and the corporate establishment more widely.

Big Oil’s War Profits

ExxonMobil and Chevron are the two largest U.S. oil corporations, together worth around $1 trillion. They are massive integrated fossil fuel companies whose operations span the entire chain of oil and gas production, and who have a presence across virtually the entire world.

In July, the two oil juggernauts together reported $26.5 billion in net income during the second quarter of 2026 — April through June of this year — as “they cashed in on surging crude and petrol prices caused by Donald Trump’s Iran war,” wrote the Financial Times.

Comparisons with last year provide a metric for measuring these enormous returns. In 2025, ExxonMobil reported second-quarter total earnings of $7.08 billion. In 2026, by comparison, that number leapt to $14.53 billion — more than a 105 percent increase, and “its best quarterly profit since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine caused a surge in oil prices,” according to the Financial Times.

In 2025, Chevron reported second-quarter earnings of $2.49 billion. In 2026, that number skyrocketed nearly four times — 384.7 percent — to $12.07 billion, which is Chevron’s largest quarterly haul ever.

The two corporations’ share prices have also soared compared to last year. On August 10, 2026, ExxonMobil’s share price closed at $159.79 — a 51 percent increase from its closing price of $105.83 on August 11, 2025. Similarly, Chevron’s share price closed at $194.91 on August 10, 2026 — a 27 percent increase from its closing of $153.45 on August 11, 2025.

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Climate Doomer Adam McKay Dismisses Questions About His 2nd Home in Ireland While Warning ‘Billions Will Die’ Because of Oil

Filmmaker Adam McKay, a DSA member and hardcore climate doomsayer, has finally addressed — indirectly, at least — the issue of his hypocritical campaign to kill the oil industry while jetting between homes in Los Angeles and Ireland.

Four years ago, Breitbart became the first news outlet to connect the dots between McKay’s frenzied climate warnings (e.g. the satirical Netflix film Don’t Look Up) and a flattering profile in Architectural Digest about his “quiet and relaxing” getaway home on 12 acres in Ireland. In the time since, the Anchorman director has ignored questions about why he won’t sacrifice the luxurious estate — and the 10,000-mile round trip that requires a considerable amount of jet fuel — while screaming at the world to “just stop oil.”

This week, however, McKay appears to have vented some of his frustrations about these “queries,” while massively downplaying the scale of his own carbon sins, in an essay for Current Affairs. The editorial, titled “The Gargantuan Lie That is Collapsing The World’s Climate,” presents a grim thesis: “Thinking we have time left to address climate change… is driving us toward full social collapse.”

And his rage is not directed at fascist chuds who stubbornly believe there isn’t enough evidence to demonstrate that human industry is the one and only determinative variable in global climate variations. The filmmaker is shaming liberal social climbers — “the ruling class, mainstream news media, and corporations” — for believing that the government must only take action that’s palatable to voters, setting far-off targets like “Net Zero by 2050.”

McKay’s warning does highlight an inconsistency in these left-wing, respectability-politics yuppies: if they really think global warming is an existential threat, they’d better act like it:

[I]f our institutions, news and elected officials continue to feed and water the oil company-conceived mega-falsehood that climate breakdown is something just “our great-grandkids need to worry about,” human civilization as we know it will collapse and billions could die. And we’re not talking about the far distant future. We are talking about collapse within years, not centuries. For real. [emphasis added]

On this point, credit the man for consistency. It’s been 20 years since Al Gore’s 10-year countdown to an irreversible “tipping point” for the fate of the planet. It’s been seven since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 12-year countdown to the world’s end. The climate “crisis” looks more and more like a grift when the deadline for urgent action keeps getting pushed back.

Oh wait, never mind; McKay did the same thing.

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Global Diesel Crunch Deepens As Record US Distillate Exports Race To Supply-Starved Europe

US distillate exports surged to a record last week as global supplies tightened. Disruptions across the Gulf area and various surrounding maritime chokepoints, as well as Ukrainian one-way attack drone strikes that have paralyzed portions of Russia’s energy infrastructure, have been a major boon for US refiners and export terminals along the Gulf of America.

To begin the week, Samantha Dart, co-head of global commodities research at Goldman Sachs, told Bloomberg TV, “The situation in Russia is really one thing that worries us a lot.”

Dart warned, “I’d say on the oil side, as I mentioned before, diesel, I think is the oil product that is most vulnerable right now, not just because you have your seasonal demand strength ahead just in the winter, but on the supply side. And to your point in the beginning, it’s not just that you run war, it’s what’s happening to the Russian refineries as well. And Russia is usually a pretty big exporter of diesel. And now they have restricted it.”

Last month, Goldman analyst Daan Struyven warned that “Diesel is at the epicenter of the supply squeeze.” 

As global supplies dwindle, US energy exporters on the Gulf of America emerged as the winners, shipping a record 1.9 million barrels to overseas customers last week.

Shipments have exceeded 1.5 million barrels a day for five consecutive weeks, with recent cargoes heading to northwestern European ports – the epicenter of a global diesel shortage caused by Gulf area refinery disruptions through Hormuz and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refining capacity.

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Trump demands oil companies lower gas prices for American consumers

President Donald Trump has taken to Truth Social to criticize Chevron CEO Mike Wirth following a television interview in which the executive touted his company’s success.

On Monday, the president argued that in the interview with Fox Business, Wirth failed to credit the administration’s efforts to assist oil companies, which the president said provided necessary strength and stability to the U.S. energy sector.

“The only thing he conveniently forgot to mention is that, without the genius, foresight, strength, and stability, of the TRUMP Administration, the Oil Industry, and our Country itself, would be DEAD!” Trump wrote.

Trump pointed to Chevron’s operations in Venezuela as an example of the administration’s influence, before calling on oil executives across the industry to lower fuel prices for consumers immediately.

“Get your consumer (retail!) Oil Prices DOWN, NOW!” the president stated.

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