Liberal Blogosphere

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:53:56 +0000

US uranium contracting wave is coming, Eagle Nuclear Energy CEO says

Amanda Stutt | August 5, 2026 |

Work at the Aurora uranium project. Image: Eagle Nuclear Energy.

Eagle Nuclear Energy (NASDAQ: NUCL) has been added to the Solactive Global Uranium & Nuclear Components Total Return Index, qualifying the company for inclusion in the Global X Uranium ETF (NYSE Arca: URA)— which manages over $5 billion in assets.

The company is advancing the Aurora uranium project, which it says is the largest mineable uranium deposit in the US on a land package that spans the Oregon-Nevada border.

Eagle began trading on Nasdaq in February after completing its merger with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. II. The transaction included a $30 million investment that CEO Mark Mukhija said would give the company roughly two years of funding for engineering, permitting and baseline environmental work.

Uranium is a crucial source of reliable baseload power as nuclear energy, and the US requires an estimated 32 million pounds of uranium annually for its current nuclear reactors. Energy Fuels’ White Mesa Mill in Utah is the only producing mill in the US. In 2024, the US purchased 50 million pounds of uranium, but only produced 677,000 pounds.

US nuclear utilities are approaching an “inflection point” that could trigger a new wave of uranium contracting as reactor demand rises and competition for Western supply intensifies, Mukhija told MINING.COM in an interview.

Years of underinvestment have left uranium production trailing reactor requirements, while utilities have not contracted enough replacement supply at the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle, Mukhija said.

“We’re just about to hit this inflection point of, ‘Oh, shoot, we’ve got to start contracting more uranium as well,’ because that front end of the fuel cycle hasn’t been contracting at replacement levels,” he said.

“You’re going to see a big influx, I believe, of the utilities coming in and contracting for that yellowcake.”

The expected arrival of small modular reactors (SMRs), alongside conventional reactor construction, restarts and life extensions, will add another layer of demand to an already constrained uranium market, Mukhija said.

“There’s already such a large cumulative deficit when it comes to uranium because not enough is being produced for all these ambitious goals that every country is signing up for — tripling or quadrupling their nuclear capacity,” he said.

China and India are pursuing some of the world’s largest reactor build-outs, putting additional pressure on supplies from Western producers. India’s efforts to secure uranium from Canada and Australia could leave fewer pounds available to US buyers, Mukhija said.

“The market has become very competitive,” he said. “The way that China and India are doing their reactor build-outs, there’s got to be more uranium coming online to address that — and especially Western uranium.”

The US is particularly exposed because its light-water reactor fleet requires converted and enriched uranium. Canada’s CANDU reactors, by comparison, can operate on natural uranium.

Washington’s ban on Russian enriched uranium imports has sharpened the focus on rebuilding domestic conversion and enrichment capacity. Mukhija expects government support to increasingly move further upstream to uranium mining.

“I think it’s only a matter of time before they get upstream into the uranium mines themselves,” he said. “That could be funding, it could be the introduction of a strategic uranium reserve, things of that nature.”

Eagle is a member of the US Department of Energy’s Defense Production Act Nuclear Fuel Cycle Consortium, an initiative intended to coordinate government and industry efforts across mining, milling, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, recycling and reprocessing. The consortium includes representatives from more than 90 companies, according to the DOE.

“There is a coordinated effort from the DOE that’s happening right now in the background,” Mukhija said. “The focus has been on enrichment and conversion initially, but we think it’s a matter of time before it gets upstream into the actual uranium mining itself.”

Aurora targets early 2030s

Eagle is advancing the Aurora uranium project as part of its strategy to combine domestic uranium supply with advanced reactor technology.

Aurora hosts an indicated resource of 32.75 million lb. uranium oxide and an inferred resource of 4.98 million lb., according to the company.

Eagle Nuclear Energy is awaiting state-level approvals for a drill program supporting a prefeasibility study targeted for the second half of 2027. Eagle has engaged BBA USA, SLR International and Yukuskokon Professional Services to support the work, the company said in July.

Mukhija said Eagle could bring Aurora into commercial production in the early 2030s, subject to permitting, technical studies and project development.

“If everything goes to plan, you’re looking at the early 2030s,” he said. “I would say 2032 could be a baseline estimate for now.”

“Permitting would be the biggest lead time,” he added. “We want to make sure we do all of the requisite studies, make sure we have all of the permits that are required and just do things the right way.”

The timeline would position Aurora to enter production as some existing Canadian operations approach depletion and new reactors increase demand for uranium.

SMR demand

Eagle is also developing small, long-life and very small, long-life modular reactor designs for industrial and grid applications. The company’s aim is to create an integrated nuclear business spanning uranium production and power generation.

Mukhija expects SMRs to eventually find a market among mining companies, particularly at remote operations that lack grid connections and other infrastructure. However, he said miners’ reluctance to adopt the technology reflects its early commercial stage rather than a lack of interest.

“There’s not really a proven SMR out there that’s commercialized and available,” he said. “Once we get to that point where there are commercially available SMRs and they’ve been deployed and tested and are ready to provide power, I think [miners] will jump on that.”

“Mines are usually in remote areas. There’s a lack of access, there’s a lack of water and there’s not really much infrastructure nearby,” he added. “Once these power sources are readily available, I believe you will see a lot of mining companies jump on board.”

Mukhija pointed to four advanced reactor designs that achieved zero-power criticality under the DOE’s Reactor Pilot Program as evidence that firm government deadlines can accelerate nuclear development. The department announced the fourth milestone in July.

“It shows that when the government sets timelines and it sets goals, it does accelerate innovation,” he said.

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:53:05 +0000

The Normalcy of American Wars

by Andrew P. Napolitano | Aug 7, 2026 |

The war in Iran is unlawful and unconstitutional, but in post-World War II America, it is normal. Here is the backstory.

When President Donald Trump decided to begin bombing Iran last June, he did not state a coherent or lawful reason for doing so. His director of national intelligence and his own CIA had publicly told him that Iran did not possess a nuclear weapon and had ceased building one in 2005.

His secretary of state told him that Iran and Israel had threatened each other, but he could not articulate how Iran imminently threatened the United States. Yet, since Israel planned to attack Iran, he wanted the U.S. to help Israel do so. This was not a lawful request as the U.S. has no treaty with Israel and, under treaties to which the U.S. is a party, the legal bases for all offensive wars can only be treaty compliance or prevention of an imminent attack.

When Trump addressed the nation, his helter-skelter rationale argued for replacing Iran’s government, destroying its civilian-use enriched uranium, destroying its ability to build a bomb it wasn’t building, and neutralizing its offensive and defensive weaponry. None of these goals was lawful; nor was attacking a Tehran girls school. There was no mention of an imminent attack on the U.S. or the economic effect of war on the vital international oil super-highway, the Strait of Hormuz.

No one in Trump’s inner circle registered disagreement, except his vice president and his director of counterterrorism. They told him there was no legal or constitutional basis for his war.

They were correct, but Trump had history on his side.

For much of American history, presidents have steadily accumulated the power to wage war while Congress has gradually surrendered the constitutional authority that the Framers explicitly entrusted to it. This transformation has weakened constitutional checks and balances, expanded executive power beyond its constitutional limits, claimed millions of lives, cost trillions of dollars, and repeatedly drawn the United States into conflicts that had little or nothing to do with defending America.

The Constitution is remarkably clear on the question of war. Article I grants Congress · not the president · the power to declare war. The president, under Article II, wages war, but only after Congress has authorized it.

James Madison argued that the executive branch is the branch “most interested in war, and most prone to it,” which is precisely why the Constitution deliberately divided the war power.

The Framers believed that no single individual should possess the authority to plunge the nation into armed conflict, yet over the past eight decades, presidents of both political parties have steadily ignored these constitutional limits.

President Harry Truman committed hundreds of thousands of American troops to combat in Korea without obtaining a declaration of war from Congress because he said U.S. troops there constituted a “police action.”

The pattern only intensified during the Vietnam War. Although Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, it was based on a fraud and effectively delegated its congressional constitutional responsibility to the president. The result was years of escalating conflict that ultimately claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese while achieving none of its stated objectives.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, fundamentally accelerated this trend. Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force and the Patriot Act · the former granting the president broad authority to pursue those responsible for the attacks, and the latter substantially impairing rights protected by the Fourth Amendment.

What was presented as a targeted war authorization evolved into legal justifications for military operations across multiple countries against groups that did not even exist in 2001.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq illustrate the costs of this expansive approach. The war in Afghanistan lasted two decades before ending with the return of the Taliban to power. Iraq was invaded based on fabricated or erroneous intelligence assessments regarding weapons of mass destruction.

The proper role of government · according to Thomas Jefferson, its only role · is to protect life, liberty and property, not to remake foreign societies through military force. Wars of choice generate unintended consequences, empower new enemies, create refugee crises and expand government power at home.

The economic and human consequences are equally profound. Massive defense expenditures have pushed the debt of the federal government to nearly $40 trillion. A government willing to kill millions and spend trillions on foreign wars while borrowing money to pay the interest on borrowed money will one day collapse of its own weight; as have all empires.

A genuinely constitutional foreign policy would look very different. Military force should be reserved for defending the United States against actual or truly imminent attacks, not speculative threats or ambitious nation-building projects, or favors for other countries. Congress should debate and vote openly before committing American forces to any combat.

Strong national defense does not require perpetual war. A capable military can deter aggression. Diplomacy, commerce and peaceful engagement generally serve American interests more effectively than military intervention.

George Washington’s warning against entangling foreign commitments and John Quincy Adams’s declaration that America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy” remain relevant guides for a republic committed to liberty, rather than an empire committed to conquest. Of course, monsters abroad can follow you home.

The constitutional allocation of war powers exists not as a procedural rule but as a substantive safeguard for freedom itself. Every unnecessary war expands executive authority, enlarges government, consumes wealth, risks American lives without clear necessity and diminishes personal liberty.

The best protection against endless conflict is a less powerful presidency and a renewed commitment to the Constitution’s deliberate separation of powers and the principle that the United States should fight only when its own security imminently and genuinely requires it.

Is it any wonder that the U.S. is unwilling or unable to justify its recent killings of 163 Tehran school girls and their teachers?

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the US Constitution. The most recent is Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty. To find out more about Judge Napolitano and to read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2025 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO – DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:51:34 +0000

Iran Is a Wake-Up Call for the Defense Establishment

by Ioannis Vlahos | Aug 6, 2026 |

As the war in Iran has reached its fifth month, progress fails to be made and opposition continues to mount. And while President Donald Trump certainly deserves his fair share of the blame, the playbook he’s using is in no way his own.

Since the Cold War, the United States has become the preeminent world power, utilizing its heavily budgeted and expansive military to enforce its hegemony across the globe. During the later years of the 20th century especially, this has primarily taken the form of strategic bombing and overwhelming air power.

From the Gulf War to Iran, US defense leaders have made use of this strategy extensively, and besides serving as a destructive show of force, many claim it is the future of human warfare, and that high tech aircraft and weapons systems can and will be able to secure victory without deploying troops on the ground.

Dan Grazier, who is a Senior Fellow and Director of the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center, published a recent report disputing this very notion, claiming the limits of air power – which have been obvious in the current Iran war – are being largely ignored by the defense establishment in favor of plans for an expensive and high tech Air Force.

As such, DoD officials have been pushing extensively for new contracts and programs that aim to create next generation air power, featuring expensive fighters, stealth bombers, and various drone models. President Donald Trump launched the Iran War with this paradigm in mind, demonstrated by the ferocity of strikes carried out in the country by US and Israeli forces.

“But these plans, especially with regard to traditional methods, ignore hard-earned historical lessons. In some cases, proposals are based on historical myths and imagined outcomes,” Grazier said in his report, entitled “The Future of American Airpower.” “The force that will result from the current plans, even if the contractors manage to deliver aircraft that perform as promised, will not meet the nation’s security needs because the assumptions about warfare on which the plans are based are fundamentally wrong.”

The Iran War not only illustrated the defense establishment’s affinity for aerial bombardment, but it also greatly exposed the problematic nature of this framework as official DoD strategy.

Since the end of WW1, military theorists across the world have devised strategies that would supposedly win wars using aircraft alone, with much of the emphasis placed on the role of bomber fleets and the wholesale destruction they wrought. These ideas were put to the test in a slew of conflicts during the 20th century, notably WW2 and the Gulf War, and given its destructive capabilities many began to hold air power as a military priority – which, according to Grazier, is a dangerous fallacy.

“Both of these much-touted examples of airpower failed completely. Allied soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944. General Schwartzkopf resorted to ordering his forces to execute the famous ‘Left Hook’ that ended the Gulf War after 100 hours of fighting on the ground,” Grazier said in his report. “If either of these bombing campaigns worked as their designers intended, the enemy would have surrendered before any ground troops began to move.”

Grazier argues not only that current air power theory is rife with misconceptions, but that it is largely outdated and out of touch with 21st century warfare. “Today, there are many ways to deliver munitions to any point on the globe. With the advent of long-range rocket artillery, cruise and ballistic missiles, and uncrewed aircraft, the centrality and even relevance of manned strike fighters and bombers diminish by the day.”

“In the 21st century, there is no need for fleets of bombers to be escorted by swarms of fighters to fly over the enemy’s capital. Put another way, there is no longer a need to establish general theater air superiority.”

Besides the declining utility of traditional aircraft, Grazier also points out that the long held notions of air power theory touted by the defense establishment are both obsolete and risky. Especially in the past two decades, administrations have been increasingly starting and waging conflicts almost exclusively using airstrikes, which according to Grazier “lowers the threshold for war initiation, but does not deliver war conclusion.”

“This creates a potential dilemma for a politician,” says Grazier. If the airstrikes fail to deliver the promised results, an all-too-common occurrence, the politician then must decide to admit defeat or escalate the situation with other military means. Escalation may include deploying ground troops to achieve a political goal that was not originally deemed worthy of such a sacrifice.”

Grazier argues that the so-called “Normandy Threshold” should be the standard for foreign policy: if the potential conflict is not deemed dire enough to deploy ground forces, then no military action should be taken at all.

While the US military excels in destruction, it erroneously sets it as the metric for strategic success. The belief that simply bombing an enemy nation into oblivion will ensure victory has emboldened the defense establishment to launch and pursue wars with reckless abandon, leaving behind costly and unpopular failures in their wake.

The Iran War has exemplified this problem tremendously. Besides having the lowest popular support of any conflict in American history, over-reliance on air supremacy has achieved none of the war’s stated objectives. Iran continues to successfully withstand Israeli-American strikes while causing significant disruption to regional bases and shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

“Because the US has no way of controlling outcomes on the ground, the Iranians will continue to put into power the people they want” Grazier tells Antiwar.com in an interview. “When those people realize the Americans aren’t crashing across the shore, the Iranian leaders almost certainly won’t give any significant concessions because they don’t have to. It would seem cowardly for them to do so because the United States isn’t willing to fully commit to the conflict.”

Notwithstanding the dubious motives for entering Iran, like Josef Stalin’s Winter War, the conflict has resulted in viral embarrassment for the United States military and has showcased its glaring weaknesses. Dr. Jennifer Kavanagh, senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, claims that depleted munitions, the vulnerability of forward bases and air defense equipment and the failure to completely eliminate Iranian missile fire has raised serious questions about the state of the US military and its effectiveness in future conflicts, especially one with China.

“The bottom line is that the Iran war has cast a spotlight on the flaws and weaknesses in U.S. military strategy, both in general and specifically as it pertains to contingencies in Asia” Kavanagh said in her article. “The United States has for decades assumed that its forward bases will be defensible and that power projection assets such as bombers, aircraft carriers, and fighter jets will allow the United States to prevail in military contests even far from home.”

“If these things were ever true, they are not anymore” she continues. “Money and time can fix munitions shortages in the medium term, but they cannot solve these more serious and, in many ways, intractable strategic shortcomings. In an increasingly multipolar world where access to military power has been democratized and the United States has a smaller advantage than in the past, what the United States can achieve with military force will be more limited. U.S. strategic aims and ambitions will need to adjust accordingly.”

Grazier plans to publish a report later this year detailing his proposed reforms, which would consist of reverting the military to its pre-1947 organization with the Army and the Navy. As for the Air Force, Grazier says that it “should be broken up into its useful parts by military function”; this essentially means delegating a reduced force of fighters and bombers to the Army Air Defense and Field Artillery branches, respectively. He also proposes integrating fixed-wing cargo aircraft into the Army’s Transportation Corps, whose logistics officers could then “integrate them into a cohesive operational concept.”

America’s military is not weak, but has to this day operated on strategies and ideas that have become ineffectual in modern warfare. Investing in the hottest and priciest tech doesn’t translate into battlefield success. Until it can reform and adapt for national defense, the military establishment may want to rethink waging wars that most Americans never wanted in the first place.

Ioannis Vlahos is an editorial assistant and writer for AntiWar.com. He studies history and journalism at George Mason University. Contact: ivlaho

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:27:41 +0000

Iran Says Hormuz Stays Closed Until U.S. Meets Six Sweeping Demands
By Tom Kool - Aug 08, 2026
Iran has effectively rejected expectations of an imminent reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, laying out sweeping conditions that would require the United States to fundamentally change its policy toward Tehran.
In a statement issued by Mohammad Baqer Zolghadr, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Tehran said the strait would remain closed until Washington ends what Iran described as its hostile behavior. The six demands include an end to U.S. threats and military action, a permanent end to the war, withdrawal of U.S. naval and air forces from around Iran, compensation for war damages, sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian assets.
Image: Official statement from the Supreme National Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran
The statement is significant because it indicates that the much-discussed U.S.-Iran draft agreement does not, at least from Tehran's perspective, amount to a deal to reopen Hormuz. Any agreement would ultimately require approval from Iran's Supreme National Security Council.
The shipping data also points to continued disruption. Just 33 vessels transited Hormuz from Monday through Thursday, down from 50 during the same period the previous week, while only six crude tankers have reportedly cleared the strait outbound so far this week. The decline comes despite expectations that Iran and Oman were close to an arrangement governing a shipping corridor.
That uncertainty has kept the energy market on edge. Iran has also been considering restrictions on U.S. and Israeli vessels, while previous proposals for transit fees have added another layer of uncertainty. The European Union has already accused Iran's IRGC Navy of enforcing a screening and toll system for vessels using the strait.
Washington, however, is presenting a considerably more optimistic picture. Vice President JD Vance said the U.S. expects oil and gas flows from the Gulf to eventually return to pre-war levels. He also said Iran had told Washington it had no plans to impose tolls, although the U.S. does not fully trust Tehran's assurances.
That leaves the market facing two very different interpretations of the same negotiations. Washington is talking about restoring normal energy flows. Tehran is demanding major political, military and financial concessions before reopening Hormuz.
For oil traders, the key question is therefore no longer simply whether talks are taking place, but whether the two sides are actually negotiating the same outcome.
By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:50:10 +0000

Before Hormuz, There Was Suez: What Trump Can Learn From Eisenhower
An emerging Oman-Iran deal may offend Washington’s instincts, but America’s real interest has never been control. It has always been keeping the world’s most important waterways open.

by Trita Parsi | Aug 6, 2026 |
Reprinted with permission from Trita Parsi’s Substack.
Oman and Iran appear close to a temporary arrangement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, potentially providing both an exit from the current round of fighting and the foundation for a more durable maritime order. Washington should welcome such an agreement – even if it acknowledges a degree of Iranian authority in administering traffic through the strait – because US interest dictates that open and non-discriminatory passage must be given priority over control.
The emerging formula would reportedly divide responsibility for the shipping lanes. Vessels entering the Persian Gulf would travel through waters administered by Iran, while outbound traffic would pass through an Omani-administered route. Iran would be notified of departing vessels and, while this has not yet been discussed, Tehran appears open to also ensuring that Oman would be notified of incoming traffic. Tehran and Muscat may collect and share fees for specified security and environmental services, although this sensitive issue has not yet been settled. The negotiations remain fluid, and any agreement is reportedly linked to the lifting of the American blockade on Iranian ports.
The arrangement would represent a slight climbdown by Tehran. Iran’s earlier position would have required traffic in both directions to pass through some portion of Iranian waters as well as Omani waters. That would have brought even ships already inside the Persian Gulf under an Iranian-administered transit system. The emerging division of lanes would give Oman primary responsibility for outbound shipping and limit the universe of vessels requiring Iranian approval or coordination.
If successful – and if Washington accepts it – the agreement could help end the present fighting. It remains unclear whether that would restore the previous American-Iranian memorandum of understanding or require a new framework. Nor does it in and of itself move the needle on two other major stumbling blocks: Iran’s demand for a regional ceasefire and Washington’s demands on Iran’s nuclear activities.
The Trump administration will likely receive strong pushback from hawkish elements in Washington and Israel who will complain over the arrangement’s de facto acceptance and legitimization of Iran (and Oman’s) management of the Strait.
But this critique is borne out of a confusion of what the US’s actual core interest in the Strait is: The free and predictable flow of commerce or preventing the ability of a hostile power to assert control.
The Trump administration has increasingly framed the objective as preventing Iran from “controlling” the strait. Yet the central American interest in strategic waterways has historically been less about who administers them than about whether ships can pass through them freely, predictably and without discrimination. Preventing a hostile state from acquiring coercive leverage has generally been a means of preserving passage, not an end that supersedes passage itself.
That hierarchy of interests matters. If reopening the strait requires acknowledging that Iran possesses some capacity to regulate traffic in waters along its coast, Washington should not reject an agreement merely because it fails to preserve the appearance of unqualified American dominance.
The Suez crisis provides the clearest example. In 1956, Egypt’s president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalized the Suez Canal Company, displacing the British- and French-controlled corporation that had operated one of the world’s most important commercial arteries. Britain and France regarded nationalization not merely as an economic injury but as a strategic humiliation and, together with Israel, invaded Egypt.
President Dwight Eisenhower refused to support them. After rejecting the Anglo-French invasion, Eisenhower’s administration did not make restoration of British or international ownership a condition for accepting Egypt’s continued administration of the canal. Instead, Washington opposed the invasion and pressed for a diplomatic arrangement that would preserve international access. The applicable legal regime emphasized the canal’s free use by ships of all countries on equal terms, while leaving Egypt responsible for administering and defending the waterway.
Egyptian control was not the same as unrestricted Egyptian discretion. The distinction was crucial. Washington could accept Egyptian sovereignty over the canal while insisting that sovereignty be exercised within rules guaranteeing nondiscriminatory passage. The overriding American interest was not which flag flew over the canal authority, but whether the canal remained open under internationally accepted rules.
A crucial detail that should not be overlooked: Egypt at the time was not an American ally, whereas France and the UK were. Indeed, Egypt was at the time closely aligned with the Soviet Union though not formally allied with Moscow. Washington nevertheless accepted continued Egyptian administration of the canal rather than seeking to reverse nationalization, provided freedom of navigation was preserved.
The Turkish Straits offer another instructive precedent. Under the 1936 Montreux Convention, Turkey recovered control over the Bosporus and Dardanelles, including the right to remilitarize and defend them. Yet commercial vessels retained freedom of passage under an internationally recognized regime. The United States has lived for decades with a strategically important NATO ally exercising extensive authority over a waterway connecting the Black Sea with the Mediterranean – even though Turkey can regulate warship access and, in wartime, exercise additional powers.
The South China Sea makes the same point from another direction. The United States does not claim territory there and formally takes no position on sovereignty over most disputed features. It objects instead to excessive maritime claims, coercion and unlawful restrictions on navigation and overflight. American naval operations are designed to demonstrate that ships and aircraft may exercise rights recognized by international law regardless of which government claims nearby rocks, reefs or waters.
Washington certainly cares about China’s growing regional power. Its legal position, however, is not that the United States must control the South China Sea. It is that no coastal power may transform contested waters into an exclusive domain or condition lawful passage on political obedience. Once again, the preservation of navigational rights lies at the heart of the U.S. legal position. Strategically, Washington’s concern about control extends beyond navigation alone, but it is precisely because control creates the capacity to restrict those rights – and to alter the regional balance of power – that it commands such attention.
Iran, of course, is viewed in Washington as a hostile power. Few American officials would be comfortable with an arrangement that left Tehran able to close the Strait of Hormuz at will. Any agreement must therefore contain credible safeguards: passage should be nondiscriminatory; notification procedures should not become a discretionary licensing system; service charges should be limited to reasonable fees for services rendered rather than function as political tolls; and disputes should be subject to an agreed international mechanism.
But Washington must also acknowledge the strategic reality the war has exposed. The conflict did not give Iran the capacity to close the strait. It revealed a capacity Iran already possessed – perhaps to a greater extent than either Washington or Tehran had fully appreciated.
Crucially, a diplomatic agreement recognizing that reality would not expand Iran’s military power. Rather, it would seek to limit that ability through a legally and politically binding agreement that can be sustained for the simple reason that it meets the core interests of all relevant parties.
The alternative is to insist that even the symbolism of Iranian control is intolerable. But unless the United States can reliably eliminate Iran’s ability to threaten shipping – a goal it has thus far failed to achieve and appears increasingly incapable of achieving – that position offers no practical path to reopening the waterway. Instead, it creates the conditions for an endless war: a militarily unattainable objective coupled with a political dynamic that makes pursuing it indefinitely more acceptable than abandoning it.
If President Trump concludes that keeping the strait open is more important than denying Iran all visible administrative authority, an agreement appears possible. If he decides that American primacy requires rejecting any arrangement that acknowledges Iranian leverage, the likely result will be renewed military action—even though military action has so far failed to guarantee passage.
Incidentally, the elevation of control over access is closely associated with the postwar American pursuit of global primacy – the very same grand strategy that has led to America almost always being at war.
A settlement that subjects Iranian and Omani administration to predictable, nondiscriminatory international standards may not appear attractive, but would meet America’s core interest of free commerce in a region with fast diminishing strategic significance. Washington should judge it by whether ships can pass—not by whether the agreement preserves the illusion that Iran lacks leverage over waters along its own coast that we now know it always enjoyed.
Trita Parsi is the Executive VP of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and an award-winning author. Washingtonian Magazine has named him one of the 25 most influential voices on foreign policy. Noam Chomsky calls him “one of the most distinguished scholars on Iran”
Visit Trita Paris’s Substack and subscribe.

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:16:02 +0000

Glencore’s energy trading profits soar on Iran war

Reuters | August 5, 2026 |
A view of the Horne smelter. (Image courtesy of Glencore Canada.)
Glencore (LON: GLEN) earned 66 times more from energy trading in the first half of 2026 than it did a year earlier, joining other major commodity traders profiting from market turmoil created by the Iran war.
Glencore booked $2.66 billion in first-half adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) from trading on Wednesday, up from just $40 million a year earlier.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday accused oil majors ExxonMobil XOM.N and Chevron CVX.N of making “too much money” with high gasoline prices a risk for his Republican Party as it seeks to retain control of Congress in November midterm elections.
Glencore joins the trading desks of European oil majors BP BP.L, Shell SHEL.L, TotalEnergies TTEF.PA and rival trading house Trafigura in reaping billions in profits this year.
Trafigura reported $4.1 billion in net profit for the six months through March.
Crude, fuel and LNG prices hit all-time record or multi-year highs earlier this year as the Iran war effectively halted tanker traffic leaving the Gulf.
“The Oil and Gas department was the primary contributor, which benefited from significant dislocations across LNG, oil and shipping markets,” Glencore CEO Gary Nagle said.
Its first-half results put it on track to rebound from three straight years of lower earnings from energy marketing.
Its trading volumes surged to around 5.2 million barrels per day of crude and fuels, about 24% more than its 2025 average, Glencore’s results showed on Wednesday.
Looking ahead to the second half, Glencore said that significant inventory drawdowns had left oil markets increasingly sensitive to disruptions.
Glencore shares were up 3.4% at 1130 GMT.
(Reporting by Robert Harvey; editing by Jason Neely)

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:14:56 +0000

Sasol’s wartime windfall revives debate over coal’s future

Bloomberg News | August 5, 2026 |
Sasol’s Secunda synthetic fuel plant. Credit: Wikipedia
Sasol Ltd., the world’s largest producer of fuel from coal, is reaping the benefits of a surge in fuel prices due to the Iran war, while helping shield its home market of South Africa from the resulting supply shock.
Chief Executive Officer Simon Baloyi has increased his focus on coal-to-liquids fuel output, along with production from its crude refinery, at an opportune time.
“Sasol continues to play a very key and meaningful role into what I will call the national security of the country,” Baloyi said in an interview in Bloomberg Johannesburg office on Tuesday. The company needs to preserve the Fischer-Tropsch process technology “to make sure that we can produce the required critical chemicals during a time like this,” he said.
The company expects to report earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of as much as 62 billion rand ($3.8 billion) in the year ended June 30, Sasol said in a filing on Wednesday. That compares with 52 billion rand in the same period a year earlier.
Sasol’s coal-to-liquids technology makes it one of South Africa’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, putting it at odds with environmental groups. Investors, however, are weighing the long-term sustainability of the business against its plan to cut emissions 30% by 2030.
Under Baloyi, the company has doubled down on its synthetic-fuels operations while seeking to lower carbon intensity by maximizing production, reducing coal used for power generation and increasing its use of renewable energy.
Sasol has built about 500 megawatts of renewable-energy capacity, secured more than twice that amount, and plans to procure 2,000 megawatts over time. The company is also pursuing carbon-offset projects, Baloyi said.
At the same time, the company’s Secunda hub increased production to the highest in five years, according to a business update last month, helping South Africa plug a gap left by fuel imports from the Middle East that are stuck in the Strait of Hormuz, along with imported oil products from the US.
South Africa’s refining sector shrank by about half in the years before the war due to under-investment and accidents that closed plants. That’s left Sasol with nearly two-thirds of operational fuel-making capacity in the country. A unit of Glencore Plc owns the only other working refinery.
Sasol was left with buying all the crude to run the 108,000 barrel-a-day Natref refinery after then-partner Prax Group went into business administration last year.
“We were fortunate because we can run all of it ourselves while refinery margins are extremely high,” Baloyi said, adding that full ownership of a refinery isn’t always beneficial. “In some instances it can be a bad thing.”
Prax’s stake is being sold in a process that is expected to conclude by the end of the year, he said.
With the war pushing oil prices beyond $100 a barrel, Sasol’s been realizing a healthy profit considering its $50 breakeven level. The conflict has also taken a toll, however. Operations at the Oryx gas-to-liquids plant in the Persian Gulf that it owns with QatarEnergy were first halted days after the start of the conflict.
Production almost resumed at one point, Baloyi said. “We were busy with startup activities, then the war flared up, then we shut down,” he said.

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:14:45 +0000

Mosaic phosphate pains highlight Hormuz fertilizer disruption

Bloomberg News | August 5, 2026 |
Image: Mosaic
Mosaic Co.’s pullbacks in fertilizer production haven’t been enough to alleviate the impact of surging input costs from the war in Iran.
Skyrocketing prices for the sulfur required for phosphate fertilizer production caused a swing to a net loss for the Tampa-based company’s second quarter, from a year-earlier profit. Mosaic is the US’s largest phosphate producer, and nearly half of the world’s sulfur trade is linked to countries exposed to disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.
“The ongoing Strait of Hormuz closure and the more recent Kazakhstan blockade continue to impact the global flow of sulfur, and spot prices remain unsustainably high,” Chief Executive Officer Bruce Bodine said on a call with analysts. “We have curtailed production in the US and Brazil simply because phosphate industry economics cannot accommodate current sulfur prices.”
The company’s plant in Faustina, Louisiana, remains completely idled, while its Bartow, Florida, facility is running at 40% of its targeted annual operating rate, the company said. The producer earlier this year also took about a million tons of phosphate production offline in Brazil, and pulled back further in July.
Mosaic, along with other North American fertilizer producers, has faced headwinds as inflation-pressed farmers defer the use of key crop nutrients. But peers Nutrien Ltd. and CF Industries Holdings Inc. have fared better as they produce more nitrogen fertilizers, which do not require sulfur, and last quarter reported a windfall as prices spiked.
Those soaring fertilizer prices have prompted the Trump administration to ramp up antitrust scrutiny of the industry. The White House also in June suspended duties on Moroccan phosphate for eight months or until the declared emergency over fertilizer availability ends, in a bid to address affordability for farmers. Those levies had been issued about five years ago following a petition from Mosaic.
The suspension has not yet impacted US phosphate prices, and elevated prices elsewhere in the world create “little incentive for producers to send fertilizer to the US,” Bodine said. He added that the company is “confident” the duties should continue once the suspension ends.
Mosaic posted a $104 million operating loss in its phosphate segment. That compares to an $8 million loss a year earlier. Sulfur costs in the second quarter averaged $522 per long ton, up from $379 in the first quarter. Those prices are set to rise further, as Mosaic settled third-quarter contracts for the input at $705 per long ton.
New Orleans spot diammonium phosphate prices are at the highest levels in about a year, according to data from Bloomberg Green Markets as of July 31.
(By Ilena Peng)

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:11:32 +0000

AU
Ariana Resources targets 2028 gold production from rare Zimbabwe greenfield mine

Reuters | August 6, 2026 |
(Image courtesy of Ariana Resources.)
London-listed Ariana Resources expects to start producing gold from its greenfield project in Zimbabwe in 2028, the company’s managing director Kerim Sener said on Thursday.
Ariana’s Dokwe project, about 110 kilometres (68 miles) north-west of Zimbabwe’s second-largest city Bulawayo, is the first large-scale greenfield project in the country in decades.
The southern African country has a long history of gold production, but has struggled to attract significant investment since international mining firms including Rio Tinto, Delta Gold and Kinross exited the country more than two decades ago amid a political and economic crisis.
A handful of mid-tier miners and a host of small-scale operators lifted Zimbabwe’s annual gold production to 46.7 metric tons in 2025 from a low of 3 tons in 2008, mostly by reviving and expanding old mines.
The country’s top miners include the foreign-listed Caledonia Mining Corporation and Namib Minerals , state-backed Mutapa Gold Resources and a unit of the locally owned Padenga.
With Dokwe’s 1.13 million ounces of reserves, Ariana forecasts open pit mine output to peak at 100,000 ounces per year over a 20-year project lifespan, according to a pre-feasibility study.
A definitive feasibility study is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2027.
“With a fair wind, I’d like to think that we’re pouring our first gold in 2028,” Sener told Reuters.
Ariana finds the Dokwe greenfield deposit’s qualities compelling, he said, bucking the established trend of acquiring brownfield assets.
“Dokwe represented an opportunity to tackle what is the largest undeveloped gold deposit in Zimbabwe at the present time,” Sener said.
“The other thing is the metallurgy. It looks to be fairly straightforward, a large part of the gold is amenable to gravity recovery,” he added.
Sener said there was an ongoing shift in foreign investor sentiment towards Zimbabwe under the administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took over from long-time leader Robert Mugabe after a 2017 coup.
(Reporting by Nelson Banya, Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:11:43 +0000

AU
WGC, OMM partner to advance artisanal and small-scale gold mining

Staff Writer | August 5, 2026 |
Artisanal gold miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Image by Robert Carruba, Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH – The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), Flickr.)
The World Gold Council (WGC), OCIM Metals and Mining SA (OMM) announced on Wednesday a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support the formalization of artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM).
This partnership combines WGC’s experience in standards development, best practices and gold market infrastructure with OMM’s operational experience in centralized processing plants. The goal is to improve conditions in the ASGM sector, reducing illicit activity and creating opportunities for more legitimate ASGM production to enter the formal global supply chain.
The agreement comes at a moment where there’s increasing pressure to control illicit trade, mercury pollution and unsafe labour practices.
Together, they plan to develop a global standard for ASGM processing plants, which includes practicing due diligence, traceability and environmental and safety performance. The standard will also support WGC’s gold processing initiative, which aims to pilot formalization models in host countries.
They also plan to build blueprint frameworks to guide policymakers, investors and others on responsible processing infrastructure, with hopes that with more upstream control, there will be less harm associated with the sector.
Both organizations have a shared commitment to foster practical and scalable solutions that can support miners, governments and the industry to build more transparent and sustainable gold supply chains.
WGC’s plan for ASGM formalization focuses on three aspects: origin verification, centralized processing plants and stronger participation by legitimate buyers to combat illicit mining practices. OMM, on the other hand, has formalized partnerships with over 200 small-scale mining operations in Peru, being expected to produce 1,000 kg of gold by the end of this year.
These facilities have the capacity to produce 100,000 tons a year, meaning that they will be able to scale operations while still ensuring full traceability and banking-grade compliance through the ASGM value chain.

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:05:56 +0000

US uranium contracting wave is coming, Eagle Nuclear Energy CEO says

Amanda Stutt | August 5, 2026 |
Work at the Aurora uranium project. Image: Eagle Nuclear Energy.
Eagle Nuclear Energy (NASDAQ: NUCL) has been added to the Solactive Global Uranium & Nuclear Components Total Return Index, qualifying the company for inclusion in the Global X Uranium ETF (NYSE Arca: URA)— which manages over $5 billion in assets.
The company is advancing the Aurora uranium project, which it says is the largest mineable uranium deposit in the US on a land package that spans the Oregon-Nevada border.
Eagle began trading on Nasdaq in February after completing its merger with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. II. The transaction included a $30 million investment that CEO Mark Mukhija said would give the company roughly two years of funding for engineering, permitting and baseline environmental work.
Uranium is a crucial source of reliable baseload power as nuclear energy, and the US requires an estimated 32 million pounds of uranium annually for its current nuclear reactors. Energy Fuels’ White Mesa Mill in Utah is the only producing mill in the US. In 2024, the US purchased 50 million pounds of uranium, but only produced 677,000 pounds.
US nuclear utilities are approaching an “inflection point” that could trigger a new wave of uranium contracting as reactor demand rises and competition for Western supply intensifies, Mukhija told MINING.COM in an interview.
Years of underinvestment have left uranium production trailing reactor requirements, while utilities have not contracted enough replacement supply at the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle, Mukhija said.
“We’re just about to hit this inflection point of, ‘Oh, shoot, we’ve got to start contracting more uranium as well,’ because that front end of the fuel cycle hasn’t been contracting at replacement levels,” he said.
“You’re going to see a big influx, I believe, of the utilities coming in and contracting for that yellowcake.”
The expected arrival of small modular reactors (SMRs), alongside conventional reactor construction, restarts and life extensions, will add another layer of demand to an already constrained uranium market, Mukhija said.
“There’s already such a large cumulative deficit when it comes to uranium because not enough is being produced for all these ambitious goals that every country is signing up for — tripling or quadrupling their nuclear capacity,” he said.
China and India are pursuing some of the world’s largest reactor build-outs, putting additional pressure on supplies from Western producers. India’s efforts to secure uranium from Canada and Australia could leave fewer pounds available to US buyers, Mukhija said.
“The market has become very competitive,” he said. “The way that China and India are doing their reactor build-outs, there’s got to be more uranium coming online to address that — and especially Western uranium.”
The US is particularly exposed because its light-water reactor fleet requires converted and enriched uranium. Canada’s CANDU reactors, by comparison, can operate on natural uranium.
Washington’s ban on Russian enriched uranium imports has sharpened the focus on rebuilding domestic conversion and enrichment capacity. Mukhija expects government support to increasingly move further upstream to uranium mining.
“I think it’s only a matter of time before they get upstream into the uranium mines themselves,” he said. “That could be funding, it could be the introduction of a strategic uranium reserve, things of that nature.”
Eagle is a member of the US Department of Energy’s Defense Production Act Nuclear Fuel Cycle Consortium, an initiative intended to coordinate government and industry efforts across mining, milling, conversion, enrichment, fuel fabrication, recycling and reprocessing. The consortium includes representatives from more than 90 companies, according to the DOE.
“There is a coordinated effort from the DOE that’s happening right now in the background,” Mukhija said. “The focus has been on enrichment and conversion initially, but we think it’s a matter of time before it gets upstream into the actual uranium mining itself.”
Aurora targets early 2030s
Eagle is advancing the Aurora uranium project as part of its strategy to combine domestic uranium supply with advanced reactor technology.
Aurora hosts an indicated resource of 32.75 million lb. uranium oxide and an inferred resource of 4.98 million lb., according to the company.
Eagle Nuclear Energy is awaiting state-level approvals for a drill program supporting a prefeasibility study targeted for the second half of 2027. Eagle has engaged BBA USA, SLR International and Yukuskokon Professional Services to support the work, the company said in July.
Mukhija said Eagle could bring Aurora into commercial production in the early 2030s, subject to permitting, technical studies and project development.
“If everything goes to plan, you’re looking at the early 2030s,” he said. “I would say 2032 could be a baseline estimate for now.”
“Permitting would be the biggest lead time,” he added. “We want to make sure we do all of the requisite studies, make sure we have all of the permits that are required and just do things the right way.”
The timeline would position Aurora to enter production as some existing Canadian operations approach depletion and new reactors increase demand for uranium.
SMR demand
Eagle is also developing small, long-life and very small, long-life modular reactor designs for industrial and grid applications. The company’s aim is to create an integrated nuclear business spanning uranium production and power generation.
Mukhija expects SMRs to eventually find a market among mining companies, particularly at remote operations that lack grid connections and other infrastructure. However, he said miners’ reluctance to adopt the technology reflects its early commercial stage rather than a lack of interest.
“There’s not really a proven SMR out there that’s commercialized and available,” he said. “Once we get to that point where there are commercially available SMRs and they’ve been deployed and tested and are ready to provide power, I think [miners] will jump on that.”
“Mines are usually in remote areas. There’s a lack of access, there’s a lack of water and there’s not really much infrastructure nearby,” he added. “Once these power sources are readily available, I believe you will see a lot of mining companies jump on board.”
Mukhija pointed to four advanced reactor designs that achieved zero-power criticality under the DOE’s Reactor Pilot Program as evidence that firm government deadlines can accelerate nuclear development. The department announced the fourth milestone in July.
“It shows that when the government sets timelines and it sets goals, it does accelerate innovation,” he said.

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:05:40 +0000

DRC probes how 5,000 tonnes of uranium ‘leaked’ into cobalt exports
Cecilia Jamasmie | August 7, 2026 |
DRC is testing cobalt shipments. (Image of cobalt mining in DRC. By Fairphone | Flickr.).
The Democratic Republic of Congo is investigating uranium contamination in cobalt exports after researchers estimated that thousands of tonnes of the radioactive metal likely left the world’s largest cobalt-producing nation over the past two decades.
The government said it would test cobalt hydroxide exported largely to China and establish a working group to assess findings published July 30 in Nature Communications and examined in a Financial Times and Lighthouse Reports collaborative investigation.
Kinshasa also plans to consult the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about arranging a technical support mission, while domestic authorities will assess potential health and environmental risks over the next 60 days and make their findings public.
“The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has taken careful note” of the findings, officials said.
The investigation comes as demand for cobalt, a key material in some lithium-ion batteries, has made DRC’s Copperbelt central to global supply chains. Uranium occurs naturally alongside copper and cobalt ores across the region and can remain attached to cobalt minerals as they move through mining and processing.
Blind spot
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Princeton University estimated that between 2,000 and 5,000 tonnes of natural uranium were exported from the DRC in cobalt-hydroxide shipments between 2000 and 2024, despite the country reporting no official uranium production during that period.
The study combined country-wide mineralization and geochemical data, mine-level trade records and a chemical model of cobalt processing. It also estimated another 1,000 to 4,000 tonnes of uranium may have been discarded in mine tailings, potentially exposing workers and nearby communities to chemically mobile radioactive material.
Less than 10% of the exported material appears to have been publicly declared and placed under international safeguards, according to study co-author Sébastien Philippe, a nuclear security expert and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Researchers link cobalt mining in the DRC to violence, substance abuse, food-water insecurity
“This quantity of undeclared uranium could be used to produce fissile material for roughly 600 to 1,500 nuclear weapons or fuel a standard light-water nuclear reactor for 10 to 25 years, so it’s quite a large amount,” Philippe said.
He emphasized that the research did not show uranium was deliberately exported through the cobalt supply chain.
“Our scientific research doesn’t show this was done purposefully to get uranium out of the DRC,” Philippe said. “However, one of the things we’re concerned about is that the volumes of exported uranium we’ve quantified are beyond what is supposed to be declared to the IAEA.”
Most cobalt shipments went to China, which the researchers said is home to about 95% of global cobalt refining capacity. Uranium contained in crude cobalt hydroxide must be removed during refining, potentially leaving it as a recoverable byproduct.
The IAEA tracks uranium production worldwide, but DRC’s low-grade uranium-bearing cobalt exports do not require reporting when shipped for non-nuclear purposes. An IAEA expert cited in the reporting said the agency had no indication that DRC was failing to meet its safeguards obligations.
The Congolese government also challenged parts of the study, saying its estimates were not based on direct measurements of exported material and relied instead on modelling that was not specific to individual facilities.
“These methodological limitations call for a counter-verification process, without in any way minimizing the issues raised,” the government said.
Officials said national and international laboratories would participate in the testing, alongside DRC’s nuclear safety and nuclear energy agencies. The country also plans to install radiation detectors for trucks leaving the country.
Miners push back
Chinese mining companies operating in DRC have rejected claims that their cobalt products contain excessive uranium.
The Union of Chinese-Capital Mining Companies in the DRC, known known by its French acronym USMCC, said Aug. 5 that an internal review found no excessive uranium levels in cobalt products mined, processed or exported by its members in southeastern DRC.
“Following an exhaustive verification conducted by the association, no cobalt product extracted, processed or exported by Chinese mining companies operating in southeastern DRC contains excessive levels of uranium,” USMCC said in the statement published on X.
The group acknowledged that cobalt hydroxide can contain very low naturally occurring traces of uranium, but said concentrations remained below levels that would make extraction technically or economically viable.
What China’s increasing control over cobalt resources in the DRC means for the West – report
“There are no economic or technical conditions for recovering, extracting or exploiting this uranium,” it said.
Major Chinese mining companies operating in the DRC include CMOC Group, Zijin Mining and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt.
USMCC said its members would conduct regular sampling, publish quality-control findings and continue complying with Congolese mining rules and internationally recognized testing standards.
Added pressure
The dispute adds another complication to a cobalt industry already facing pressure over supply-chain transparency, worker safety and local processing. DRC has also prohibited exports of copper and cobalt concentrates as part of efforts to retain more value from its mineral resources.
Researchers said more systematic testing of cobalt-hydroxide shipments, radiation monitoring for workers and better accounting of uranium flows could reduce the risks. Ultimately, they argued that refining cobalt into metal inside DRC would give authorities greater control over uranium before cobalt leaves the country.
The government said uranium has coexisted with cobalt in Congolese ores throughout more than a century of industrial mining and maintained that the issue has been responsibly managed.
It added that DRC “remains committed to fulfilling its international non-proliferation and safeguards obligations.”
Congo bans copper and cobalt concentrates exports, official order says

Reuters | August 6, 2026 |
Processing facilities at Tenke Fungurume mine in 2016 before the CMOC acquisition. (Image courtesy of Lundin Mining.)
The Democratic Republic of Congo has banned exports ‌of copper concentrate and cobalt concentrate as it escalates efforts to force domestic processing and retain more value from its mineral resources, a government order reviewed by Reuters on Thursday shows.
After Reuters reported the ban, benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose by as much as 1.8% to $14,369.50 a metric ton, the highest since January 29 when the metal hit an all-time peak of $14,527.50.
Congo is seeking to leverage its position as the world’s largest cobalt supplier and a major source of other energy-transition minerals, including copper, to build domestic processing capacity and retain a greater share ⁠of the wealth flowing from its mines.
The June 29 order, signed by Mines Minister Louis Kabamba Watum, Foreign Trade Minister Julien Paluku Kahongya and Economy Minister Daniel Mukoko Samba, says “the export of copper and cobalt concentrates is prohibited”.
The ban takes effect immediately, although one-year export waivers may be granted under strategic circumstances, the order said, without explaining further.
It also introduced a tax regime with a three-month transition period for economically significant mining by-products.
In a statement posted on the LSEG platform on Thursday, Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) said its Kamoa-Kakula copper c

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:22:16 +0000

Iran Says Hormuz Stays Closed Until U.S. Meets Six Sweeping Demands
By Tom Kool - Aug 08, 2026
Iran has effectively rejected expectations of an imminent reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, laying out sweeping conditions that would require the United States to fundamentally change its policy toward Tehran.
In a statement issued by Mohammad Baqer Zolghadr, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Tehran said the strait would remain closed until Washington ends what Iran described as its hostile behavior. The six demands include an end to U.S. threats and military action, a permanent end to the war, withdrawal of U.S. naval and air forces from around Iran, compensation for war damages, sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian assets.
Image: Official statement from the Supreme National Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran
The statement is significant because it indicates that the much-discussed U.S.-Iran draft agreement does not, at least from Tehran's perspective, amount to a deal to reopen Hormuz. Any agreement would ultimately require approval from Iran's Supreme National Security Council.
The shipping data also points to continued disruption. Just 33 vessels transited Hormuz from Monday through Thursday, down from 50 during the same period the previous week, while only six crude tankers have reportedly cleared the strait outbound so far this week. The decline comes despite expectations that Iran and Oman were close to an arrangement governing a shipping corridor.
That uncertainty has kept the energy market on edge. Iran has also been considering restrictions on U.S. and Israeli vessels, while previous proposals for transit fees have added another layer of uncertainty. The European Union has already accused Iran's IRGC Navy of enforcing a screening and toll system for vessels using the strait.
Washington, however, is presenting a considerably more optimistic picture. Vice President JD Vance said the U.S. expects oil and gas flows from the Gulf to eventually return to pre-war levels. He also said Iran had told Washington it had no plans to impose tolls, although the U.S. does not fully trust Tehran's assurances.
That leaves the market facing two very different interpretations of the same negotiations. Washington is talking about restoring normal energy flows. Tehran is demanding major political, military and financial concessions before reopening Hormuz.
For oil traders, the key question is therefore no longer simply whether talks are taking place, but whether the two sides are actually negotiating the same outcome.
By Tom Kool for Oilprice.com

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:55:56 +0000

Baltic Republics Foment Crises With Russia
by Ted Galen Carpenter | Aug 7, 2026 |
Historically, one of the greatest dangers to a major power in the international system is letting smaller allies and clients drag that power into an unwise war. Both the United States and leading European powers seem inclined to make that blunder with respect to the Baltic republics. Too many U.S. policymakers have not only tolerated but also facilitated the obsession those “allies” (i.e. protectorates) have exhibited with defeating Russia in Ukraine and weakening their arch adversary overall.
The belligerent behavior of some of NATO’s smallest members creates the prospect of disastrous results in Europe and beyond. A crucial policymaker, Kaja Kallas, is a former prime minister of Estonia and now serves as the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice‑President of the European Commission. That does not help matters. Kallas is not only one of Ukraine’s most avid supporters, but is also an outspoken Russophobe on a wide range of issues. Kallas has received strong, vocal support from Dutch-born Ursula von der Leyen, an influential German politician and currently President of the European Commission.
Kallas has repeatedly pressed her EU colleagues as well as NATO officials and policymakers in other European governments to make no concessions to Russia with respect to territorial or other issues involving Ukraine. Any compromises, she contends, would reward Moscow’s aggression, and increase the risk of a much larger war.
The former Estonian leader combines such policy rigidity with an alarming degree of arrogance and overconfidence about Europe’s power. In one speech, Kallas asserted that if NATO simply stayed united on policy, Russia stood no chance of prevailing in Ukraine or of achieving any of its other objectives. Horrific wars have emerged throughout history from far less hubris than she routinely displays with respect to the democratic West’s policy toward Russia.
The centerpiece of the current effort by leaders of the Baltic states to exacerbate tensions with Moscow is a propaganda campaign asserting that the Kremlin is plotting to launch military attacks on vulnerable NATO members in the near future. In mid-July, the presidents of Lithuania and Latvia warned that Russia “may be preparing ‘limited kinetic operations’ against NATO’s eastern-flank infrastructure to test Article 5” – the provision in the North Atlantic Treaty proclaiming that an attack on any Alliance member will be considered an attack on all. Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs asserted that “The next few months, or even the next 12 months, will be crucial for Baltic security.”
Predictably, Russian officials dismissed the warnings as cynical cover for NATO’s own military buildup in the Baltic region. There is no question that such a provocative campaign by the Western powers has taken place and continues to do so. Indeed, a sizable buildup of NATO air, naval, and ground forces has been occurring for years. One important move was the re-deployment of U.S. F-22 fighter planes to Estonia from Poland in the spring of 2023. The most significant Russian provocations have been repeated spy plane incursions into the airspace of the Baltic republics and Russia’s other neighbors. Similar maritime incidents have taken place involving Russian naval and civilian vessels. Although Moscow’s moves are foolish and needlessly antagonistic, they are hardly in the same category as the major NATO buildups of troops, warplanes, and naval vessels.
Alarmist warnings from the Baltic governments also are nothing new, so cynical American observers might be tempted to respond to the latest flurry with indifference. However, Poland – a much more significant political and military player than the tiny Baltic countries–has been outlining similar alarming scenarios. There have been numerous warnings in recent weeks by Polish politicians, following multiple media reports that Russia could carry out a limited military or hybrid provocation against Poland in the near future. In late June 2026, a leading Polish outlet called onet.pl reported that U.S. intelligence had alerted its Polish counterparts about the possibility of a Russian attack. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on July 3 that the warnings should be taken seriously and noted that he had been issuing similar alerts for weeks. “Poland is preparing very intensively for various scenarios,” Tusk said.
The possibility that the chronically anti-Russia U.S. intelligence agencies are helping to foment such paranoia should be a matter of profound concern to Americans who are opposed to having the Ukraine conflict spiral into a full-blown NATO-Russia war. An especially sad development is how Donald Trump, who once justifiably scorned Washington’s entanglement in Ukraine as a folly, now seems firmly committed to perpetuating NATO’s showdown with Moscow. Baltic hardliners undoubtedly take comfort in the Trump administration’s new course.
The U.S. military’s already risky commitment to the Baltic countries is becoming more explicit and uncompromising. At a June 30, 2016, ceremony in Valga, Estonia, the American commander of NATO’s land forces in Europe made that intention quite clear. Stating that “You’re [the Alliance’s Baltic members] ready to do more ‌and following words with action, and ‌the United States will be there alongside you,” U.S. General Chris Donahue asserted that “is how deterrence is built: Not with words from a podium, but with boots in the mud.” Indeed, NATO is adding a new command headquarters to focus on developments in the Baltics.
With President Trump having effectively capitulated to the NATO hawks, there is an alarming opportunity for anti-Russian zealots in the Baltic republics and elsewhere to push their pro-war agenda. Given Moscow’s egregious behavior toward its neighbors during both the Czarist and communist eras, one can readily understand the hatred that many people in those countries still harbor. But we must not let such poisonous historical memories drive current U.S. policy.
Too many officials in the Baltic states are courting a military conflagration that would consume not only their countries but the United States as well. America does not have any security, economic, or moral interests at stake that even remotely justify incurring such a level of risk. Allowing NATO’s mini-states to drag the United States into a major conflict with Russia – one with possible nuclear implications – would constitute the biggest folly of the post-World War II era.
Dr. Ted Galen Carpenter is a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute and the Libertarian Institute. He is also a contributing editor to National Security Journal and The American Conservative. He also served in various senior policy positions during a 37-year career at the Cato Institute. Dr. Carpenter is the author of 13 books and more than 1,600 articles on defense, foreign policy and civil liberties issues. His latest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (2022).

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:54:27 +0000

World Nuclear News

Indian parliamentarians stress urgency for uranium projects

Friday, 7 August 2026
The expansion of uranium mining projects in India needs to be accelerated, a parliamentary committee has said.

An aerial view of India's Parliament (Image: Lok Sabha)
The Committee on Public Undertakings' comments came in a report covering the progress of India's planned nuclear energy expansion.
It included the recommendations from an earlier report and the responses received from Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). The report notes DAE's assurance that by 2036 "Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL), Jaduguda plans to double the production by enhancing the existing mine capacity as well as setting up uranium mining projects in Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh".
The committee welcomes the "concrete project roadmap" provided but says "nevertheless, the Committee notes that the timeline for full realisation stretches to 2036, whereas NPCIL's massive capacity additions are front-loaded over the next decade. Any delay in the commissioning of these mining clusters will prolong the strategic sensitivity of relying on imported fuel lines".
Both NPCIL and DAE said they noted the committee's earlier observation "that the Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC) ensures complete domestic fabrication of fuel assemblies for PHWRs using uranium concentrate supplied by UCIL or imports arranged under Government oversight. The Committee observes that DAE has pursued long-term supply agreements with multiple international partners to ensure continuous fuel availability for safeguarded reactors. Also, as per NPCIL's capacity expansion trajectory, PHWRs alone could require approximately 5,400 tonnes U3O8 per annum for about 25 GWe, while UCIL currently estimates catering to about 30% of this need, implicating persistent import reliance unless domestic production accelerates and diversified supply lines are established".
The committee also welcomed as a "constructive and encouraging step" proposals for a joint venture between UCIL and NTPC to acquire stakes in overseas uranium assets which could stabilise "long-term fuel costs and support the domestic nuclear fleet against market fluctuations and uncertainties".
They also say they are looking forward to receiving updates on a potential long-term supply contract with Uzbekistan post-2026, and the establishment of strategic stockpiles "calibrated to reactor refuelling cycles" which remain "a vital measure to ensure continuous operations".
"The Committee note that NPCIL continues to rely significantly on imported uranium, posing a strategic sensitivity with regard to stable fuel supply. The future expansion of the nuclear fleet is also closely linked with Uranium Corporation of India’s ability to increase domestic uranium production, an element that remains beyond NPCIL's immediate purview.”
Imports presently originate from Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Canada, with an Uzbek long-term contract valid up to 2026. Last month India and Australia signed the administrative arrangement to enable uranium exports to India for peaceful purposes under the nuclear cooperation agreement signed between the two countries more than a decade ago.
India, which currently has about 7,900 MW capacity from 24 operable nuclear power plants, is planning a large expansion of its nuclear capacity. The country says that seventeen nuclear power reactors with a total of 13,100 MW capacity are either under construction (7) or under pre-project activities (10). The ambition is for India to reach a nuclear energy capacity of about 100 GW by 2047.
In other parts of the report, the committee stresses the need for regulatory and legislative moves to help facilitate the uranium projects. And it encourages NPCIL to develop its international market presence and global competitiveness, saying: "The Committee recommend that NPCIL adopt a focused and time bound internationalisation strategy, by accelerating the development and commercialisation of indigenous Light Water Reactors (LWRs) and modular reactor technologies aligned with prevailing global market demand. The Committee further recommend that NPCIL strengthen strategic partnerships with established international nuclear vendors and actively participate in joint ventures and global supply chains to enhance credibility and market access."
In response NPCIL says "The recommendation of the Hon’ble Committee is noted and NPCIL will make efforts to implement it appropriately".

X-Energy and Centrus sign HALEU supply agreement

Thursday, 6 August 2026
Centrus Energy Corp and X-Energy have signed an agreement for Centrus to provide enrichment services for low-enriched uranium and high-assay low-enriched uranium to fuel Xe-100 high-temperature gas-cooled small modular reactors.

How an X-Energy Xe-100 small modular reactor plant could look (Image: X-Energy)
The low-enriched uranium (LEU) and high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) will be produced at Centrus's American Centrifuge Plant in Pike County, Ohio. The HALEU will be supplied to X-Energy's fuel subsidiary TRISO-X, for the fabrication of TRISO-X-coated particle fuel at its fuel fabrication campus in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The contract will see prepayments from X-Energy to Centrus "under a phased approach to scale HALEU production in alignment with the advancement of X-Energy’s commercial pipeline".
HALEU fuel enriched to between 5% and 20% of the fissile uranium-235 isotope will be needed to fuel many of the advanced reactor designs that are under development. With no commercial source of the material in the USA, the US Department of Energy has been actively supporting the development of a domestic US supply chain. In 2019, it awarded Centrus a contract to license and construct a cascade of advanced centrifuges to demonstrate HALEU production at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, and in 2022 selected the company through a competitive process for the three-phase follow-on contract to bring the cascade into production and to deliver HALEU for the DOE's use.
Last year, Centrus announced plans for a major expansion of the plant to boost production of both low-enriched uranium and HALEU. The expansion is expected to create 1,000 construction jobs and 300 new operating jobs in Ohio alone, while retaining the 150 jobs that existed at the Piketon plant when the expansion began, the company said.
Prepayment arrangements and government funding has been helping to tackle the "chicken and egg" issue where advanced reactor developers need to know they will have the fuel for their projects, while the fuel companies want to be assured of future demand before investing in new facilities. Centrus says it has a USD3 billion "contingent LEU and HALEU backlog, of which USD2.4 billion is definitised".
Amir Vexler, President and CEO of Centrus, said: "This is another significant agreement that validates Centrus as the go-to, de-risked supplier of HALEU to the global market. Agreements like these provide important non-dilutive, non-debt capital to support our build-out and serves to advance commercial LEU and HALEU capacity expansion."
X-Energy CEO J Clay Sell, said: "Our approach is to build a resilient, long-term fuel supply strategy by partnering with enrichment providers that are investing in new HALEU production capacity. Through our agreement with Centrus, X-Energy has secured enrichment capacity that will support our customers’ initial fuel needs through the market's transition to a robust commercial HALEU supply."
Background
The Xe-100 is a pebble bed high-temperature gas reactor capable of a thermal output of 200 MW or (80 MW electrical). It uses fuel made from robust TRISO (tri-structural isotropic) fuel particles which are able to withstand extremely high temperatures without melting.
Optimised as a four-unit plant delivering 320 MWe, the reactor can provide baseload power to an electricity system or use its thermal output to support industrial applications with high pressure, high temperature steam.
The first deployment of the Xe-100 is planned for Dow’s Seadrift site on the Texas Gulf Coast, to supply both power and high-temperature heat to industrial-scale operations. X-energy and Amazon have also committed to the goal of more than 5 GW of new nuclear by 2039, starting with a joint plan with Washington state utility Energy Northwest to build up to 12 SMRs near Energy Northwest's Columbia Generating Station.
In February, TRISO-X received a 40-year Special Nuclear Material Licence from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, enabling TRISO-X to commercially manufacture fuel using HALEU under a single licence.
TRISO fuel is composed of small spheres of enriched uranium that are coated with multiple layers of carbon and ceramic materials, forming a robust shell that can withstand high temperatures. HALEU contains between 5% and 20% of fissile uranium-235 - a higher enrichment than that found in typical uranium fuel used in today's operating commercial reactors, which contains between 3.5% and 5% U-235.
Bechtel assumes responsibility for Polish plant site

Thursday, 6 August 2026
Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe, which plans to build Poland's first nuclear power plant, announced it has handed over management of the project site to general contractor Bechtel as earthworks start on the construction site.

The Lubiatowo-Kopalino site, pictured in February (Image: PEJ)
Bechtel will be responsible for both the execution and supervision of the work carried out during the preparation of the future construction site, as well as cooperation with the investment subcontractors and ensuring safety on the site in Lubiatowo-Kopalino, in the Choczewo municipality of Pomerania in northern Poland.
"This is a very important day for both Bechtel and the implementation of the entire multi-year project to build a key infrastructure and energy project for our country - the first nuclear power plant in Poland," said Leszek Hołda, President of Bechtel Polska. "We are formally becoming the site's administrators, taking over this role from Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe. This marks the investment's transition to the next stage - a phase of further operational activities, carried out by Bechtel engineers and experts, as well as specialised contractors, including local contractors."
The takeover of site management coincides with the selection of Budimex SA, one of the largest construction companies in Poland, as the main contractor for earthworks.
Initially, this will include ground levelling, reconstruction and expansion of drainage systems, and construction of a network of temporary roads totalling about 16 kilometres (10 miles). Simultaneously, work will be carried out to prepare the site for future technical, logistics, and production facilities, as well as adapting existing infrastructure. An extensive construction site will also be

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:54:14 +0000

DRC probes how 5,000 tonnes of uranium ‘leaked’ into cobalt exports
Cecilia Jamasmie | August 7, 2026 |
DRC is testing cobalt shipments. (Image of cobalt mining in DRC. By Fairphone | Flickr.).
The Democratic Republic of Congo is investigating uranium contamination in cobalt exports after researchers estimated that thousands of tonnes of the radioactive metal likely left the world’s largest cobalt-producing nation over the past two decades.
The government said it would test cobalt hydroxide exported largely to China and establish a working group to assess findings published July 30 in Nature Communications and examined in a Financial Times and Lighthouse Reports collaborative investigation.
Kinshasa also plans to consult the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about arranging a technical support mission, while domestic authorities will assess potential health and environmental risks over the next 60 days and make their findings public.
“The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has taken careful note” of the findings, officials said.
The investigation comes as demand for cobalt, a key material in some lithium-ion batteries, has made DRC’s Copperbelt central to global supply chains. Uranium occurs naturally alongside copper and cobalt ores across the region and can remain attached to cobalt minerals as they move through mining and processing.
Blind spot
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Princeton University estimated that between 2,000 and 5,000 tonnes of natural uranium were exported from the DRC in cobalt-hydroxide shipments between 2000 and 2024, despite the country reporting no official uranium production during that period.
The study combined country-wide mineralization and geochemical data, mine-level trade records and a chemical model of cobalt processing. It also estimated another 1,000 to 4,000 tonnes of uranium may have been discarded in mine tailings, potentially exposing workers and nearby communities to chemically mobile radioactive material.
Less than 10% of the exported material appears to have been publicly declared and placed under international safeguards, according to study co-author Sébastien Philippe, a nuclear security expert and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Researchers link cobalt mining in the DRC to violence, substance abuse, food-water insecurity
“This quantity of undeclared uranium could be used to produce fissile material for roughly 600 to 1,500 nuclear weapons or fuel a standard light-water nuclear reactor for 10 to 25 years, so it’s quite a large amount,” Philippe said.
He emphasized that the research did not show uranium was deliberately exported through the cobalt supply chain.
“Our scientific research doesn’t show this was done purposefully to get uranium out of the DRC,” Philippe said. “However, one of the things we’re concerned about is that the volumes of exported uranium we’ve quantified are beyond what is supposed to be declared to the IAEA.”
Most cobalt shipments went to China, which the researchers said is home to about 95% of global cobalt refining capacity. Uranium contained in crude cobalt hydroxide must be removed during refining, potentially leaving it as a recoverable byproduct.
The IAEA tracks uranium production worldwide, but DRC’s low-grade uranium-bearing cobalt exports do not require reporting when shipped for non-nuclear purposes. An IAEA expert cited in the reporting said the agency had no indication that DRC was failing to meet its safeguards obligations.
The Congolese government also challenged parts of the study, saying its estimates were not based on direct measurements of exported material and relied instead on modelling that was not specific to individual facilities.
“These methodological limitations call for a counter-verification process, without in any way minimizing the issues raised,” the government said.
Officials said national and international laboratories would participate in the testing, alongside DRC’s nuclear safety and nuclear energy agencies. The country also plans to install radiation detectors for trucks leaving the country.
Miners push back
Chinese mining companies operating in DRC have rejected claims that their cobalt products contain excessive uranium.
The Union of Chinese-Capital Mining Companies in the DRC, known known by its French acronym USMCC, said Aug. 5 that an internal review found no excessive uranium levels in cobalt products mined, processed or exported by its members in southeastern DRC.
“Following an exhaustive verification conducted by the association, no cobalt product extracted, processed or exported by Chinese mining companies operating in southeastern DRC contains excessive levels of uranium,” USMCC said in the statement published on X.
The group acknowledged that cobalt hydroxide can contain very low naturally occurring traces of uranium, but said concentrations remained below levels that would make extraction technically or economically viable.
What China’s increasing control over cobalt resources in the DRC means for the West – report
“There are no economic or technical conditions for recovering, extracting or exploiting this uranium,” it said.
Major Chinese mining companies operating in the DRC include CMOC Group, Zijin Mining and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt.
USMCC said its members would conduct regular sampling, publish quality-control findings and continue complying with Congolese mining rules and internationally recognized testing standards.
Added pressure
The dispute adds another complication to a cobalt industry already facing pressure over supply-chain transparency, worker safety and local processing. DRC has also prohibited exports of copper and cobalt concentrates as part of efforts to retain more value from its mineral resources.
Researchers said more systematic testing of cobalt-hydroxide shipments, radiation monitoring for workers and better accounting of uranium flows could reduce the risks. Ultimately, they argued that refining cobalt into metal inside DRC would give authorities greater control over uranium before cobalt leaves the country.
The government said uranium has coexisted with cobalt in Congolese ores throughout more than a century of industrial mining and maintained that the issue has been responsibly managed.
It added that DRC “remains committed to fulfilling its international non-proliferation and safeguards obligations.”
Congo bans copper and cobalt concentrates exports, official order says

Reuters | August 6, 2026 |
Processing facilities at Tenke Fungurume mine in 2016 before the CMOC acquisition. (Image courtesy of Lundin Mining.)
The Democratic Republic of Congo has banned exports ‌of copper concentrate and cobalt concentrate as it escalates efforts to force domestic processing and retain more value from its mineral resources, a government order reviewed by Reuters on Thursday shows.
After Reuters reported the ban, benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose by as much as 1.8% to $14,369.50 a metric ton, the highest since January 29 when the metal hit an all-time peak of $14,527.50.
Congo is seeking to leverage its position as the world’s largest cobalt supplier and a major source of other energy-transition minerals, including copper, to build domestic processing capacity and retain a greater share ⁠of the wealth flowing from its mines.
The June 29 order, signed by Mines Minister Louis Kabamba Watum, Foreign Trade Minister Julien Paluku Kahongya and Economy Minister Daniel Mukoko Samba, says “the export of copper and cobalt concentrates is prohibited”.
The ban takes effect immediately, although one-year export waivers may be granted under strategic circumstances, the order said, without explaining further.
It also introduced a tax regime with a three-month transition period for economically significant mining by-products.
In a statement posted on the LSEG platform on Thursday, Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) said its Kamoa-Kakula copper c

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 21:58:48 +0000

Canadian-Led Operation Reveals Scope of Illegal Fishing in North Pacific
A boarding officer inventories shark fins on a suspect vessel, May 2026 (NOAA Fisheries)
Published Aug 6, 2026 10:57 PM by The Maritime Executive
A Canadian-led operation aimed at cracking down on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing has again exposed how the vast North Pacific continues to be a hotspot for criminal activity that poses a major threat to fish populations, marine environments and global seafood supply chains.
Following the completion of the annual multinational mission known as Operation North Pacific Guard (Op. NPG), which involved more than two months of patrolling North Pacific waters at sea, in the air and by satellite, the reality is that IUU fishing remains a deeply rooted menace.
The mission, which is led by Canada and brings together a range of partners including the U.S., Japan and Korea, saw Canadian fishery officers and crew aboard the multipurpose coast guard ship Sir Wilfrid Laurier patrol more than 23,000 kilometers of North Pacific waters.
At sea, the crew monitored hundreds of fishing vessels and conducted 30 high-seas inspections, which turned up 52 violations of international fisheries requirements. These included shark finning, use of prohibited gear to catch sharks, and misreporting or inaccurate reporting of catch, bycatch and discards, including of prohibited species. Violators also failed to take measures to protect seabirds while setting fishing gear.
In the air, aerial patrols surveyed a total of 344 fishing vessels and detected 21 violations. These included shark finning, illegal killing of dolphins, pollution and inadequate vessel markings.
Apart from monitoring and enforcement, officers also collected environmental data and water samples for analysis to support understanding of the high seas environment, including the migration range of species of interest such as Pacific salmon and the levels of microplastics in the water.
Canadian authorities say that Op. NPG, which has been conducted annually since 2019, is critical in enforcing international law against IUU fishing. The violations are investigated by flag states and may lead to sanctions, including total fishing bans for offending vessels.
Among the other objectives of the operation is identifying gaps in global fisheries governance — work that in recent years has contributed to prohibitions on shark finning and salmon retention, restrictions on pollution, and strengthened reporting requirements
"IUU fishing threatens the security of our oceans and the resources that coastal communities depend on. Operation North Pacific Guard demonstrates the strength of Canada's partnerships in addressing these threats and enforcing the rules that keep our waters safe," said David McGuinty, Canadian Minister of National Defence.
Op. NPG is funded by the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative, which aims to enhance conservation, protection and enforcement efforts in high-risk areas for Canada's Pacific salmon stocks. The initiative has received US$294 million over five years under a federal government strategy aimed at nature protection.

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:23:10 +0000

CU
Codelco’s El Teniente two-year setback deepens copper fears

Staff Writer | August 5, 2026 |
El Teniente underground. (Image courtesy of Codelco | Flickr.)
Suspended development of the Andes Norte section at Codelco’s flagship El Teniente mine could last as long as two years, according to a union leader, compounding production challenges at the world’s largest underground copper mine and tightening an already strained global copper market.
The expansion pause follows new geological studies showing greater seismic risks than previously understood. The Chilean copper giant said the decision was made to protect workers after six months of analysis identified an emerging seismic phenomenon associated with the greater depth of the Andes Norte project.
“The available evidence is consistent with the possible existence of an emerging risk associated with the greater depth of the Andes Norte project,” the company said. “These analyses have identified the existence of an emerging seismic phenomenon with characteristics different from the risks that have historically been known and managed in the operation.”

The project is adjacent to the Andesita and Teniente 7 mining areas, where a rockburst on July 31, 2025, killed six workers and halted production across parts of El Teniente. The collapse, equivalent to a magnitude-4.2 earthquake, remains under criminal, regulatory and technical investigation.
Supply squeeze
The latest setback comes as Codelco is already struggling to restore production after output fell to a 25-year low. El Teniente’s copper production was about 27% lower year over year in the first five months of the year, while the company’s new chairman has acknowledged its goal of returning to 1.7 million tonnes of annual copper production by 2030 is no longer achievable.
The disruption adds to mounting concerns over global copper supply. Miners worldwide are pushing deeper underground as ageing operations become depleted, increasing exposure to geotechnical risks similar to those emerging at El Teniente, a century-old mine with more than 4,500 km of tunnels beneath the Andes.
At the same time, physical copper markets are tightening. CRU’s latest Copper Monitor warned of a growing risk of a near-term squeeze on the London Metal Exchange, citing low on-warrant inventories, dwindling visible Chinese stocks and heavy US imports ahead of a possible tariff decision. The report also noted that one participant now controls between 50% and 79.99% of live LME copper warrants, while nearby futures positions are concentrated among a handful of long investors.
The tightening supply outlook helped lift Comex September copper to an intraday record of $6.7045 per pound ($14,781 per tonne), surpassing the previous high set in May.
The contract later traded at $6.683 per pound, up 0.6% on the day, 7.3% over the past month and more than 50% from a year earlier. Chile, meanwhile, has just reported its weakest second-quarter copper production in almost two decades.
Copper markets are increasingly being driven by supply risks rather than demand, with Codelco’s prolonged disruption adding fresh uncertainty as inventories remain historically tight and traders continue to shift metal into the US ahead of potential import tariffs.
Codelco halts El Teniente mine expansion over seismic risk
Reuters | August 4, 2026 | 10:19 am Top Companies Latin America Copper
El Teniente operation. Photo by Codelco.
Chile’s state-run copper miner Codelco has paused one of its expansion projects at its flagship El Teniente mine a year after a deadly collapse, saying recent studies show greater seismic risk than initially thought.
An accident on July 31, 2025, killed six workers and forced Codelco to halt production throughout various sections of El Teniente, the world’s biggest underground copper mine, just as it was grappling with lifting production from quarter-century lows.
Codelco said it opted to put expansion works within the Andes Norte section of the mine on hold to ensure worker safety, citing analyses over the past six months that point to seismic risks related to the depth of the deposit, different from those that had been previously identified and monitored.
“The available evidence is consistent with the possible existence of an emerging risk associated with the greater depth of the Andes Norte project,” Codelco said in a statement, adding that it would continue to study the issue.
“These analyses have identified the existence of an emerging seismic phenomenon with characteristics different from the risks that have historically been known and managed in the operation,” it said.
Andes Norte sits near the Andesita and Teniente 7 sections that were most affected by the collapse, which packed an impact equivalent to a 4.2-magnitude earthquake. Codelco faces criminal, regulatory and technical investigations and is still investigating the precise cause of the disaster.
Mining companies worldwide are increasingly turning to very deep underground operations in an attempt to boost output, in some cases compensating for aging, depleted mines.
El Teniente, which is more than a century old, spans more than 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) of tunnels and underground galleries in the Andes mountains. It sits about 75 kilometers (47 miles) southeast of Chile’s capital Santiago.
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City and Fabian Cambero in Santiago, Editing by Iñigo Alexander and Lisa Shumaker)
Copper market crunch brews as US and China compete for metal
Bloomberg News | August 7, 2026 | 10:09 am Markets China USA Copper
Stock image.
The copper market is tightening fast, with a surge in shipments to the US and rising orders in China setting the stage for a rally that could take global benchmark prices to all-time highs.
Futures in London this week pushed past $14,000 a ton, a ceiling that had only been breached on a handful of days this year, and many traders see prices soon surging past the record $14,500-plus level reached briefly during a bout of speculative buying in China at the end of January.
This time around, the upswing has more to do with trade dislocations caused by the gravitational pull of the world’s two largest economies. While an unprecedented hoarding of copper on US shores has sped up in anticipation of a tariff decision, traders have been stepping up shipments to China to alleviate tightness there.
The flows to China come on top of an arbitrage trade that’s encouraging cargoes to the US and drove futures on New York’s Comex to a record on Wednesday. That has been going on since last year but has accelerated to the fastest pace in at least 12 years as traders await a White House decision on whether to extend duties on semi-finished copper products to raw metal.
There’s been no indication when or whether US President Donald Trump plans to announce a decision on tariffs, which have been a core policy tool in his effort to shore up industrial supply chains.
The president will be holding a meeting with mining executives on Friday in Washington, in a bid to showcase efforts to help spur critical minerals development and processing, with plans to unveil a handful of a deals and memoranda of understanding.
(By Julian Luk)
China’s copper smelting grip worries veteran metallurgist

Staff Writer | August 5, 2026 |
The next mining supply shock won’t start at a mine: study

Cecilia Jamasmie | August 6, 2026
The weakest link isn’t the mine—it’s everything around it. (Image of EW plant courtesy of Codelco | Flickr)
Processing plants, chemical supplies and logistics—not mines—are the most likely source of the next critical mineral supply shock, according to a GEM Mining Consulting study that challenges conventional mine-focused planning.
The study argues that usable supply can fail even as mines continue operating because bottlenecks develop elsewhere in the value chain. A shortage of sulphuric acid, an unqualified anode production route, a missing furnace, equipment export restrictions, a smelter closure or constraints on power and water can remove far more supply than the apparent size of the disruption suggests.
Rather than forecasting specific outcomes, the report develops stress scenarios to illustrate the scale of disruptions that operators and policymakers should be testing. The analysis starts with about 3.6 million tonnes per year of copper produced through acid-leach routes, a 72% battery-grade graphite supply gap outside the dominant producer and an announced diversified rare-earth magnet pipeline of roughly 18,000 tonnes of rare-earth content.
Hidden chokepoints connect enabling inputs, conversion nodes and high-value downstream systems. Connectors terminate at the relevant nodes and show dependency, not ownership, probability or physical volume. ( Source: GEM Synthesis. )
“The next mining supply shock may start in a reagent tank, a furnace, a port, a laboratory or an equipment order book,” GEM said. “Resource security is produced by a network. The orebody matters, but so do the systems that convert it into qualified, continuous supply.”
The findings highlight a broader shift in how critical mineral supply risk should be assessed. While governments and industry have focused on developing new mines, processing capacity, chemical inputs, equipment availability and customer qualification increasingly determine whether production can reach end users.
Acid constraint
The report identifies sulphuric acid as one of the industry’s largest hidden vulnerabilities because it supports copper solvent extraction-electrowinning operations, nickel high-pressure acid leach projects, cobalt co-production, hard-rock lithium conversion, rare-earth processing and battery precursor manufacturing.
GEM estimates that more than 15% of global primary copper production, or about 3.6 million tonnes annually, depends on acid-leach routes. Under its central stress case, a 90-day acid disruption would expose roughly 111,000 tonnes of copper production, while a year-long disruption could affect about 947,000 tonnes.
GEM stress-test estimates of potential copper output exposure under sulphuric-acid disruptions. Bars show the central case and error bars the low and high cases. The results are scenario estimates, not forecasts of expected loss, price impact or company guidance. ( Source: GEM Research Brief. )
The analysis notes that roughly half of seaborne sulphur trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz, while China halted sulphuric acid exports in May 2026 as sulphur markets tightened. It concludes that producers should treat acid availability as a production constraint rather than simply a reagent cost, incorporating separate monitoring of sulphur feedstock, burner acid and smelter by-product acid into production planning.
Graphite and rare-earth magnets present a different challenge. Existing inventories can cushion short-term disruptions, but they do little to resolve structural processing bottlenecks. Alternative mines cannot quickly produce qualified battery-grade anode material or permanent magnets because purification, graphitization, coating, separation, metallization, specialized equipment, technical know-how and customer qualification all require time.
GEM route-level chokepoint exposure screen for selected Latin American mineral chains. Scores are GEM analytical judgements on a 0-5 scale, not event probabilities. The heat-map compares route-specific exposure rather than forecasting event frequency or losses. ( Source: GEM Research Brief. )
GEM estimates that with 28% N-1 inventory coverage, a one-year disruption would still leave about 60% of annual battery-grade graphite demand outside the dominant supplier uncovered after a 60-day inventory buffer. It also estimates that one- to two-year delays affecting 25% to 50% of the planned 18,000-tonne diversified rare-earth magnet pipeline could defer between 4,500 and 18,000 capacity-years.
The report also identifies route-specific vulnerabilities across selected Latin American mineral supply chains, arguing that exposure varies significantly depending on the processing pathway rather than the location of the orebody alone.
The study concludes that future supply resilience will depend as much on strengthening processing networks, chemical supply and industrial infrastructure as on discovering new mineral deposits.

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 22:47:58 +0000

Colombia oil, mining industries upbeat on new (RIGHT WING) government, seek swift changes

Reuters | August 6, 2026 |
Oil storage in Colombia. Stock image.
Mining and oil companies are ready to invest billions of dollars in Colombia after four years of paralysis in ‌new exploration, but the incoming government needs to act quickly to remove regulatory and security obstacles, industry executives and analysts said.
Right-wing President-elect Abelardo De La Espriella will be sworn in on Friday, replacing leftist Gustavo Petro, who banned new hydrocarbon exploration contracts and locked horns with multinational coal companies.
De La Espriella has pledged to revive exploration and could use decrees to simplify and shorten permitting processes, including public consultations.
That carries legal risks, while other sought-after measures, such as approving technical ⁠parameters for fracking, changing the royalty system, altering contract structures and introducing tax incentives, would require approval from a divided Congress, where he will face opposition from Petro’s party.
“We need to unblock all the bottlenecks that are closely tied to prior consultations, administrative decisions and delays in environmental licensing,” said Luz Stella Murgas, president of Colombia’s natural gas association Naturgas.
Major gas developments include the offshore Sirius project in Colombia’s Caribbean, a joint venture between state-controlled Ecopetrol and Brazil’s Petrobras. Production is expected to begin in 2030, but the project still requires the completion of 120 prior consultations with local communities.
Between 2023 and 2025, foreign investment in mining and oil fell 34% to about $6.9 billion, while Colombia’s oil output declined 4% to an average 746,000 barrels per day and ‌crude ⁠reserves dropped by 54 million barrels. Natural gas imports soared to 31% of domestic consumption from just 3% in 2023, industry data show.
Security is another key concern.
The Colombian Petroleum Association (ACP) said 580 attacks and blockades on oil infrastructure were recorded in 2025, causing losses exceeding 2.4 trillion pesos, about $749 million.
“The measures have to be comprehensive, aggressive and swift,” ACP president Frank Pearl said. “If one of the key variables is missing ⁠from the investment environment, it will not be attractive and we may fail to draw those resources.”
Nelson Castañeda, president of industry association Campetrol, also called for urgent government action, as “every decision we make today will be reflected in five, 10 and 15 years.”
Billions in mining investment stalled
In mining, ⁠Colombia has five gold, copper, coal and nickel projects that have completed exploration or obtained licenses but have not moved into construction because of legal and political uncertainty under Petro, said Juan Camilo Nariño, head of the Colombian Mining Association.
“The investments are ⁠on the verge of materializing and could amount to between $3.6 billion and $4 billion over the next four years,” Nariño said.
Efforts to accelerate permitting processes are highly likely to face legal challenges, said consultancy Colombia Risk Analysis.
“There will be no viable legal path to simplify, speed up or eliminate prior consultations,” it said.
(Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra, editing by Andrei Khalip)

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 22:38:10 +0000

Deutsche Bank, KBC freeze some Radiant World funds in Singapore

Bloomberg News | August 6, 2026 |
Iron ore cargo. Stock image.
Radiant World is under growing pressure after two of its key banks froze its funds and major miners moved to cut ties with the iron ore trading house.
Deutsche Bank AG and KBC Group NV have frozen some of the company’s Singapore bank accounts, while some other banks have suspended credit lines, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the subject.
The moves came after Bloomberg reported last week that some of the largest commodity-trading firms had stopped dealing with Radiant World amid concerns it provided banks with falsified documents about iron ore trades, citing people familiar with the matter.
Two of the world’s largest miners, Rio Tinto Group and Vale SA, have struck Radiant World off their lists of approved customers, people familiar with the matter said.
Commodity traders like Radiant World rely on credit from a wide range of suppliers, customers and financiers to handle huge quantities of goods whose value often dwarfs their own net worth. The private company grew quickly in recent years to become one of the world’s largest traders of iron ore with annual revenues of about $12 billion. Now, uncertainty about Radiant World’s business is already being felt in the iron ore market, where prices this week fell to the lowest in more than a year.
A spokesperson for Radiant World said: “Radiant World remains well capitalised with healthy liquidity, supported by a consortium of long-standing banking partners. We continue to meet our obligations to our financing and trading partners and remain well on track to deliver on our Q4 targets.” He declined to comment on individual counterparties.
In response to Bloomberg’s previous coverage, Radiant World has denied wrongdoing and said it “conducts its business to the highest commercial and legal standards.”
While Radiant World is little known outside the metals industry, its scale in the iron ore market has put it at the center of a network of trade relationships involving some of the world’s top miners, traders and steelmakers. It has established ties with dozens of banks and funds that finance it through lending facilities backed by documents like invoices and shipping receipts, cash in its own bank accounts, or direct ownership of commodities in transactions known as repo financing, according to corporate filings and people familiar with the matter.
Pulled back
Several of Radiant World’s banks have pulled back from dealing with the company in the past week, the people said. Deutsche Bank and KBC have frozen some bank accounts while they carry out compliance reviews, the people said.
In addition, Arab Bank Switzerland Ltd., a key financier of Radiant World’s business, has stopped issuing new letters of credit for the trading house’s iron ore shipments, according to two of the people. ICBC Standard Bank Plc has suspended repo financing with the company, several additional people familiar with the matter said, also asking not to be identified discussing sensitive information.
Societe Generale SA is also reducing its exposure to Radiant World, though it began the process several months ago after becoming aware of allegations of fraud in the market, separate people familiar with the matter said.
Spokespeople for Deutsche Bank, KBC, Arab Bank Switzerland, ICBC Standard Bank and Societe Generale declined to comment.
Bloomberg previously reported that Intesa Sanpaolo SpA and Jefferies Financial Group Inc.’s Point Bonita fund were reviewing their exposure to the company, and that Intesa had taken a provision on its exposure.
Meanwhile, several key trading counterparties are also moving to cut ties with Radiant World, according to people familiar with the matter.
Rio Tinto and Vale, the world’s two largest iron ore miners, have stopped doing new deals with Radiant World, the people said, asking not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. The two miners typically supply much of their iron ore directly to steelmakers under long-term contracts, but also sell additional cargoes to a relatively small group of approved trading houses in the spot market.
The miners have both removed Radiant World from those approved customer lists, the people said. Rio still has some limited pre-existing contractual commitments to fulfill to Radiant World, one person familiar with the company’s position said.
Both miners were listed in a December 2024 Radiant World presentation as being among the company’s “diverse network” of suppliers and counterparties. Other companies listed in that presentation include Glencore Plc, Cargill Inc., Trafigura Group, BHP Group and CSN Mineração.
Bloomberg reported last week that Cargill had stopped dealing with Radiant World several months ago and that Glencore was not entering into new business with the company. On Wednesday, Glencore CEO Gary Nagle confirmed that the company had halted new business and was “checking how to exit” its outstanding exposures.
A spokesperson for Trafigura said: “We do not trade with Radiant World.”
BHP hasn’t traded with Radiant World for at least several months, according to a person familiar with the matter, while Brazilian miner CSN hasn’t sold iron ore to Radiant World since the end of 2024, a person familiar with the matter said.
Spokespeople for Rio Tinto, Vale, BHP and CSN declined to comment.
(By Alfred Cang, Katharine Gemmell, Jack Farchy, Priscila Azevedo Rocha, Mark Burton and Arno Schütze)

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:21:07 +0000

Iron ore mine depletion to underpin prices next decade, Rio Tinto says

Reuters | August 5, 2026
(Image of the Paraburdoo operation, in the Pilbara, courtesy of Rio Tinto)
Supply pressure stemming from the depletion of iron ore mines built earlier this century, such as those in Australia, is set to underpin the iron ore market and prices over the coming decade, a Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) executive said on Wednesday.
Rio expects to invest more than $13 billion on new mines, plant and equipment in the Pilbara region from 2025 to 2027 while estimating that 800 million tonnes needs to be added globally across the next decade to maintain supply.
Only 300 million tonnes has been committed.
“It feels like every year, the demise of iron ore is very much being exaggerated,” Matthew Holcz, Rio’s iron ore chief executive, told a lunch event at the Melbourne Mining Club.
“While I think the demand story has been reasonably well understood, I really think it’s been on the supply side, so disruptions have been underestimated,” he said, pointing to annual cyclones that strike Western Australia’s Pilbara coast from November to April.
“I think the rate of depletion is very much underestimated,” Holcz added.
“If we look at when the industry really boomed, 2005, 2010, 2015, a lot of those assets are now 15, 20 years old, and the scale of the iron ore industry … has increased.”
Investment in new supply is only a fraction of that seen at the start of last decade, Holcz said.
“Marginal costs are a lot higher … so we think there’s good price support around the levels that we’re enjoying in recent years.”
China’s demand is expected to be stable until 2030 before declining slightly, but the Global South will bolster demand, particularly India, which Rio expects to be a net iron ore importer around 2035.
Change in leverage
On China’s state buyer, now more assertive in price talks with suppliers, Holcz said tension between buyers and sellers always prevailed but Rio was focused on long term ties and “win-win” opportunities.
“The supply-demand balance has shifted,” he told media in remarks on the sidelines. “You’ve got a market that is much more in balance, and certainly that’s shifted some of the leverage.”
Referring to union matters in the Pilbara, where workers are set to strike this weekend at BHP’s (ASX: BHP) Port Hedland operations, Holcz favoured a “direct relationship” with workers that he said has historically led to better outcomes.
Future capital spending decisions would hinge on competition, industrial relations and tax provisions elsewhere, areas in which Australia is falling behind.
Rio Tinto has no major exposure to iron ore trader Radiant World, Holcz added.
Trading houses Vitol Group and Cargill have stopped trading with Radiant World over concerns that invoices provided to its banks may not have been valid, Bloomberg News said last week, which Radiant world denies.
“From a Rio Tinto perspective, there isn’t any exposure there that we’re concerned about,” Holcz said.
(Reporting by Melanie Burton in Melbourne; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
CMRG tells some steel mills to halt talks with Rio Tinto, sources say
Reuters | August 6, 2026 |
Rio operates 4 independent shipping terminals at 2 locations, Cape Lambert (pictured) and Dampier. (Image courtesy of Rio Tinto.)
China’s state iron ore buyer has directed some steel mills to halt negotiations with Rio Tinto (ASX, LON: RIO) for shipments from September, two sources with knowledge of the matter said, escalating pressure on the world’s top iron ore producer during annual supply talks.
China Mineral Resources Group (CMRG) has increasingly used its buying power to wrest better terms for its steel makers by restricting purchases from big iron ore miners while contract talks are underway.
In the run-up to the expiry of annual supply deals, miners typically discuss with customers their desired volumes and specific cargo and shipment dates for the next year, a trader said. CMRG has asked some mills not to settle those details, they said.
Larger procurement volume
CMRG is negotiating for more than half of China’s annual import volumes, according to commodity research group Wood Mackenzie’s estimates.
The push to stall talks with Rio Tinto was aimed at pressuring mills that have not given up negotiation rights to CMRG to do so, two traders and an analyst said, which would hand the state-run trader a larger procurement volume and boost its bargaining power.
The most active iron ore contract on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) DCIOcv1 closed daytime trade up by 2.57% to the highest since July 31 at 719 yuan ($106.54) per metric ton, while the benchmark September iron ore SZZFU6 on the Singapore Exchange jumped 2.15% to $96.45 a ton as of 0823 GMT, also the highest since July 31.
CMRG has already targeted Australia’s other top iron ore producers — (ASX: BHP), Fortescue (ASX: FMG) and privately held Hancock Prospecting, owned by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart.
Australia supplies more than half of China’s iron ore imports, making it by far its largest source of the steelmaking ingredient, and the material is Australia’s most valuable commodity export.
CMRG did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Rio Tinto declined to comment.
Under pressure
BHP faced progressive purchasing bans on some products through late 2025 and early 2026 as its annual term contract negotiations dragged on. Restrictions were lifted following a visit by its then incoming CEO Brandon Craig in April.
Meanwhile, a top executive at Fortescue last week said CMRG’s actions were undermining China’s stable iron ore supply.
Rio Tinto had been seen as insulated from some of that pressure given its largest shareholder is China’s state-owned Chinalco, which also leads the consortium partnering Rio Tinto in the Simandou iron ore project in Guinea.
However, this week its chief executive of iron ore, Matthew Holcz, said negotiating leverage has shifted away from iron ore producers as growing supply has balanced the market.
Holcz said tension was always present between buyers and sellers, but Rio was focused on long-term ties and “win-win” opportunities.
Australia’s major miners and their lobbyists have asked Canberra for help in pushing back against Beijing’s efforts, including raising the prospect of a single selling desk for the country’s most valuable commodity export.
But the view from at least one miner was that Canberra has been trying to repair its relationship with China so might not want to take up this fight right now. China unofficially banned a swathe of Australia’s commodity exports, including coal, wine and beef, between 2020 and 2023.
($1 = 6.7489 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Melanie Burton and Reuters staff; Editing by Sonali Paul and David Holmes)

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 22:22:18 +0000

BAN DEEP SEA MINING
Glomar Minerals targets deep-sea production before end of Trump term

Amanda Stutt | August 7, 2026 |
The RV Tangaroa at sea. Image: Earth Sciences New Zealand.
This week, Glomar Minerals announced its wholly owned subsidiary UK Seabed Resources Limited (UKSR) departed from Tahiti for the Pacific Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) to survey its license area for polymetallic nodules.
Nodules found within the company’s two CCZ license areas – together the size of Louisiana – are rich in manganese, cobalt, nickel, copper, and rare earths – minerals critical to defense, aerospace, energy, and modern manufacturing, Glomar said.
The campaign is the first comprehensive geological and biological survey of the UK2 license area in more than 40 years, the company said in a news release.
The 65-day campaign is being run with Earth Sciences New Zealand aboard the RV Tangaroa, which the company says is one of the most capable deep ocean research vessels in the world.
Glomar Minerals aims to begin processing polymetallic nodules before the end of US President Donald Trump’s term as it evaluates regulatory routes beyond the International Seabed Authority (ISA), chief executive Chris Williams told MINING.com in an interview.
The US seabed minerals company is looking at exclusive economic zones where it could launch a relatively small operation while the ISA continues negotiations over rules governing commercial mining in international waters.
“There’s a real question about whether there’ll be regulations at the ISA during that timeframe, so we are looking actively at other jurisdictions to see whether there is a faster regulatory path to production.”
The ISA has spent years trying to finalize its mining code and was still working through several outstanding regulatory issues during its July 2026 session. Its latest draft covers environmental protection, compliance, inspections and the financial terms that would apply to mining in international waters. The ISA released a third revision of the draft exploitation regulations in June..
Pacific campaign underway
Glomar owns UK Seabed Resources (UKSR), which holds two UK-sponsored exploration contracts covering about 133,000 sq. km in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a mineral-rich expanse of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico.
The company acquired UKSR from the bankruptcy estate of Norway’s Loke Marine Minerals in 2025. Lockheed Martin, which had previously owned UKSR, sold the subsidiary to Loke in 2023.
Williams managed Lockheed’s seabed minerals program from 2015 until the sale. He said Glomar’s licences cover the same areas he oversaw at the defence contractor.
UKSR has launched a 67-day expedition aboard the Earth Sciences New Zealand research vessel Tangaroa, including 45 days of active survey work.
Historical US data indicates that UK2 contains a potentially strong nodule resource, Williams said, although the licence remains at an earlier exploration stage than UK1.
“UK1 is really pretty far advanced,” he said. “It doesn’t require an enormous amount of work to be ready for an application for a production licence — or an exploitation contract, as it’s known at the International Seabed Authority.”
US processing plans
In March, Glomar and Australian critical minerals developer Cobalt Blue Holdings said they plan to build a US refinery to process critical minerals extracted from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean within three years, dubbed Project Infinity.
The modular facility is being designed to process about 200,000 tonnes of polymetallic nodules and 7,500 tonnes of terrestrial cobalt hydroxide annually. Its proposed flowsheet would produce manganese, cobalt sulphate, nickel and copper, as well as a rare-earth-rich residue.
The companies said they have shortlisted four sites across Louisiana, North Carolina and Texas after reviewing more than 30 locations.
“We’d like to see nodules going through that processing plant before the end of the Trump term,” Williams said.
The facility would operate at roughly one-tenth the scale of a plant supplied by a full-size collection vessel working continuously, Williams said. Glomar sees the smaller initial development as a way to reduce risk before expanding capacity.
“The idea is that it’s modular and scalable, which lowers the risk out of the gate but gives us lots of opportunity to scale,” he said.
The company has not announced customers, financing arrangements or any talks with the US government concerning project funding.
Environmental debate
Deep-sea mining remains fiercely contested. Environmental groups and several governments have called for a moratorium or precautionary pause, arguing that too little is known about abyssal ecosystems to permit commercial extraction.
The UK, which sponsors Glomar’s ISA contracts, has supported a moratorium on exploitation licences until sufficient scientific evidence and strong environmental rules are in place.
Williams argues mining is likely to proceed regardless, driven partly by governments seeking secure supplies of critical minerals.
“Anyone who spends time at the International Seabed Authority and hears how some member states — particularly China — are talking about it would recognize that there’s a really strong imperative to get these regulations done to enable seabed mining.”
“Given that it’s happening anyway, let’s make sure we do it the right way. Let’s lead by example.”
Williams pointed to research examining a 1979 pilot mining test in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone as evidence that some biological recovery is possible. Scientists returning to the site 44 years later found animals had begun recolonizing the disturbed ground.
The findings were not uniformly positive. The peer-reviewed study found persistent physical changes to the seabed and a mixed recovery among animal groups, underscoring the long duration of mining impacts. The research was published in Nature in 2025.
“The environment was a little different where the nodules had been taken away, but the recolonization was very real over that 40-year period,” Williams said. “That changes, I think, the assumption that after you do this, you’ve got a barren desert with no life.”
Glomar has pledged to submit its environmental findings for peer review and, where possible, fund open access to the resulting academic papers.
“We’d like people to see what we’re doing, and we’d like to be transparent about it,” Williams said.

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:03:53 +0000

Berkeley Lab's New Fusion Materials Breakthrough, Explained
By Haley Zaremba - Aug 08, 2026
Scientists at UC Davis and Berkeley Lab found that titanium-palladium foils trigger deuterium-deuterium fusion reactions more frequently at lower temperatures, chipping away at one of fusion's biggest cost barriers.

The findings, published this month in Nature Communications, open up a research path called materials-driven fusion, where reactor materials actively boost reactions instead of just surviving them.

The discovery could feed directly into DuctGPT, an AI tool being built at Ames National Laboratory to identify fusion-ready materials, tying the breakthrough to the industry's push to solve AI's own energy problem.

Scientists at UC Davis and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory just made a major breakthrough in the design of nuclear fusion reactors. The team is at the vanguard of a new field of nuclear fusion research known as materials-driven fusion, which focuses on what the reactors are made up of in order to maximize efficiency and lower the temperature at which fusion can reliably occur.
“Instead of designing materials just to survive the harsh conditions of fusion, researchers might be able to design materials that boost the reaction in specific conditions, similar to the way catalysts speed up chemical processes,” states a recent press release from the Berkeley Lab.
In a paper written about the breakthrough, published this month in the scientific journal Nature Communications, the team describes how metallic foils made of titanium and palladium can facilitate deuterium–deuterium nuclear fusion reactions at far greater frequencies at lower temperatures than is typically possible. This represents a major breakthrough, as the ultra-high heats used in fusion experiments require huge amounts of energy inputs that render most fusion reactions net-negative in terms of energy production. Furthermore, these high heats are incredibly hard on the materials involved. Together, these hurdles represent some of the greatest challenges to making fusion commercially viable.
While the discovery described in the Nature Communications paper is important in and of itself, the further research that it will catalyze in the field of materials-driven fusion is even more important. “It gives you a new knob to turn that you didn’t have before,” Arun Persaud, head of the Fusion Science & Ion Beam Technology group in Berkeley Lab’s Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics (ATAP) Division, was quoted in the press release. “If we understand this effect better, it opens the door to engineering new materials that would affect the fusion rate under certain conditions. Someday future progress might enable more compact and efficient neutron generators, which have all kinds of applications, like cargo screening, planetary science, and medical therapy and imaging.”
Materials-driven research has become increasingly common and increasingly promising thanks to the integration of artificial intelligence within the fusion sector. Large language models are being used to rapidly model different materials to find the best fit in a process that would otherwise be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Scientists at the Ames National Laboratory in Ames, Iowa are currently building an artificial intelligence tool designed for just this purpose, called DuctGPT. The tool uses large language modelling in combination with physics modeling to find materials suitable for the harsh environment of a nuclear fusion reactor. The breakthrough at the Berkeley Lab could directly tie into the work at Ames, as any new data and model fed into the machine, such as their newest findings, can help refine the system and make research more efficient and effective moving forward.
In this way, artificial intelligence could hold the key to solving the selfsame energy crisis that it is creating. While there is huge uncertainty surrounding exactly how much energy AI will gobble up in the coming years, we do know that it’s enough to pose a real threat to global energy security. Finding a way to power the AI boom without compromising on climate goals and other competing energy needs will require major technological advances, both in the way we produce energy and in the way that AI uses it.
“There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough,” Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, said at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos in 2024. “It motivates us to go invest more in fusion,” he went on to say. And now, increasingly, that investment is now using AI tools to solve AI’s problems. Tools like DuctGPT could very well be our best bet for innovating our way out of crisis.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:27:05 +0000

Is Iran Preparing to Permanently Block the Strait of Hormuz?
By Tom Kool - Aug 07, 2026
Conflicting signals from Washington and Tehran keep oil markets on edge as Iran weighs a permanent Hormuz shipping ban while Trump insists a deal is within reach.
Friday, August 07, 2026
The oil market’s very own schizophrenia – trying to read into the contradicting claims of US President Trump and Iranian officials seeking to escalate the blockade of Hormuz even further – continues to puzzle industry analysts and traders. Iran’s Parliament is reviewing a bill to permanently ban US, Israeli and other hostile vessels from the Hormuz, backed up by a flurry of drone and missile strikes in the Strait, just as Trump claimed a final deal is ‘close’. ICE Brent is set to close the week at $83 per barrel.
Iran and Oman Draw the Lines Through Hormuz. Tehran and Muscat have agreed on the coordinates of a proposed shipping corridor giving Iran control over Gulf-bound vessels, but Iranian officials cautioned that key details remain unresolved, and the new deal alone would not guarantee security in the strait.
Aramco Splits Its September Pricing Strategy. Saudi national oil firm Saudi Aramco (TADAWUL:2222) cut its flagship grade Arab Light for Asia by 50 cents to a $2/barrel discount against Oman/Dubai but raised scarce Arab Medium and Heavy grades by $1.25/barrel, suggesting it could boost Gulf output soon.
Court Blocks Trump’s $20 Billion Climate Clawback. A US federal appeals court ruled that the EPA could not cancel Biden-era clean-energy grants solely over policy disagreements, restoring an injunction protecting $20 billion in funds for nonprofit lenders such as the Climate United Fund or CGC.
US Major Changes Guard After 14 Years. Ryan Lance, CEO of ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP), will retire next month and hand the reins to CFO Andy O’Brien after transforming the company into the world’s largest independent oil producer, having bought Concho Resources, Shell’s Permian assets and Marathon Oil.
China Opens Its Fuel Export Taps Wider. Beijing has relaxed restrictions on refined product exports for a second month, allowing August transportation fuel shipments of up to 3.6–3.7 million tonnes—well above last year’s

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:23:55 +0000

ADNOC Buys 11 Supertankers for $1.3 Billion to Expand Export Fleet
By Michael Kern - Aug 07, 2026
ADNOC has bought 11 very large crude and gas carriers for $1.3 billion as the national oil company of Abu Dhabi continues to expand its fleet of supertankers to boost crude and LNG exports.
ADNOC’s unit ADNOC Logistics & Services plc on Friday announced it had acquired five modern Very Large Gas Carriers (VLGCs) and six Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) for a combined investment of about $1.3 billion.
Nine of the vessels, six VLCCs and three VLGCs, were acquired on the secondary market. They are scheduled for delivery this quarter and will enter service with ADNOC immediately following delivery.
The remaining two VLGCs are newbuild vessels acquired through a resale transaction from a Chinese shipyard, with delivery scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026.
The fleet expansion will support ADNOC L&S’ gas and crude oil shipping capacity and support ADNOC Group’s integrated value chain and continued growth in production, trading and export volumes, the company said in a statement.
The latest acquisition follows ADNOC’s order for newbuild LNG carriers from last month.
ADNOC L&S currently owns over 340 vessels and operates 600 chartered ships.
The UAE has sought to adapt to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by sneaking tankers in dark mode through the Strait and increasingly offering to sell many of its crude grades for loading offshore Fujairah and at Sohar in Oman, outside the Strait.
The United Arab Emirates has managed to boost its oil exports to pre-crisis levels as early as June, as it has kept pushing crude through the Strait of Hormuz and outside it.
ADNOC is also boosting its LNG carrier fleet to grow its international gas business.
Last month, ADNOC Logistics and Services placed a $900-million order for four newbuild LNG carriers to expand its fleet as Abu Dhabi’s national oil company seeks to boost gas exports to capitalize on the global rise in LNG demand.
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:20:27 +0000

Russia’s Labor Shortage Worsens as Central Asian Workers Stay Away
By Eurasianet - Aug 07, 2026
Central Asian entries into Russia for work reportedly fell from 2.3 million to 1.9 million in the first half of 2026 as tighter Russian migration rules and alternative employment destinations discouraged workers.

Uzbekistan is actively diversifying labor migration away from Russia, while Russia’s share of Uzbek remittances has declined even as total remittance inflows increase.

Russia’s exceptionally tight labor market is contributing to inflationary pressure and could constrain economic growth long after the war in Ukraine ends.

The bad economic news keeps coming for the Russian economy. An analysis of Russian government data by the business daily Vedomosti shows that the influx of Central Asian labor migrants to Russia fell by roughly 15 percent during the first half of 2026, deepening an already critical labor shortage in the country.
Official entries for work purposes by Central Asian citizens fell to 1.9 million during the first six months of this year, down from 2.3 million the previous year, according to the Vedomosti report. A large majority of Central Asian guest workers, 1.1 million, came from Uzbekistan during H1 2026.
At a time when Russia is in desperate need of workers to fill vacancies in a wide variety of service sectors, the Kremlin has increased barriers to employment for Central Asian guest workers. Vedomosti cited Alexander Safonov, a professor at the Russian-government affiliated FinancialUniversity, as attributing the drop in guest workers’ arrivals in part to stricter migration policies and higher costs for work permits and medical certifications.
Bureaucratic red tape is not the only cause for the decline. Central Asian leaders, led by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, have actively tried over the past few years to steer would-be labor migrants away from Russia. In June, for example, Mirziyoyev issued a decree creating a diplomatic position at embassies in China, France, Indonesia, the UAE, the United States, and the United Kingdom tasked with promoting both tourism and labor migration.
In 2024, the Uzbek government launched a strategy to regulate labor migration and secure higher-paying, more skilled positions for those who seek work abroad. A key pillar of the strategy is forging official guest-worker arrangements with European Union member states. The policy has registered some success, such as a 2024 migration and mobility partnership agreement with Germany to admit skilled Uzbek workers. The agreement also “contains comprehensive rules for returning citizens of Uzbekistan who are required to leave Germany,” according to a German government statement.
Remittance figures for Uzbek workers abroad appear to reflect the new labor migration patterns. Money sent home to family members by Uzbek guest workers during the first quarter of 2026 increased by 13 percent overall, reaching $3.8 billion, compared to the same quarter the previous year. While Russia remained the overall largest source of remittances, its share fell to 72 percent, or $2.75 billion, during Q1 2026, down from 78 percent during the same period the previous year. Remittances from Kazakhstan, South Korea and EU states all edged up during the period.
Central Asian guest workers have traditionally played an important role in Russia in plugging labor shortages in low-wage unskilled sectors, including construction, sanitation and other municipal services. With Russia now in desperate need of new recruits to keep its war effort in Ukraine afloat, the country’s labor market does not appear to have a way to compensate for the decline in Central Asian labor migrants. Civic services, accordingly, seem set to suffer.
Russia currently has up to 2.5 million vacant jobs, and the unemployment rate is estimated at 2 percent, a level that many economists believe fuels rapid inflation. The general consensus among economists is that the optimal unemployment rate for a thriving economy is in the 4 percent range.
In April, Russian Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina stated that “the lack of workers remains a primary threat to price stability,” according to a report published by the Moscow Times.
Inflation in Russia is steadily creeping upward. In July, the Central Bank revised its annual inflation estimate for 2026 from 4.5-5.5 percent to 6-7 percent. The bank predicted that inflation would stand at 6.3 percent by the end of September, Interfax reported.
Beyond the immediate inflationary threat, the deepening labor shortage creates a longer-term danger to fostering economic growth once the fighting stops in Ukraine. By 2030, some estimates show that Russia will need to increase its workforce by 10.9 million to replace retiring workers and fill new positions.
By Eurasianet

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:14:52 +0000

China Is Betting on Quantum Tech to Fix Its Power Grid
By Haley Zaremba - Aug 07, 2026
China is piloting quantum sensors at a Hefei substation to detect faults and catch potential outages before they start.

The technology could cut electricity measurement errors at the site by more than 500,000 kilowatt-hours a year.

The project taps into a broader global race, from MIT to Tokyo, to apply quantum breakthroughs to energy and grid reliability.

Global energy grids are under unprecedented stress as energy flows become more complex with the addition of intermittent energy sources and the artificial intelligence boom drives demand to new heights. Managing variable inflows and outflows of electricity while also keeping up with data center hyperscalers will require expanding and enhancing the grid at an unprecedented scale.
“Modernizing the grid to make it ‘smarter’ and more resilient through the use of cutting-edge technologies, equipment, and controls that communicate and work together to deliver electricity more reliably and efficiently can greatly reduce the frequency and duration of power outages, reduce storm impacts, and restore service faster when outages occur,” the United States Department of Energy writes. “Utilities also benefit from a modernized grid, including improved security, reduced peak loads, increased integration of renewables, and lower operational costs.”
The goal is to make the grid work smarter, not harder – and China thinks that the solution might be found in quantum mechanics. A team of researchers is working to apply quantum technologies in an exploratory project at a substation in Hefei, Anhui province in order to test how the approach could bolster grid resilience and reliability. The researchers are “using quantum sensors, secure communications and computing to detect faults, improve measurements and model grid operations,” according to a recent report from Interesting Engineering.
The substation has been the testing site for a series of quantum technologies since its construction in 2024, including an 18-month trial of quantum sensors used to detect defects and issues within the power grid. By using quantum technologies, these sensors are capable of detecting weak electrical signals and minute shifts in temperature and humidity within the station’s switchgear room, thereby protecting the station’s equipment and potentially detecting and stopping power outages before they start.
By researching and developing these cutting-edge technologies, China hopes to solve weak points in its conventional electrical grid, such as “delayed equipment monitoring, measurement errors, data-security risks and the computational load involved in analyzing complex power systems.” The researchers allege that this technology could ultimately “reduce electricity measurement errors at the substation by more than 500,000 kilowatt-hours per year.”
“The operation has proved that quantum technology is not a ‘showpiece’, but a ‘hard support’ for guaranteeing the power supply and promoting development,” Tian Teng, a researcher with Anhui Electric Power Company, was quoted by Interesting Engineering.
Many scientists around the world are looking into how quantum technologies could solve some of the major challenges plaguing our energy sector today. Last year, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for breakthrough work on quantum mechanics, emphasizing the growing importance and promise of the technology.
“A race is on across industry and academia to fulfill the promise of quantum computing, a strange and powerful technology,” the New York Times wrote this week as part of its report on the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics. The enormous power of the field can be as frightening as it is exciting. “A true quantum computer could accelerate the progress of drug discovery or other scientific research. It could also break the encryption that protects computers vital to national security.”
Indeed, quantum technologies are already transforming clean energy research in diverse contexts around the globe. At the Institute of Science Tokyo, a team of scientists used quantum states to design a novel form of energy harvester dreamt up by a research team at the Institute of Science Tokyo, capable of reclaiming energy lost to the heat that emanates from electronics and industrial machinery. Over in the United States, at MIT, researchers recently announced that they have discovered a method to observe a so-called “edge state” of electrons that results in a lack of energy loss, with enormous disruptive potential for the tech sector. And breakthroughs in quantum batteries also hold promise for harvesting energy directly from light sources and recharging many times faster than lithium-ion batteries.
While all of these applications show enormous promise for transforming the global energy sector for the better, few uses are as urgently needed as grid modernization. In an era characterized by complex energy insecurities at a global scale, creating smarter and more reliable energy grids is a matter of international priority.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:12:59 +0000

Berkeley Lab's New Fusion Materials Breakthrough, Explained
SCI-FI-TEK 70YRS IN THE MAKING

By Haley Zaremba - Aug 08, 2026
Scientists at UC Davis and Berkeley Lab found that titanium-palladium foils trigger deuterium-deuterium fusion reactions more frequently at lower temperatures, chipping away at one of fusion's biggest cost barriers.

The findings, published this month in Nature Communications, open up a research path called materials-driven fusion, where reactor materials actively boost reactions instead of just surviving them.

The discovery could feed directly into DuctGPT, an AI tool being built at Ames National Laboratory to identify fusion-ready materials, tying the breakthrough to the industry's push to solve AI's own energy problem.

Scientists at UC Davis and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory just made a major breakthrough in the design of nuclear fusion reactors. The team is at the vanguard of a new field of nuclear fusion research known as materials-driven fusion, which focuses on what the reactors are made up of in order to maximize efficiency and lower the temperature at which fusion can reliably occur.
“Instead of designing materials just to survive the harsh conditions of fusion, researchers might be able to design materials that boost the reaction in specific conditions, similar to the way catalysts speed up chemical processes,” states a recent press release from the Berkeley Lab.
In a paper written about the breakthrough, published this month in the scientific journal Nature Communications, the team describes how metallic foils made of titanium and palladium can facilitate deuterium–deuterium nuclear fusion reactions at far greater frequencies at lower temperatures than is typically possible. This represents a major breakthrough, as the ultra-high heats used in fusion experiments require huge amounts of energy inputs that render most fusion reactions net-negative in terms of energy production. Furthermore, these high heats are incredibly hard on the materials involved. Together, these hurdles represent some of the greatest challenges to making fusion commercially viable.
While the discovery described in the Nature Communications paper is important in and of itself, the further research that it will catalyze in the field of materials-driven fusion is even more important. “It gives you a new knob to turn that you didn’t have before,” Arun Persaud, head of the Fusion Science & Ion Beam Technology group in Berkeley Lab’s Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics (ATAP) Division, was quoted in the press release. “If we understand this effect better, it opens the door to engineering new materials that would affect the fusion rate under certain conditions. Someday future progress might enable more compact and efficient neutron generators, which have all kinds of applications, like cargo screening, planetary science, and medical therapy and imaging.”
Materials-driven research has become increasingly common and increasingly promising thanks to the integration of artificial intelligence within the fusion sector. Large language models are being used to rapidly model different materials to find the best fit in a process that would otherwise be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Scientists at the Ames National Laboratory in Ames, Iowa are currently building an artificial intelligence tool designed for just this purpose, called DuctGPT. The tool uses large language modelling in combination with physics modeling to find materials suitable for the harsh environment of a nuclear fusion reactor. The breakthrough at the Berkeley Lab could directly tie into the work at Ames, as any new data and model fed into the machine, such as their newest findings, can help refine the system and make research more efficient and effective moving forward.
In this way, artificial intelligence could hold the key to solving the selfsame energy crisis that it is creating. While there is huge uncertainty surrounding exactly how much energy AI will gobble up in the coming years, we do know that it’s enough to pose a real threat to global energy security. Finding a way to power the AI boom without compromising on climate goals and other competing energy needs will require major technological advances, both in the way we produce energy and in the way that AI uses it.
“There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough,” Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT creator OpenAI, said at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos in 2024. “It motivates us to go invest more in fusion,” he went on to say. And now, increasingly, that investment is now using AI tools to solve AI’s problems. Tools like DuctGPT could very well be our best bet for innovating our way out of crisis.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:12:30 +0000

BP to Take Full Control of Trinidad’s Calypso Gas Project
By Charles Kennedy - Aug 06, 2026
BP has agreed to acquire Woodside Energy’s 70% stake in the Calypso gas project offshore Trinidad and Tobago, increasing its ownership to 100% and making the British energy major operator of the development.
The deal covers Block TTDAA 14, an early-stage deepwater natural gas project that could eventually provide additional supply to BP’s established Trinidad and Tobago operations. The transaction remains subject to government and regulatory approvals and is expected to close by the end of 2026.
The acquisition consolidates BP’s position in a country where it already has substantial gas production and infrastructure. BP is the largest supplier of natural gas to Trinidad and Tobago’s domestic market and owns a 45% interest in the Atlantic LNG facility on the country’s southwest coast.
That existing footprint could be important to the economics of Calypso. Rather than entering a new region, BP would be developing the resource alongside an established operating base and gas infrastructure, potentially creating options for bringing future production to market.
“By building on the strengths of our existing operations and infrastructure, we have the potential to unlock new production and support long-term growth in the region,” BP upstream executive vice president Gordon Birrell said.
The agreement also marks Woodside Energy’s exit from the project, with BP taking over its 70% interest as well as operatorship. No purchase price or development timetable was disclosed in the announcement.
Calypso remains at an early stage, meaning the transaction does not by itself represent a commitment to develop the project. However, taking full ownership gives BP control over future technical and investment decisions as it evaluates the resource within its broader Trinidad and Tobago portfolio.
Trinidad and Tobago has long relied on offshore gas production to supply its domestic industrial sector and LNG exports. Additional upstream resources are therefore strategically important to maintaining gas supplies to the country’s existing infrastructure as mature fields decline.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:18:22 +0000

Energy Affordability Trumps Climate in US Midterm Races
By Andrew Topf - Aug 07, 2026
Rising gasoline and electricity prices have made energy affordability a key issue in the U.S. midterm elections.

Candidates are embracing a more pragmatic energy stance, with growing support for natural gas, nuclear, and an "all-of-the-above" energy mix as voters push back against higher utility bills.

Data centers have emerged as a political flashpoint, with concerns over their impact on electricity prices fueling calls for tighter regulation, new taxes, and even construction moratoriums in some states.

Elevated US gasoline and electricity prices are seeping into the upcoming midterm elections in November.
Candidates are prioritizing consumer affordability over the environment, with Democrats linking gas price increases to President Trump’s foreign policy decisions.
Meanwhile, a debate over data center expansion and consumer rate impacts are forcing candidates to address infrastructure investment trade-offs.
According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, US residential electricity prices rose 7% in 2025 versus 2024. Ratepayers in 46 states experienced year-over-year increases, with those in 12 states and Washington, DC, seeing double-digit annual rate hikes, states S&P Global.
Factors contributing to high electricity prices include rising energy prices, infrastructure improvements, extreme weather, environmental mandates, and the energy-intensive development of data centers.
In the first quarter of 2026, Hawaii paid the most per kWh at 43.91 cents, followed by California and New York, at a respective 36.15 and 32.63 cents. The national average was 18.70 cents
"This climate-versus-fossil fuels framing of past cycles has given way to affordability [and] electricity price framing for both parties," said Scott Segal, head of Bracewell's Policy Resolution Group.
The increased focus on affordability does not necessarily mean that progressive Democrats are lining up to bring natural gas-fired power plants to their states. "But it does mean there's a growing recognition that very strict environmentalist or climate change messages are not being proffered by most Democratic politicians, at least in the runup to this midterm election," Segal said.
The war in Iran is driving oil prices higher and with them, US gasoline prices which are nearly $1/gallon more nationwide than a year ago, according to AAA.
In Alaska, where gas averaged $4.27 a gallon on July 28 — making it the fourth most expensive state — the incumbent Republican wants an increase in domestic oil production to counter the price impacts of war. The Democratic challenger says the war is driving higher costs and that as an oil-producing states, Alaskans “should be benefiting from that at the pump, not footing the bill for endless wars.”
Overall, a curious energy pragmatism is emerging, knocking candidates off their traditional messaging.
S&P Global notes that Incumbent Democratic governors are embracing diverse fuel sources amid rising demand, with an all-of-the-above approach that includes natural gas alongside nuclear and renewable power…
This trend, however, is not consistent across the entire country. Incumbent Democrats in some states, such as Colorado, drew strong pushback in their primaries for being more open to fossil fuels…
In Connecticut, the incumbent Democrat sees natural gas as the state’s dominant fuel source for the foreseeable future, whereas the Republican challenger blames carbon-free policies for cost increases.
Sixty percent of California voters are unwilling to pay more for renewables, 96% of whom cite the cost of energy as a problem. Quite an about-face for the country’s greenest state.
In the race for governor, the Democrat emphasizes affordability over climate goals; and won’t commit to phasing out gasoline cars by 2035. The Republican wants to end the state’s renewable portfolio standard and renewable energy credits; and says gas, nuclear and rooftop solar should compete on a level playing field.
Voters are obviously concerned about energy affordability and are laying the blame squarely on data centers, which require massive amounts of power and water.
S&P Global notes that In local, state and federal campaigns, candidates' positions on data-center development — including proposed moratoriums in some cases — could directly impact their chances of electoral success.
A 2026 Politico national survey cited by Brookings found nearly half of Americans expect data center energy costs to be a campaign issue. Thirty-eight percent of respondents in a 2026 Pew Research Center poll claimed that overall data center impact on home energy costs was mostly bad, compared to 6% who believed it was mostly good.
However, there was plenty of room for party differences, with the poll finding that, in general, Republicans had more favorable views about data centers and saw them as valuable economic development vehicles and less damaging to the environment than Democrats did.
In Texas, 55% of voters oppose data-center construction, despite the state proposing 32 gas-fired projects.
The Utah governor requires a new transparency framework and renewable power requirements for data centers, while Florida frontrunners agree that data centers require stricter regulation.
Two counties in Maryland have imposed data-center construction moratoriums.
There is some evidence to suggest that expressing concern over high electricity rates and blaming data centers for the increase were reasons for Democratic candidates gaining considerable traction in 2025. In that way, Democrats are simply following what worked. Brookings states:
Analysts in Virginia and New Jersey attributed Democratic victories to the tough stance gubernatorial candidates took against those facilities. Conservatives have joined the critique as well; Florida Governor Ron DeSantis supported an AI bill of rights to protect consumers from AI risks and shield them from the electricity costs of data centers.
We are already seeing 2026 candidates from both parties rail against rising rates, fixing responsibility on wealthy tech companies and the energy needs of their data centers. Electoral aspirants are leveraging public fears over artificial intelligence and a “techlash” against large digital firms to appeal to voters and propose tough legislation. The Virginia Senate, for instance, recently passed a budget bill that would remove a $1.6 billion tax break for data center equipment — just one sign of the shifting political climate for developers. Public concern over electricity costs will likely dominate this year’s campaign dialogue and could determine which candidates find success at the polls.
By Andrew Topf for Oilprice.com

Consolidated Edison Q2 Profit Rises 25% on Higher Electric and Gas Rate Base
By Charles Kennedy - Aug 06, 2026
Consolidated Edison reported second-quarter 2026 net income of $308 million, up from $246 million a year earlier, as higher electric and gas rate bases boosted earnings at its main New York utility business.
Earnings per share rose to $0.83 from $0.68 in the second quarter of 2025. On an adjusted basis, earnings were also $308 million, or $0.83 per share, compared with $240 million, or $0.67 per share, a year earlier.
The biggest contributor to the year-over-year improvement was Consolidated Edison Company of New York, or CECONY, which provides electricity to New York City and Westchester County as well as natural gas and steam services in parts of its territory.
CECONY contributed a $74 million year-over-year increase in quarterly net inco

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:27:45 +0000

Two-day strike begins at BHP’s Port Hedland iron ore operations

Reuters | August 7, 2026 |
Port Hedland, the world’s busiest iron ore export terminal. Image: Pilbara Ports Authority
Industrial action at BHP’s (ASX: BHP) Port Hedland operations in Western Australia began on Saturday, marking the first major strike there in more than two decades.
BHP ships some $80 million of iron ore daily through Port Hedland, the world’s biggest iron ore export hub. It has previously said it has plans to ensure that operations can continue.
About 150 workers are expected to take part in the strike on Saturday, the Combined BHP Ports Unions (CBPU) said, which is only a portion of BHP’s workforce at the port of more than 800 people.
A CBPU spokesperson earlier said that the nature of the industrial action, a 24-hour ship-loading ban followed by a 24-hour stoppage, remained unchanged.
The CBPU is negotiating a four-year bargaining agreement with the world’s third-largest iron ore miner, and opted to go ahead with the industrial action despite progress in talks between the parties on August 4.
About eight ships are expected to finish loading from BHP ports over the weekend, a source familiar with the matter said.
The action is not expected to affect rival miners Fortescue FMG.AX and Hancock Prospecting, which also use Port Hedland. The hub accounted for 75% of total iron ore exports from the Pilbara region of Western Australia in the year to June.
BHP has been negotiating for more than seven months with the CBPU, which represents around 450 operators and maintenance workers, over a new pay deal amid record share prices and rising costs of living. The CBPU will next meet with BHP on August 18, the same day that it will report its annual results.
(Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

BHP faces weekend strike at Port Hedland iron ore hub as wage talks drag

Reuters | August 4, 2026 |
Port Hedland, Australia. Stock image.
A two-day strike will go ahead at BHP’s Port Hedland operations in Western Australia this weekend despite progress in talks on Tuesday between unions and the global miner, a union spokesperson said.
BHP ships some $80 million of iron ore daily through Port Hedland, which is the world’s biggest export hub for iron ore.
As flagged last week, workers plan to impose a 24-hour ban on loading ships on Saturday, August 8, followed by a 24-hour work stoppage at the Port Hedland Bulk Export Terminal beginning at 05:30 AWST on August 9 (21:30 GMT August 8).
The action is likely to hold up 16 iron ore shipments over the two days, the union spokesperson said. BHP, the world’s third-biggest iron ore producer, has said it has plans to ensure that operations can continue.
Around 150 workers are expected to take part in the action, as the parties strive to reach terms on a four-year enterprise agreement.
“The meeting was productive, and while substantive issues are yet to be resolved, the parties have identified a path forward which we will pursue over coming weeks,” a spokesperson for Combined Ports Unions said in a statement.
Industrial action will still proceed as previously indicated, the union said.
The action is not expected to affect rival miners Fortescue and Hancock Prospecting, which also use Port Hedland. The hub accounted for 75% of total iron ore exports from the Pilbara in the year to June.
BHP said it would present an updated proposal at the next meeting on August 18, the same day that it will report its annual results.
Australia’s workplace regulator, the Fair Work Commission, is working with BHP and the unions on reaching an agreement.
“With another meeting scheduled and an updated proposal to come, we have made significant progress with the Commission’s assistance and there is no need for the unions to continue with their planned industrial action,” it said.
BHP has been negotiating for more than seven months with unions representing around 450 operators and maintenance workers over a new pay deal.
The unions said workers were seeking enforceable wage and condition protections. Workers argue that extreme heat, long hours and time away from family mean they should not be facing lower rates than workers in cities.
The fracture comes amid rising costs of living and a record share price for BHP, which is the world’s biggest listed miner and Australia’s largest listed company.
(By Sneha Kumar, Rajasik Mukherjee and Melanie Burton in Melbourne; Editing by Tom Hogue and Sonali Paul)

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 22:59:45 +0000

LI
CATL’s Jianxiawo lithium mine remains closed pending environmental approval
Reuters | August 7, 2026 |
Credit: Millennial Lithium Corp.
Chinese battery maker CATL’s Jianxiawo lithium mine remains pending environmental approval, state media reported on Friday.
The mine, in the city of Yichun in Jiangxi Province, is also undergoing maintenance, and no ore transportation or crushing is taking place, Shanghai Securities News reported, citing the Yifeng County Ecology and Environment Bureau.
CATL has been asked to complete environmental impact assessment approval procedures as soon as possible, the news outlet cited the bureau as saying.
The bureau comments came amid speculation over the mine’s reopening and expectations it could quickly return to full production, Shanghai Securities News reported.
The project’s mineral designation was changed to lithium ore from ceramic clay containing lithium, requiring CATL to prepare a new environmental impact assessment report, which was published for public consultation on July 27.
CATL suspended operations at Jianxiawo in August 2025 after its mining licence expired.
The company obtained a safety production permit on June 29, clearing a key regulatory hurdle towards restarting the mine after a nearly year-long suspension.
The most-active September lithium carbonate contract on the Guangzhou Futures Exchange gained 1.36% as of 0615 GMT. Shares of CATL were little changed, dipping 0.02%.
(Reporting by Joe Cash in Beijing and Dylan Duan in Shanghai; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Christopher Cushing).
ENAMI says China antitrust review of Rio Tinto lithium project delayed

Reuters | August 6, 2026 |
Salares Altoandinos project site. Image: Rio Tinto.
The Chinese antitrust regulator review into a lithium project involving Chile’s state-run ENAMI and miner Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) will be delayed by a few months, the head of the South American company said on Thursday.
ENAMI Executive Vice President Juan Carlos Saez told a legislative session that once approval is secured, the company will proceed with Rio Tinto to develop the Salares Altoandinos project, which requires an estimated investment of over $3 billion.
“They have just delayed it; it was supposed to be delivered around July or August. I believe they are going to delay it a few more months,” he told lawmakers.
ENAMI projects the initiative will begin operations in 2032 with an annual output of 35,000 metric tons, gradually increasing to 75,000 tons over three years.
(Reporting by Fabian Cambero, Editing by Iñigo Alexander)

Albemarle quarterly profit surges on rising lithium prices

Reuters | August 5, 2026 |
Albemarle’s Silver Peak operation in the US. (Image: Wikipedia.)
Albemarle (NYSE: ALB), the world’s largest producer of lithium for batteries, posted a spike in quarterly profit on Wednesday due to a jump in prices for the ultralight metal.
The results reflected an improvement in the lithium market after a supply glut forced the company and peers last year to cut staff and curtail growth projects.
Albemarle said the average price it received for its lithium rose 61% during the quarter and its sales volumes increased 11%.
“We continue to see resilient demand fundamentals across our core markets, including energy storage, electric vehicles, and semiconductors,” CEO Kent Masters said in a statement.
The company, which operates across the Americas, Australia, Asia and Europe, reported second-quarter net income of $480 million, or $3.52 per share, compared to $22.9 million in the year-ago quarter.
Excluding one-time items, Albemarle earned $3.75 per share. By that measure, analysts expected earnings of $3.24 per share, according to IBES data from LSEG.
Shares gained 1% to $120 in after-hours trading on Wednesday.
The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company plans to hold a conference call on Thursday to discuss the results.
(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Nia Williams and Jamie Freed)
Stardust Power signs lithium supply deal with Charge CCCV

Staff Writer | August 5, 2026 |
Image: Adobe Stock
US lithium developer Stardust Power (NASDAQ: SDST) announced Wednesday it has entered into a non- binding Letter of Intent with battery technology company Charge CCCV LLC, (CV4) for the supply of battery-grade lithium carbonate from Stardust Power’s lithium refinery in Muskogee, Oklahoma to support C4V’s battery manufacturing joint ventures in the US.
C4V provided a preliminary lithium carbonate demand forecast showing a phased approach for the potential offtake of 3,000 MT in 2028; 10,000 MT in 2029 and 20,000 MT by 2030.
Stardust said the agreements, if finalized, could cover a large share of its planned lithium production and could generate billions of dollars in sales if lithium prices remain at current levels.
The deal comes as the US races to secure domestic sources of lithium amid growing concerns over reliance on imports from China.
In February, the refiner inked a deal to supply Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation with at least 20,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate a year when its refinery in Oklahoma enters production.
In June, Stardust Power was selected for a US Department of Energy-funded research program to develop next-generation electrochemical technology for the extraction of lithium from waste.
“C4V is one of the few gigafactory platforms currently operating in the United States, and their forecasted demand profile highlights the scale of domestic battery manufacturing now taking shape,” Stardust Power CEO Roshan Pujari said in a news release.
Stardust Power stock closed the day down 8.5% on the Nasdaq. The company has a $6.6 million market capitalization.

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:07:41 +0000

Europe Bets Billions on North Africa’s Clean Energy Potential

By Felicity Bradstock - Aug 08, 2026
The EU’s T-MED initiative aims to mobilize billions of euros for renewable energy, hydrogen, clean technology, and electricity networks across the Mediterranean.

Morocco and Egypt are emerging as important partners as Europe invests in renewable generation, grid infrastructure, and potential subsea electricity connections.

Greater Mediterranean interconnection could give Europe access to abundant renewable resources while attracting investment and clean-energy jobs to North Africa.

Europe is deepening its ties with North Africa to develop stronger clean energy connections between the two regions in support of a green transition. The European Union and several European countries have invested in Morocco and Egypt in recent years to support renewable energy development in countries with favourable climate conditions for energy production. Over the coming decade, Europe and North Africa are expected to establish a stronger clean energy trade corridor that will help both regions decrease reliance on fossil fuels.
In June, the European Commission (EC) pledged almost $5.8 billion in renewable energy projects in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as part of its T-MED initiative, which it hopes will provide Europe’s grid with clean energy. The aim is to deploy solar panels in the Sahara Desert and wind turbines along the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean to produce clean energy in areas with optimal climate conditions. The electricity produced will be delivered to Europe’s grid via high-voltage transmission lines that run under the sea.
Much of Europe is already accelerating the expansion of domestic renewable energy capacity. However, investing in a region with more suitable weather conditions could help European countries transition away from fossil fuels even faster, to meet their electrification targets and climate pledges. The EC estimates that the MENA region has approximately 2,300 GW of renewable energy potential, which is over twice the EU’s current installed capacity. Solar and wind power can also be produced at between 30 and 40 per cent less cost than in Europe.
The hope is that the EU financing will encourage private funding of up to $29 billion by 2035 to support the growth of the MENA region’s renewable energy industry. This includes the development of solar and wind power, hydrogen, and electricity grids. However, to fully exploit its renewable energy potential, the EC estimates that MENA will require almost $115 billion in investment.
The EC expects more governments, development banks, project developers, and private investors to see the value of investing in the region. Meanwhile, it will encourage countries across MENA to simplify permitting procedures, improve grid access, and strengthen regulatory frameworks to encourage investment.
The European Commissioner for Energy and Housing, Dan Jørgensen, emphasised the need to invest in green energy in the face of ongoing geopolitical challenges that have led to energy shortages and driven fuel prices up. “The EU’s bill for fossil fuel imports has increased by over €47 billion in the past 100 days, but not a single molecule of energy in addition,” said Jørgensen. “Our energy security must be based on electrified energy systems that are based on clean energy, modern grids and increased connectivity,” he added. This echoes a broader movement to diversify energy production to improve energy security in several parts of the world.
The EC intends for the initiative to lead to the development of at least 15 GW of new renewable-energy capacity by 2035, as well as to support the creation of over 100,000 jobs. It will also deepen the energy relationship between Europe and the MENA region. This is not Europe’s first clean energy investment in North Africa, but it may be the most ambitious.
In 2019, the EU and European Investment Bank invested €106.5 million in the development of the Noor Ouarzazate solar power complex, a 580 MW power plant located around 10 km north-east of the city of Ouarzazate. The project is expected to reduce carbon emissions by around 760,000 tonnes a year.
In June, the EU announced plans to deepen ties with Egypt by providing a financing package of up to $794 million to upgrade and expand Egypt’s electricity network. The package consists of a $690 million loan from the European Investment Bank’s development arm, EIB Global, and up to $104 million in EC grants.
Meanwhile, Germany has launched a $30 billion project known as Sila Atlantik with Morocco to develop what would be the world's ‌longest intercontinental undersea power link. The aim is to connect Morocco and Germany via two high-voltage subsea cables to deliver up to 5 per cent of Germany’s annual electricity demand. However, the project has been delayed due to disagreements over structure and guarantees, Reuters reported in June.
If developed, the cables would stretch around 4,800 km and deliver up to 15 GW of solar and wind power from Morocco to Germany. The German firm Sila Atlantik was established to manage the project following the collapse of a similar proposed Morocco-U.K. renewable electricity link, known as Xlinks, in 2025.
The European Commission’s T-MED initiative is the latest and most ambitious plan to expand the MENA region’s renewable energy capacity and enhance clean energy trade between the two regions. It is expected to encourage high levels of private investment in the sector and support broader diversification aims to strengthen energy security across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:02:10 +0000

Why Southeast Asia's Clean Energy Surge Could Stall Before It Starts
By Haley Zaremba - Aug 08, 2026
The Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz cut off roughly 20 percent of the world's oil and gas flows overnight, hitting Asian importers hardest and accelerating Southeast Asia's shift to renewables.

Aging, overburdened grids are now the biggest obstacle to that shift: 50 percent to 60 percent of renewable projects in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia were cancelled or stalled between 2021 and 2025.

More than 100 TWh of new electricity demand is expected by 2030, but grid buildouts take five to 15 years, a mismatch that's already scaring off billions in clean energy investment.

Southeast Asia has been hit harder than anywhere else on Earth by the energy crisis stemming from the War in Iran, leaving many nations scrambling to shore up localized energy supply chains. The newfound volatility in global energy markets has catalyzed the clean energy transition worldwide, but particularly in cash-strapped, import-dependent nations, of which there are many in Southeast Asia. But the rapidly developing region’s ageing and overburdened grids are ill prepared for a quick build-out of indigenous renewable energy capacity, threatening energy security and transition capabilities in the near term.
When the Strait of Hormuz closed down in February of this year, 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas flows were cut off overnight, leaving many energy importing countries in the lurch. But no region was hit harder than Asia. Of the approximately 20 million barrels of oil and oil products that passed through the Strait on any given day before the the United States and Israel began a military offensive in Iran, about 80 percent of oil and 90 percent of natural gas exported through the channel were destined for Asian markets.
Southeast Asia was particularly vulnerable to the resultant price volatility due to the region’s comparatively high dependence on energy imports and low economic capacity to absorb market shocks. In the months after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the Philippines declared a national energy emergency, and governments across the region turned to energy rationing, work-from-home mandates, and even four-day work weeks to manage the strain on finite energy sources and an overstressed grid.
The same crisis has also kickstarted an overdue renewable revolution that will ultimately result in a more energy-secure, independent, and autonomous energy landscape. But that renewable revolution is at risk of failure if Southeast Asian nations don’t expand and reinforce their energy grids as a matter of top priority. In fact, the region’s beleaguered and fragile grids are already reportedly deterring billions of dollars in planned clean power investments.
According to a recent report from Climate Home News, “inadequate grid capacity and maintenance is already proving a major factor in the region’s stuttering rollout of new clean energy projects.” The report also points to “issues ranging from unclear power purchase agreement (PPA) structures, a failure of power policies to keep up with investor needs, permitting and licensing approval delays, grid connection constraints, limits to private sector involvement in electricity markets, and policy and tariff uncertainty.”
While green energy investing has shown massive growth in the region in recent years, many projects have also stalled out or been cancelled in recent years, in large part driven by concerns about whether the grid can handle the extra capacity. Even some of the region’s newest grids have had critical failures in recent months, indicating widespread fragility and a lack of infrastructural resilience.
As a result, a huge number of planned renewable energy projects across Southeast Asia have stalled out in recent years. A report published in May by consultancy Bain & Company and Standard Chartered notes that, from 2021 to 2025, between 50 percent and 60 percent of renewable energy projects in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia were cancelled or stalled.
The Bain & Company report states that, in addition to the energy stress introduced by the war in Iran, Southeast Asian grids have many more issues and demands to contend with as a result of rapid economic development. “More than 100 TWh of new electricity demand is expected to arrive by 2030, driven by data centers, electric vehicles (EVs), and industrial clusters,” the report finds. “However, while demand from these sources is set to materialize in one to three years, grid infrastructure takes five to fifteen years to build. This mismatch has made the grid a key binding constraint that increasingly determines where capital flows.”
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:05:22 +0000

Norway’s $2.3-Trillion Fund Opposes SEC Idea to Rescind Climate Reporting
TRUMP'S WAR ON GREEN ENERGY

By Charles Kennedy - Aug 07, 2026
The world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, Norway’s $2.3-trillion Government Pension Fund Global, does not support the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) proposal to scrap requirements for climate-related risks and disclosures.
The SEC in May requested input from investors about a proposal to rescind the Final Rules requiring registrants to provide certain climate-related information in their registration statements and annual reports.
Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), which is commonly referred to as 'Norway's oil fund' because it was created with oil and gas revenues, is a shareholder in many large companies in the world, including Big Oil. The Norwegian fund was created in the 1990s, and today it holds, on average, 1.5% of all listed companies in the world.
The manager of the Norwegian fund, Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), published on Friday a letter it had sent to the SEC to express its view on the proposed scrapping of climate-related disclosures.
“NBIM does not recommend outright rescission of the Final Rules. We support the existing framework's materiality standard, which elicits disclosure of climate-related risks when material to a registrant's financial condition,” the manager of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund said.
“In our view, the Final Rules would add a valuable analytical layer by codifying a structured framework for how climate-related risks, when material, are identified, managed and reflected in company governance, strategy and financial statements,” NBIM’s Chief Governance and Compliance Officer, Carine Smith Ihenacho, noted.
NBIM believes that “alternatives to outright rescission exist that would address the Commission's concerns about scope and cost, while preserving a baseline of financially material disclosure.”
As of the end of 2025, NBIM managed more than $2 trillion in assets, with the United States representing its largest market at 53% of total investments. Within the Norwegian fund’s equity portfolio, $822 billion was invested in shares of 1,306 U.S. public companies. NBIM is a minority shareholder in U.S. public companies, with an average equity ownership of 1.2%, the fund’s manager said.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:59:00 +0000

WELL NAMED
Hades licence win puts Germany on rare earth map

Cecilia Jamasmie | August 4, 2026 |
Storkwitz, the only known rare earth deposit in Germany. (Image courtesy of Hades.)
Startup Hades has secured an exploration licence for the Storkwitz rare earth project in eastern Germany, giving Europe’s largest economy access to one of its few domestic rare earth deposits as the region races to secure supplies of critical minerals.
The Saxon Mining Authority granted the licence on July 31, allowing the Munich-based company to explore a 28.4-sq.-km area near Delitzsch in northern Saxony. Historical surveys suggest the property hosts about 38,000 tonnes of rare earth oxides and 8,000 tonnes of niobium pentoxide, although Hades has yet to define a resource under internationally recognized reporting standards.
Rare earth elements are essential for permanent magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, defence systems and electronics. Europe remains heavily dependent on imports, particularly from China, making domestic projects increasingly important as governments seek to diversify supply chains.
“Germany now has its own rare earth project — one of only a few in Europe,” chief executive Max Werner said in an emailed statement. “The licence is a milestone for Hades on a clear path from pre-seed and seed capital to a concrete, licensed resource.”
The project adds to a small but growing pipeline of European critical minerals developments aimed at supporting the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act and reducing the bloc’s exposure to geopolitical supply risks.
Lower-impact mining
Hades said it plans to evaluate the deposit using its proprietary Cerberus laser drilling technology, which it says can reduce drilling costs by more than 50% compared with conventional methods. The company also intends to assess in-situ recovery, a technique that extracts minerals using injected fluids rather than conventional open-pit mining, reducing surface disturbance if geological conditions prove suitable.
The company, founded just last year, said it has already raised €20 million ($23 million) in two venture capital financing rounds. Hades aims to build a vertically integrated business spanning exploration, development and production of critical raw materials in Europe.

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:00:02 +0000

LI

Lithium mining for green power triggers eco-outcry from South African farmers
Reuters | August 4, 2026
Wheat crop, South Africa. (Stock image by Dewald.)
Mining lithium for batteries is a growing part of South Africa’s plan to use the global shift towards green energy to revive its economy, but now it faces a challenge from thousands of angry farmers who fear losing productive land to open-pit mines.
On the southeast coast, where a lithium mine operates and more than a dozen prospecting licences have been granted since 2023, scores of generations-old farming communities are relocating.
A coalition of activists is launching objections to the prospecting, which according to one group, the South Coast Guardians Association (SCGA), threatens 30,000 jobs in farming, labouring or services in this sugar-exporting and tourism hub.
Data from South Africa’s mines department reviewed by Reuters show lithium prospecting licences laying claim to some 73,000 hectares (282 square miles), an area slightly larger than the city of Pretoria.
Most of it is farmland spanning 117 farms, but also beaches.
The existing lithium mine, which also plans to expand, covers 150 hectares of pits and 180 hectares of waste dumps.
“Should all these prospecting licences be granted mining licences, the impact would be catastrophic,” SCGA General Manager Heather McLoed said.
“It affects the small-scale farmers directly, their communities, their shops, and … the sugar mill” handling their harvests, she said at the mill, which crushes 2 million metric tons of cane a year from 2,000 small-scale and 600 commercial growers.
As the climate crisis and disrupted oil shipments from the U.S.-Iran war propel investment in clean energy, South Africa has made critical minerals key to its economic revival plans.
President Cyril Ramaphosa in February told parliament South Africa had 40 trillion rand ($2.39 trillion) worth of critical minerals, describing them as a “sunrise industry” with potential to create jobs and strengthen the industrial base.
SOME VILLAGERS ALREADY LOSING HOMES TO LITHIUM
On an afternoon in June, Albert Mthembu, 62, was examining the fissures in his brick bungalow in the hillside village of Magog, in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, the largest of the country’s three lithium hotspots.
He told Reuters the fissures were caused by blasting from the mines.
An excavator on the adjacent hill was kicking up clouds of dust as it shifted rocks; Mthembu had visited the doctor twice for lung issues.
Having lived in Magog since he was 6, he wanted his children to inherit the house and neat lawn occupied by chickens.
Now, he sees no option but to move.
“The blasting isn’t good. We’ve got kids, we’ve got animals, the trees are even being damaged,” he said on the slopes of the village, where dying trees drooped.
Mthembu’s friend has already left, his house reduced to rubble by workers expanding the mine, according to three villagers. Seven other houses were visibly dismantled.
Reuters interviewed 11 farmers in the area, all of whom shared similar concerns.
A spokesperson for the mineral resources department did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The privately owned mining company was relocating villagers, but many were unhappy with the new land, Mthembu said, as it was remote and less suitable for planting.
SA Lithium Director Ian Harbottle said it had relocated 150 farmers, all willingly.
“If there’s one challenge, I’m unable to move them fast (enough) because everybody is significantly better off,” he said.
LOW CARBON MEANS LESS MINERAL EXTRACTION
Clean energy requires less material extraction than the fossil fuel industry it is replacing.
A 2024 Breakthrough Institute paper showed that coal, South Africa’s power-generation staple, extracts 1,180 tons of material per gigawatt, on average, compared with 59 tons for wind and 45 tons for solar, including all the minerals for battery storage in an average installation.
Yet landscape-scarring mining remains a contentious part of the transition in countries from Portugal to the United States. Rock waste can degrade land quality, as has happened in Australia and China.
“Yes, it … does make a hole. Yes, there are dumps, but we’ve done extensive (anti-pollution) work. We are more than compliant,” Harbottle said, adding that the mine had created over a thousand jobs.
According to one farmers’ submission on SA Lithium’s plans to expand over 6,000 hectares, the mine could “permanently degrade water quality, soil quality and reduce the long-term viability of farming”.
Harbottle disputes that.
“No water from the mine ever goes into any of the rivers” but into dams to be used for processing or dust suppression, he said.
SA Lithium’s operations are tiny compared with the area being prospected, where farmers grow an annual million tons of cane and macadamia nuts.
That worries locals more than the existing mine.
“The future of farming here is gone,” said Joe Nkala, 51, a cane-growing consultant to small farmers, on a hilltop with sugar farms down one side and a black-grey gash on the other.
“My kids will have to find a new life.”
(By Tim Cocks)
($1 = 16.7264 rand)

Albemarle quarterly profit surges on rising lithium prices

Reuters | August 5, 2026 |
Albemarle’s Silver Peak operation in the US. (Image: Wikipedia.)
Albemarle (NYSE: ALB), the world’s largest producer of lithium for batteries, posted a spike in quarterly profit on Wednesday due to a jump in prices for the ultralight metal.
The results reflected an improvement in the lithium market after a supply glut forced the company and peers last year to cut staff and curtail growth projects.
Albemarle said the average price it received for its lithium rose 61% during the quarter and its sales volumes increased 11%.
“We continue to see resilient demand fundamentals across our core markets, including energy storage, electric vehicles, and semiconductors,” CEO Kent Masters said in a statement.
The company, which operates across the Americas, Australia, Asia and Europe, reported second-quarter net income of $480 million, or $3.52 per share, compared to $22.9 million in the year-ago quarter.
Excluding one-time items, Albemarle earned $3.75 per share. By that measure, analysts expected earnings of $3.24 per share, according to IBES data from LSEG.
Shares gained 1% to $120 in after-hours trading on Wednesday.
The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company plans to hold a conference call on Thursday to discuss the results.
(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Nia Williams and Jamie Freed)
Stardust Power signs lithium supply deal with Charge CCCV

Staff Writer | August 5, 2026 |
Image: Adobe Stock
US lithium developer Stardust Power (NASDAQ: SDST) announced Wednesday it has entered into a non- binding Letter of Intent with battery technology company Charge CCCV LLC, (CV4) for the supply of battery-grade lithium carbonate from Stardust Power’s lithium refinery in Muskogee, Oklahoma to support C4V’s battery manufacturing joint ventures in the US.
C4V provided a preliminary lithium carbonate demand forecast showing a phased approach for the potential offtake of 3,000 MT in 2028; 10,000 MT in 2029 and 20,000 MT by 2030.
Stardust said the agreements, if finalized, could cover a large share of its planned lithium production and could generate billions of dollars in sales if lithium prices remain at current levels.
The deal comes as the US races to secure domestic sources of lithium amid growing concerns over reliance on imports from China.
In February, the refiner inked a deal to supply Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation with at least 20,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate a year when its refinery in Oklahoma enters production.
In June, Stardust Power was selected for a US Department of Energy-funded research program to develop next-generation electrochemical technology for the extraction of lithium from waste.
“C4V is one of the few gigafactory platforms currently operating in the United States, and their forecasted demand profile highlights the scale of domestic battery manufacturing now taking shape,” Stardust Power CEO Roshan Pujari BOYCOTT CAT
Caterpillar surges as data center boom drives profit growth

AND ITS ROLE IN DESTROYING GAZA & WEST BANK

Bloomberg News | August 4, 2026 |
Stock image.
Caterpillar Inc. surged after the company crushed Wall Street’s second-quarter expectations and raised its sales outlook, easing concerns that demand for power-generation equipment used in data centers was beginning to cool.
Shares were up as much as about 13% in early trading on Tuesday after the company reported stronger sales across its businesses, posted a record equipment backlog and increased its forecast for 2026 sales and revenues growth to the mid- to high-teens, from its previous outlook for low- to mid-teens growth issued in April.
Sales rose to $20.5 billion in the period, the company said, exceeding the $19 billion average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
“Strong order rates and a growing backlog reflect broadening momentum across all three of our primary segments,” chief executive Joe Creed said in a statement.
Caterpillar’s power and energy unit manufactures generators, engines and gas turbines for industrial facilities and large-scale computing centers. The segment has grown to become the company’s largest by sales, overtaking its better known business that manufactures diggers and other construction machinery, and catching the eye of investors who have made Caterpillar part of the broader AI.
The company’s second-quarter earnings excluding one-time items were $8.17 per share, compared with $4.72 a year earlier. That compared with the $6.17 average of analysts’ estimate compiled by Bloomberg.
The company also posted a record backlog of $72 billion, up 92% from a year ago. On a call with investors, Creed said some of those orders extend as far out as 2030.
“Those backlogs are pointing to the same drivers — data center build-outs. Chips, servers, now industrial equipment,” said Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert Financial.
The earnings and revenue beat comes after a recent selloff in AI-adjacent stocks amid concerns about the sustainability of capital spending by Big Tech. Caterpillar and other makers of power equipment for data center, such as Vertiv Holdings Co. and GE Vernova Inc., saw their stock prices decline in recent weeks.
Baird downgraded Caterpillar’s stock last week to a hold-equivalent rating, citing a growing push by local and state governments to restrict construction of data centers. And investor Michael Burry, well known for his bets against the US housing market prior to the 2008 crisis, has said he is shorting the stock.
The pullback across AI-adjacent stocks was driven “by a superficial narrative that the AI trade had run its course,” said David Wagner, a portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors. Caterpillar’s “record order rates underscore that the physical foundation required to support digital infrastructure continues to expand, regardless of seasonal market chatter.”
The construction industries business, which makes the firm’s signature yellow construction machinery, also saw strong growth for the quarter, with sales increasing 35% as dealers stocked up on equipment.
Creed said Tuesday the company’s mining equipment sales are being driven by rising demand for copper and gold.
(By Jacob Lorinc)

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:29:45 +0000

Two-day strike begins at BHP’s Port Hedland iron ore operations

Reuters | August 7, 2026 |
Port Hedland, the world’s busiest iron ore export terminal. Image: Pilbara Ports Authority
Industrial action at BHP’s (ASX: BHP) Port Hedland operations in Western Australia began on Saturday, marking the first major strike there in more than two decades.
BHP ships some $80 million of iron ore daily through Port Hedland, the world’s biggest iron ore export hub. It has previously said it has plans to ensure that operations can continue.
About 150 workers are expected to take part in the strike on Saturday, the Combined BHP Ports Unions (CBPU) said, which is only a portion of BHP’s workforce at the port of more than 800 people.
A CBPU spokesperson earlier said that the nature of the industrial action, a 24-hour ship-loading ban followed by a 24-hour stoppage, remained unchanged.
The CBPU is negotiating a four-year bargaining agreement with the world’s third-largest iron ore miner, and opted to go ahead with the industrial action despite progress in talks between the parties on August 4.
About eight ships are expected to finish loading from BHP ports over the weekend, a source familiar with the matter said.
The action is not expected to affect rival miners Fortescue FMG.AX and Hancock Prospecting, which also use Port Hedland. The hub accounted for 75% of total iron ore exports from the Pilbara region of Western Australia in the year to June.
BHP has been negotiating for more than seven months with the CBPU, which represents around 450 operators and maintenance workers, over a new pay deal amid record share prices and rising costs of living. The CBPU will next meet with BHP on August 18, the same day that it will report its annual results.
(Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

BHP faces weekend strike at Port Hedland iron ore hub as wage talks drag

Reuters | August 4, 2026 |
Port Hedland, Australia. Stock image.
A two-day strike will go ahead at BHP’s Port Hedland operations in Western Australia this weekend despite progress in talks on Tuesday between unions and the global miner, a union spokesperson said.
BHP ships some $80 million of iron ore daily through Port Hedland, which is the world’s biggest export hub for iron ore.
As flagged last week, workers plan to impose a 24-hour ban on loading ships on Saturday, August 8, followed by a 24-hour work stoppage at the Port Hedland Bulk Export Terminal beginning at 05:30 AWST on August 9 (21:30 GMT August 8).
The action is likely to hold up 16 iron ore shipments over the two days, the union spokesperson said. BHP, the world’s third-biggest iron ore producer, has said it has plans to ensure that operations can continue.
Around 150 workers are expected to take part in the action, as the parties strive to reach terms on a four-year enterprise agreement.
“The meeting was productive, and while substantive issues are yet to be resolved, the parties have identified a path forward which we will pursue over coming weeks,” a spokesperson for Combined Ports Unions said in a statement.
Industrial action will still proceed as previously indicated, the union said.
The action is not expected to affect rival miners Fortescue and Hancock Prospecting, which also use Port Hedland. The hub accounted for 75% of total iron ore exports from the Pilbara in the year to June.
BHP said it would present an updated proposal at the next meeting on August 18, the same day that it will report its annual results.
Australia’s workplace regulator, the Fair Work Commission, is working with BHP and the unions on reaching an agreement.
“With another meeting scheduled and an updated proposal to come, we have made significant progress with the Commission’s assistance and there is no need for the unions to continue with their planned industrial action,” it said.
BHP has been negotiating for more than seven months with unions representing around 450 operators and maintenance workers over a new pay deal.
The unions said workers were seeking enforceable wage and condition protections. Workers argue that extreme heat, long hours and time away from family mean they should not be facing lower rates than workers in cities.
The fracture comes amid rising costs of living and a record share price for BHP, which is the world’s biggest listed miner and Australia’s largest listed company.
(By Sneha Kumar, Rajasik Mukherjee and Melanie Burton in Melbourne; Editing by Tom Hogue and Sonali Paul)

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:29:00 +0000

World’s biggest mining companies now worth $2.17 trillion

Frik Els | August 7, 2026 |
Reason to smile. Shift change at the George Fisher zinc, lead silver mine in Australia. Image: Glencore
At the end of July the MINING.COM TOP 50* ranking of the world’s most valuable miners had a combined market capitalization of $2.17 trillion, up $18 billion for the month and holding a gain of $26 billion so far in 2026.
The Top 50 now runs on a monthly clock, and on a new basis: mined metals and minerals only, with coal-heavy counters excluded and every ranking back to the start of the decade recalculated to match (the notes at the bottom set out the rules of the game).
The $545 billion swing
July was a good deal livelier than the 0.8% headline move suggests.
When mining stocks were riding high on gold and copper prices at the end of March, the Top 50 was worth $2.33 trillion. By the end of June, with gold well off its record, that had shrunk to $2.15 trillion.
Stock by stock, the swings are wilder still: valued at each company’s best month-end of the year, the Top 50 would be worth $2.44 trillion. At each one’s worst, just $1.9 trillion. That $545 billion spread is the truer measure of 2026 (and most every other year on commodities markets) so far, in a ranking that never itself strayed far from $2.2 trillion.
The biggest winner and the biggest loser in July were both gold diggers, and neither had much to do with bullion, which waited until August to stage a comeback.
Zijin’s third engine
Zijin Mining added $24 billion of market value in July, up 23.8%, vaulting past Newmont into fourth place at $125 billion. No company gained more dollars, and nothing in the company’s bracket came close on percentage either.
The trigger was a first-half profit alert lodged in early July: net profit guided at roughly RMB 39.1 billion, up 68%, with gold output up 15% to just over 1.5 million ounces and silver edging up to 7.4 million ounces. The number that stands out, though, is lithium: 43,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent against 7,000 tonnes a year earlier, a sixfold ramp pulled off just as the market for the battery metal emerged from a brutal slump.
Xiamen calls lithium the group’s third growth engine, and for once the investor-day language matches the production tables. Anyone reading Zijin’s surge as a copper story should note that consolidated copper output actually fell 6%. Less than a year after becoming only the fourth mining company in history to top $100 billion, Zijin is aiming for the podium.
Polyus pulls the rip cord
At the other end, Polyus surrendered $13.2 billion (down 37.6%) and fell eight places to number 28.
On 8 July the Russian gold miner told shareholders it would suspend dividends until 2030 to fund a wave of investment projects. The stock dropped 26% in a single session, the second-worst day in its history, beaten only by the 27.4% shellacking of 16 September 2008, when Lehman Brothers was setting the mood. It kept sliding for the rest of the month.
The decision baffled a market that watched Polyus mint record earnings and some $2 billion of free cash flow last year, and Sberbank promptly struck the stock from its top picks. One theory doing the rounds in Moscow: the company is bracing for a windfall tax on gold profits, and has budgeted for bullion at a deeply unfashionable $3,100 an ounce. Polyus and Norilsk Nickel, it should be said, keep their standing in this ranking thanks to captive investors on the Moscow Exchange where sanctions have made sellers of many, but exits are few.
Middle Kingdom kings
The rest of July’s winners column reads like a Shanghai gold board: Zhongjin Gold up 21.4%, Shandong Gold up 16.9%, and outside the ranking Chifeng Jilong up more than 50%. It looks like a surge. It is closer to a bounce. Gold spent the first half of 2026 falling roughly 30% from January’s record above $5,590 an ounce, and China’s gold stocks fell considerably harder. Shandong Gold’s peak-to-trough drawdown passed 60% before bargain hunters found a sector trading at around ten times earnings.
Western precious metals went the other way: Fresnillo gave back 10% of its value, Coeur 12.9% and Agnico Eagle 5%, while Newmont slipped just enough for Zijin to relieve Denver of fourth place.
Since this snapshot was taken, gold has bounced again, surging to a seven-week high above $4,400 on Friday after the US economy shed 23,000 jobs in July, the first payrolls contraction since February. Gold bugs will take the help.
Revolving door
The price of admission rose to $13.56 billion, from $13.1 billion at the end of June, not far off the record $14.5 billion set at the end of March and more than four times the $3.2 billion that got a company through the door in 2020.
Western Mining takes the fiftieth spot after a 41.5% July, the biggest percentage move anywhere in the ranking. Casablanca’s Managem, up 106% this year on its gold and cobalt mines across Africa, debuts at 39. Lundin Gold misses by a whisker and is likely back in by the time you read this, joining Tianqi Lithium, which dropped by a quarter, and Alamos Gold.
MMG returns at 49 after a 28.6% month, and South32 re-enters at 45, up 12.2% since agreeing to sell nearly all its aluminium business to Alcoa for up to $5.6 billion. The Perth miner also broke mining’s decade-long US permitting curse in early July, bagging the final federal approval for its $2 billion-plus Hermosa zinc-silver-manganese project in Arizona, with first production pencilled in for early 2028.
The metal that matters for the slimmed-down miner may turn out to be silver: once the Alcoa sale closes, Cannington’s silver-lead-zinc output becomes more than a tenth of revenue, and with silver near $60 an ounce (against under $40 a year ago) and zinc up 26% in 2026, the market is paying up for what South32 is keeping, not just what it sold.
Then there is Amman Mineral, the ranking’s resident rollercoaster. The Indonesian copper-gold miner stormed into the Top 50 after its blockbuster 2023 debut, ran up nearly 600% to pierce the top 10 (minting half a dozen billionaires along the way), then surrendered roughly three quarters of its peak value as smelter commissioning and concentrate headaches set in, bottoming out dead last at number 50 in the Q2 count. In July it rose 25.7% to reclaim 42nd.
Baar sets a higher bar
Two days ago Glencore reported the kind of first half that headline writers call blowout: adjusted EBITDA of $10.1 billion, up 86%, a fresh $500 million buyback, and confirmation of a secondary Sydney listing for October. Copper output rose 15% just as the metal hit records, and the trading desks feasted on a volatile oil market.
The July snapshot caught the run-up: up 7.6% for the month and 34% for the year at $86 billion, Baar is firmly ensconced at number 7. It is easy to forget Glencore spent stretches of 2020 and 2021 outside the top 10 altogether and traded below its 2011 London IPO price for the better part of fifteen years.
There is a wrinkle in the timing. The six-month standstill Rio Tinto accepted when it walked away from their $260 billion mega-merger in February lapsed this week, and Melbourne promptly signalled it is in no rush to come back to the table. On numbers like these, Baar can afford to play hard to get.
Rio arrives at the standstill’s end in decent shape of its own, having just posted its highest first-half earnings in four years as the data centre boom feeds copper demand. Though on this ranking’s own 1.5 times revenue test (see the notes below) Rio is, strictly speaking, an iron ore company enjoying editorial clemency.
Vale gets no such pass. Filed under iron ore while the long-promised Toronto listing of its base metals unit waits, the Brazilian miner posted a 35% fall in second-quarter profit and narrowed its nickel and copper output outlook.
The air up there
BHP has added $62 billion of market value in 2026, a 41% gain no other big cap approaches in dollar terms, reaching $216 billion and sitting comfortably above the double-century mark Melbourne was first to breach. July’s production report showed record iron ore output from the Pilbara, with full-year results due mid-month.
The $50 billion of air between the world’s biggest miner and Rio Tinto (the unbroken pair at the top) is now the widest gap between first and second in the history of this ranking. It is a remarkable turn from 2024, when the lead had thinned to $15 billion. One stock accounts for a tenth of the Top 50’s entire value.
Club rules
Melbourne is where the money lives: BHP, Rio Tinto and MMG make the Victorian capital a $395 billion head-office town, nearly a fifth of the entire ranking. Toronto’s four entries are worth $204 billion, Mexico City’s two $177 billion, Denver’s three $156 billion and Vancouver’s five $141 billion.
The gap to Toronto vanishes the day

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 21:57:07 +0000

Rhine's Record-Low Water Level Exposes WWII-Era Bomb in Cologne
Sandbanks and barge traffic on the Rhine at Cologne, August 1 (Copernicus / Sentinel-2)
Published Aug 6, 2026 8:35 PM by The Maritime Executive

As summertime drought and heat eat away at water levels on Northern Europe's rivers, industries dependent upon river transport are feeling the effects - but it is making it simpler to clean up underwater hazards. On Thursday, a WWII-era bomb was removed from the bottom of the Rhine at Cologne, where wading-depth water made the aging explosive device easier to spot.
The Second World War left Germany littered with unexploded bombs, and EOD teams still get regular calls today to deal with 80-year-old explosives. This particular device was an American-made 500-pound aerial bomb.
Responders cleared residents from a 400-yard safety zone around the site before defusing the bomb, then brought in heavy equipment to pull the device out of the sand.
River gage levels in Cologne hit just 26 inches on Thursday, a new record. The gage at Kaub - the limiting point for traffic between the Lower and Upper Rhine - hit just nine inches, a record low level, and well below the minimum required for standard commercial navigation. This diverts river commerce onto very limited road and rail resources for transport between the lower reaches of the river - including major industrial zones in Rotterdam, the Ruhr Valley, Frankfurt and Ludwigshafen - and the upper reaches as far upstream as Basel. Even on the Lower Rhine, water levels are so low that barges are unable to transit at full load. The net effect is a slowdown in production and a hit to the German economy, estimated in the range of 0.25 percent of GDP per month of drought - an unwelcome addition to existing economic pressure from foreign competition and elevated energy costs.
Long term, the repeated droughts require a shift in thinking for industrial companies in Europe, starting with stockpiling and warehousing for key feedstocks and components. This allows manufacturers a bigger buffer for periods when transport shuts down, but it is a reversal for industries more used to a "lean," "just-in-time" manufacturing philosophy - and it increases operating costs.
Other river users are feeling the pinch, too. Cruise operations are restricted or canceled on the Rhine and Danube. Hungary's sole nuclear powerplant - the source of 40 percent of its generating capacity - has had to shut down because of limited access to cooling water from the Danube. Next in line is Romania's sole operating nuclear reactor, which is within days of losing access to cooling water. The Romanian Navy is taking urgent action to divert more flow towards the powerplant and buy time, using explosives to blow up a submerged rock and preparing to sink four barges into the river to redirect water. These strenuous efforts might buy 10 more days of power generation, the plant's director told local media.

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 21:56:21 +0000

Undersea Technology Innovation Consortium Celebrates 10 Years of Innovation
New brand reflects a decade of growth and positions UTIC for the future of maritime and defense technology collaboration
Published Aug 8, 2026 12:00 PM by The Maritime Executive

[By Undersea Technology Innovation Consortium]
The Undersea Technology Innovation Consortium (UTIC) is celebrating a decade of advancing undersea tech innovation with a milestone that reflects both its accomplishments and its future. As the organization marks its 10th anniversary, UTIC is unveiling a refreshed brand identity that symbolizes its evolution from a regional initiative into an internationally recognized consortium driving collaboration across government, industry, academia, and nonprofit organizations.
Founded with the vision of creating an ecosystem where breakthrough undersea technologies could move more quickly from concept to capability, UTIC has spent the past decade building partnerships that strengthen national defense, enhance maritime security, and support commercial innovation.
Today, the consortium's collaborative model has contributed to more than $1.5 billion in undersea technology innovation impact while connecting thousands of organizations working to solve some of the nation's most complex maritime challenges.
"Ten years ago, we set out to create an environment where collaboration could accelerate innovation. What we've built together over the past decade has exceeded those early aspirations." said Molly Donohue Magee, Chief Executive Officer of UTIC. "Our members have demonstrated that when government, industry, academia, and nonprofit organizations work together, we can develop and deliver technologies that strengthen our national security and advance the future of the maritime economy. As we mark this milestone, our new brand reflects the innovative, collaborative organization we have become and our continued commitment to solving the challenges ahead."
In its role managing the U.S. Navy’s Other Transaction Authority (OTA) Consortium for Undersea and Maritime Technology Innovation, in partnership with Advanced Technology International (ATI), UTIC has created new opportunities for member companies to work directly with the federal government to bring breakthrough innovation to market faster than traditional procurement processes allow.
In its first decade, UTIC has expanded beyond its original mission and developed new initiatives that strengthen the broader undersea ecosystem, including:
•   Launching an Undersea Tech Collaboration Database accessible to U.S., U.K., Australia (AUKUS) and Canadia companies/organizations to create new opportunities for industry partnerships
•   Establishing a thought-leadership series to boost information sharing
•   Creating a scholarship program and workforce development challenges to strengthen the talent pipeline of future undersea technology professionals
Coinciding with the anniversary, UTIC is introducing a refreshed visual identity developed in partnership with Thomas Roskelly and Roskelly, Inc. The updated brand reflects the organization's growth over the past decade while reinforcing its position as a catalyst for innovation across the maritime, defense, and technology communities.
The comprehensive rebrand spans UTIC's digital presence, communications materials, trade show exhibits, and headquarters, creating a cohesive identity that supports the organization's mission and vision for the future.
"This rebrand is about much more than a new look," said Thomas Roskelly, Creative Director of Roskelly, Inc. "It's about capturing the confidence, collaboration, and momentum that define UTIC today while creating a visual identity that will carry the organization into its next decade of leadership."
While its appearance has evolved, UTIC's mission remains unchanged: bringing together government, industry, academia, and nonprofit partners to accelerate innovation at the speed of need. As the consortium looks toward its second decade, it remains focused on expanding collaboration, supporting technology transition, and ensuring the United States maintains its leadership in undersea and maritime innovation.
The products and services herein described in this press release are not endorsed by The Maritime Executive.

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 21:55:34 +0000

Fitch Ratings Upgrades Canaveral Port Authority Revenue Bonds to A+
Upgrade Reflects Port’s Sustained Growth, Strong Operating Performance
Port Canaveral, Florida
Published Aug 8, 2026 11:53 AM by The Maritime Executive
[By Canaveral Port Authority]

Fitch Ratings has upgraded the Canaveral Port Authority’s port improvement revenue bonds to “A+ with Stable Outlook” for the Port’s financial future.
The rating reflects the Port’s sustained growth and strong operating performance, supported by long-term minimum annual guarantees with cruise and cargo operators, a capital improvement program primarily funded by operating cash flow and grants, and a conservative debt structure, providing the Port with financial resilience and borrowing flexibility.
“This ratings upgrade by Fitch is the result of years of disciplined financial management, strong business planning and an ongoing commitment to intentional growth,” said Capt. John W. Murray, Port Canaveral CEO. “As we continue investing nearly $1 billion in infrastructure improvements, maintaining a strong financial foundation allows us to grow responsibly while delivering long-term value for our customers, business partners and the Central Florida community.”
With cruise traffic driven by Central Florida’s tourism market, particularly Orlando, Fitch’s report cited the Port’s “strong market position as a leading cruise port on the U.S. East Coast” and “significant infrastructure investments underway that are expected to support long-term revenue growth.” Port Canaveral’s diverse cargo portfolio includes fuel, forest products, aggregates and other critical commodities.
The Port is currently advancing nearly $1 billion in capital improvements over the next five years through its Port Canaveral Advantage program that includes expanding and upgrading cruise and cargo facilities, technology enhancements, roadway improvements and other features across all aspects of its operations.
Fitch also noted that the “CPA’s current five-year capital improvement program is large and focused on expanding cruise and cargo infrastructure” and “these projects are expected to increase cruise capacity, support passenger growth and maintain cargo handling capabilities.”
The products and services herein described in this press release are not endorsed by The Maritime Executive.

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 21:53:10 +0000

USCG Announces Countdown to Opening Nation’s National Coast Guard Museum
Published Aug 8, 2026 12:17 PM by The Maritime Executive

[By United States Coast Guard]
One year from today (August 4 2026), Americans will have the opportunity to experience the remarkable story of the United States Coast Guard in a way never before possible. The U.S. Coast Guard announced that the National Coast Guard Museum – the first national museum dedicated to preserving and sharing the history, heritage, and enduring missions of the Coast Guard – will open to the public during the week of Aug. 2, 2027, culminating with the Coast Guard’s birthday on Aug. 4.
“The Coast Guard has always stood as a military service and a vital instrument of national power,” said Adm. Kevin E. Lunday, commandant of the Coast Guard. “This museum is a permanent tribute to the Long Blue Line—the generations of crews who have saved lives, defended our borders and maritime approaches, facilitated vital commerce, and responded to crises with little or no warning.”
Currently under construction along the Thames River waterfront in New London, Connecticut, the 80,000-square-foot museum will feature five public decks with three exhibit floors, five thematic experience wings, a rotating gallery for special exhibitions, educational classrooms, and event space. Designed to immerse visitors in the Coast Guard experience, the museum will combine state-of-the-art interactive exhibits with breathtaking views of the waterfront.
"The National Coast Guard Museum represents incredible dedication, vision, and partnership," said retired U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Wes Pulver, president of the National Coast Guard Museum Association. "We are deeply grateful for the Coast Guard's steadfast support throughout this journey and look forward to continuing our collaboration as we build a museum worthy of the remarkable men and women who have served our nation. Together, we are ensuring their stories will inspire generations to come."
Visitors will explore more than 5,000 historic images, 600 artifacts, interactive exhibits and hands-on exhibits that bring to life the Coast Guard’s missions for all ages. Educational programming in STEM, leadership, civics, and maritime history will extend the museum's reach to classrooms and communities across the country.
Among the museum’s signature experiences will be a suspended MH-60T Jayhawk helicopter, complete with a life-sized aircrew modeled after an active-duty crew from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Visitors will also encounter some of the service’s most treasured artifacts, including the Medal of Honor awarded to Signalman 1st Class Douglas Munro, the Coast Guard's only Medal of Honor recipient, whose extraordinary heroism during the Battle of Guadalcanal remains one of the defining acts of valor in Coast Guard history.
More than a museum, the National Coast Guard Museum will serve as a place where Americans can connect with the people behind the uniform and gain a deeper appreciation for the Coast Guard’s unique role in protecting the nation every day. Through stories of courage, innovation, resilience, and selfless service, the museum will honor the Coast Guard’s legacy while inspiring future generations to answer the call.
Opening events throughout the week of Aug. 2, 2027, will culminate on Aug. 4, celebrating both the opening of the nation’s first National Coast Guard Museum and the Coast Guard’s birthday – a fitting moment to dedicate a permanent home to the service’s enduring legacy.
“This will be far more than a building of artifacts; it will illuminate the hard-earned lessons of the sea,” said Adm. Lunday. “By bridging our rich history with the challenges of tomorrow, we are creating a dynamic foundation to inspire the next generation of leaders ready to answer our nation’s call.”

The products and services herein described in this press release are not endorsed by The Maritime Executive.

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 21:52:32 +0000

Video: Portugal Intercepts Maersk Boxship and Seizes 5 Tonnes of Cocaine
Five tonnes of cocaine along with two stowaways and one crewmember were seized in the dryg bust (Judicial Police)
Published Aug 6, 2026 3:07 PM by The Maritime Executive

The Portuguese Judicial Police are reporting one of the country’s largest ever drug seizures completed aboard a Hong Kong-flagged containership while underway. The situation, however, has grown further complicated as a crewmember who had been arrested along with two stowaways was found dead hours later in a prison cell in Portugal.
The authorities reported they had been able to dismantle a criminal group dedicated to smuggling large quantities of drugs into Europe. It was part of an investigation shared at the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre-Drugs, as well as working with the UK’s National Crime Agency and Spain’s Policia Nacional.
Working with the Portuguese Navy and Air Force, the operations intercepted the containership while it was underway at a position about 640 nautical miles off the coast of Portugal in the Atlantic.
The vessel in question, identified as Maersk Nokwanda, serves the banana-trade ports of Ecuador and the Colombian Pacific coast - one of the most prolific drug-smuggling regions globally. On her most recent voyage, Maersk Nokwanda called at Posorja and Machala, Ecuador; Buenaventura, Columbia; Balboa and Colon, Panama; then crossed the Atlantic on an itinerary that would ordinarily take her to Tangier Med and other Mediterranean ports.
The images showed the forces rappelling onto the vessel from helicopters. Once aboard, they reported finding two stowaways, which media reports identified as an Italian and a Colombian citizens. The two were reported to be undocumented and were believed to be involved in the smuggling operation, and were arrested. The police also seized objects for navigating, transporting the drugs, and throwing them overboard.
Searching the vessel, the police uncovered five tons of cocaine in void spaces. They also interviewed the crew and took one person, reported to be an Indian citizen, into custody. The Navy escorted the containership to the port of Sines where the vessel docked on August 4. The cocaine was offloaded.
The head of the police’s drug trafficking unit confirmed at a press conference on Wednesday, August 5, that the crewmember had been discovered hanging in his cell early on Wednesday morning. He was being detained alone in a cell. They pronounced him deceased and are investigating the circumstances of his death. Media reports said he was believed to have been the person with the most information about the smuggling operation.
European authorities have increased their efforts to intercept the large quantities of drugs being smuggled into Europe. Portugal has reportedly already confiscated approximately 28 tonnes in 2026, which surpasses the country’s total for all of 2025.
The Judicial Police suspect that the Maersk Nokwanda smugglers intended to conduct a high-seas "drop-off" to transfer the drugs to fast-boat operators, who would then move the illicit cargo to the littorals of the Spanish or Portuguese coasts. This transport model is increasingly popular for traffickerslooking to avoid heightened scrutiny at larger seaports, as it avoids all of the security measures that accompany port infrastructure.
These high-seas boat transfers sometimes get disrupted or go awry, leaving the cargo to float at sea or wash up on public beaches. Just last week, Portugal's Maritime Police found and seized two tonnes of abandoned cocaine near the Troia Peninsula.

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 21:51:13 +0000

US Court Says Dali Lawsuit Against Hyundai Should Be Heard Elsewhere
The product liability claims seek to hold Hyundai Heavy Industries liable for manufacturing defects in the Dali (USACE photo)
Published Aug 4, 2026 1:19 PM by The Maritime Executive

Shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries won a court decision on August 3 in a suit brought against it by the owners and operators of the containership Dali regarding defects in the construction of the vessel. The court dismissed the case on a legal ground that finds another location is much more convenient and proper for the suit, and not on the merits of the claims.
Grace Ocean, as the owner of the Dali, and Synergy Marine, as the operator of the Dali, had filed an admiralty and marine action on July 31, 2025, against Hyundai Heavy Industries related to the blackout on the Dali, which caused it to hit and destroy Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. The complaint cites two product liability claims, one breach of implied warranties, one claim of negligent misrepresentation, and a claim related to indemnity.
The owner and operator were in effect claiming that manufacturing defects in the vessel, which Hyundai built in 2014 and delivered in 2015, contributed to the failures on the ship and subsequent damage, which killed six roadworkers on the bridge. The National Transportation Safety Board in its investigation found that lose wire caused the ship to lose power, while a pending criminal complaint in Maryland cites the use of an improper pump that did not automatically restart after the blackout.
The product liability case was brought in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and the location was one of the issues that was under contention. In 2002, Hyundai Heavy Industries registered as a foreign business in Pennsylvania, and as such, Grace Ocean and Synergy argued it was a legitimate location to file the suit. The court ultimately agreed that it did have jurisdiction.
When the Dali was transferred in 2016 from its original owner to Grace Ocean, there was a contract that addressed the rights of the parties on issues such as future claims pertaining to the ship’s construction and warranty. A hearing held in July 2026 centered on the issues of this contract and whether Synergy Marine was a party to the contract. The contract also included a clause saying disputes would be submitted to arbitration in London.
The Pennsylvania court ruled that Synergy Marine was bound by the contract as well as Grace Ocean. Hyundai had also argued that it would be more appropriate for the case to be heard elsewhere, as the evidence and witnesses were in South Korea and Singapore. Hyundai was seeking a motion to dismiss or, alternatively, a stay pending arbitration.
In a ruling on August 3, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed the claims from Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine against Hyundai Heavy Industries on “forum non conveniens” grounds. It, in effect, agreed that the case would be more appropriate for another court. The Pennsylvania court did not comment on or rule on the product liability issues. The case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning the Pennsylvania court has permanently closed it.
It is the latest ruling in a tangled web of legal claims stemming from the March 26, 2024, incident. Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine have settled many of the civil claims with the U.S. federal government, Maryland, the families of the deceased workers, and others. They have argued in a District Court in Maryland that the remainder of the civil claims, mostly from businesses that cite a loss in revenue or were inconvenienced, should be dismissed.
The United States unsealed a criminal indictment in May 2026 against Synergy Marine and a technical supervisor on conspiracy and maritime safety violations, as well as obstruction by concealing information during the investigation. That case is currently scheduled to go to trial in October 2027. Both the company and the supervisor have entered pleas of not guilty.
The chief engineer of the Dali pleaded guilty to charges of failing to notify the U.S. Coast Guard of unsafe conditions on the vessel when it arrived in the United States. He has received a deferred prosecution, likely in exchange for testimony in the criminal trial.

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:28:03 +0000

World’s biggest mining companies now worth $2.17 trillion

Frik Els | August 7, 2026 |
Reason to smile. Shift change at the George Fisher zinc, lead silver mine in Australia. Image: Glencore
At the end of July the MINING.COM TOP 50* ranking of the world’s most valuable miners had a combined market capitalization of $2.17 trillion, up $18 billion for the month and holding a gain of $26 billion so far in 2026.
The Top 50 now runs on a monthly clock, and on a new basis: mined metals and minerals only, with coal-heavy counters excluded and every ranking back to the start of the decade recalculated to match (the notes at the bottom set out the rules of the game).
The $545 billion swing
July was a good deal livelier than the 0.8% headline move suggests.
When mining stocks were riding high on gold and copper prices at the end of March, the Top 50 was worth $2.33 trillion. By the end of June, with gold well off its record, that had shrunk to $2.15 trillion.
Stock by stock, the swings are wilder still: valued at each company’s best month-end of the year, the Top 50 would be worth $2.44 trillion. At each one’s worst, just $1.9 trillion. That $545 billion spread is the truer measure of 2026 (and most every other year on commodities markets) so far, in a ranking that never itself strayed far from $2.2 trillion.
The biggest winner and the biggest loser in July were both gold diggers, and neither had much to do with bullion, which waited until August to stage a comeback.
Zijin’s third engine
Zijin Mining added $24 billion of market value in July, up 23.8%, vaulting past Newmont into fourth place at $125 billion. No company gained more dollars, and nothing in the company’s bracket came close on percentage either.
The trigger was a first-half profit alert lodged in early July: net profit guided at roughly RMB 39.1 billion, up 68%, with gold output up 15% to just over 1.5 million ounces and silver edging up to 7.4 million ounces. The number that stands out, though, is lithium: 43,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent against 7,000 tonnes a year earlier, a sixfold ramp pulled off just as the market for the battery metal emerged from a brutal slump.
Xiamen calls lithium the group’s third growth engine, and for once the investor-day language matches the production tables. Anyone reading Zijin’s surge as a copper story should note that consolidated copper output actually fell 6%. Less than a year after becoming only the fourth mining company in history to top $100 billion, Zijin is aiming for the podium.
Polyus pulls the rip cord
At the other end, Polyus surrendered $13.2 billion (down 37.6%) and fell eight places to number 28.
On 8 July the Russian gold miner told shareholders it would suspend dividends until 2030 to fund a wave of investment projects. The stock dropped 26% in a single session, the second-worst day in its history, beaten only by the 27.4% shellacking of 16 September 2008, when Lehman Brothers was setting the mood. It kept sliding for the rest of the month.
The decision baffled a market that watched Polyus mint record earnings and some $2 billion of free cash flow last year, and Sberbank promptly struck the stock from its top picks. One theory doing the rounds in Moscow: the company is bracing for a windfall tax on gold profits, and has budgeted for bullion at a deeply unfashionable $3,100 an ounce. Polyus and Norilsk Nickel, it should be said, keep their standing in this ranking thanks to captive investors on the Moscow Exchange where sanctions have made sellers of many, but exits are few.
Middle Kingdom kings
The rest of July’s winners column reads like a Shanghai gold board: Zhongjin Gold up 21.4%, Shandong Gold up 16.9%, and outside the ranking Chifeng Jilong up more than 50%. It looks like a surge. It is closer to a bounce. Gold spent the first half of 2026 falling roughly 30% from January’s record above $5,590 an ounce, and China’s gold stocks fell considerably harder. Shandong Gold’s peak-to-trough drawdown passed 60% before bargain hunters found a sector trading at around ten times earnings.
Western precious metals went the other way: Fresnillo gave back 10% of its value, Coeur 12.9% and Agnico Eagle 5%, while Newmont slipped just enough for Zijin to relieve Denver of fourth place.
Since this snapshot was taken, gold has bounced again, surging to a seven-week high above $4,400 on Friday after the US economy shed 23,000 jobs in July, the first payrolls contraction since February. Gold bugs will take the help.
Revolving door
The price of admission rose to $13.56 billion, from $13.1 billion at the end of June, not far off the record $14.5 billion set at the end of March and more than four times the $3.2 billion that got a company through the door in 2020.
Western Mining takes the fiftieth spot after a 41.5% July, the biggest percentage move anywhere in the ranking. Casablanca’s Managem, up 106% this year on its gold and cobalt mines across Africa, debuts at 39. Lundin Gold misses by a whisker and is likely back in by the time you read this, joining Tianqi Lithium, which dropped by a quarter, and Alamos Gold.
MMG returns at 49 after a 28.6% month, and South32 re-enters at 45, up 12.2% since agreeing to sell nearly all its aluminium business to Alcoa for up to $5.6 billion. The Perth miner also broke mining’s decade-long US permitting curse in early July, bagging the final federal approval for its $2 billion-plus Hermosa zinc-silver-manganese project in Arizona, with first production pencilled in for early 2028.
The metal that matters for the slimmed-down miner may turn out to be silver: once the Alcoa sale closes, Cannington’s silver-lead-zinc output becomes more than a tenth of revenue, and with silver near $60 an ounce (against under $40 a year ago) and zinc up 26% in 2026, the market is paying up for what South32 is keeping, not just what it sold.
Then there is Amman Mineral, the ranking’s resident rollercoaster. The Indonesian copper-gold miner stormed into the Top 50 after its blockbuster 2023 debut, ran up nearly 600% to pierce the top 10 (minting half a dozen billionaires along the way), then surrendered roughly three quarters of its peak value as smelter commissioning and concentrate headaches set in, bottoming out dead last at number 50 in the Q2 count. In July it rose 25.7% to reclaim 42nd.
Baar sets a higher bar
Two days ago Glencore reported the kind of first half that headline writers call blowout: adjusted EBITDA of $10.1 billion, up 86%, a fresh $500 million buyback, and confirmation of a secondary Sydney listing for October. Copper output rose 15% just as the metal hit records, and the trading desks feasted on a volatile oil market.
The July snapshot caught the run-up: up 7.6% for the month and 34% for the year at $86 billion, Baar is firmly ensconced at number 7. It is easy to forget Glencore spent stretches of 2020 and 2021 outside the top 10 altogether and traded below its 2011 London IPO price for the better part of fifteen years.
There is a wrinkle in the timing. The six-month standstill Rio Tinto accepted when it walked away from their $260 billion mega-merger in February lapsed this week, and Melbourne promptly signalled it is in no rush to come back to the table. On numbers like these, Baar can afford to play hard to get.
Rio arrives at the standstill’s end in decent shape of its own, having just posted its highest first-half earnings in four years as the data centre boom feeds copper demand. Though on this ranking’s own 1.5 times revenue test (see the notes below) Rio is, strictly speaking, an iron ore company enjoying editorial clemency.
Vale gets no such pass. Filed under iron ore while the long-promised Toronto listing of its base metals unit waits, the Brazilian miner posted a 35% fall in second-quarter profit and narrowed its nickel and copper output outlook.
The air up there
BHP has added $62 billion of market value in 2026, a 41% gain no other big cap approaches in dollar terms, reaching $216 billion and sitting comfortably above the double-century mark Melbourne was first to breach. July’s production report showed record iron ore output from the Pilbara, with full-year results due mid-month.
The $50 billion of air between the world’s biggest miner and Rio Tinto (the unbroken pair at the top) is now the widest gap between first and second in the history of this ranking. It is a remarkable turn from 2024, when the lead had thinned to $15 billion. One stock accounts for a tenth of the Top 50’s entire value.
Club rules
Melbourne is where the money lives: BHP, Rio Tinto and MMG make the Victorian capital a $395 billion head-office town, nearly a fifth of the entire ranking. Toronto’s four entries are worth $204 billion, Mexico City’s two $177 billion, Denver’s three $156 billion and Vancouver’s five $141 billion.
The gap to Toronto vanishes the day

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 17:20:49 +0000

COMMENT: Iran and the UAE are working together to outlast Trump
A container ship crosses the Strait of Hormuz. UAE-Iran trade has accelerated even as the wider Gulf war continues. / bne IntelliNews Facebook
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By Ben Aris August 7, 2026
A "truce" between the UAE and Iran, agreed after direct contacts between senior officials in mid-June, is helping both countries manage the fallout of the wider Gulf war and undermining Washington's strategy of economic pressure, Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, wrote in a note published August 7.
The de-escalation has spared Emirati cities and critical infrastructure from the direct attacks Iran has continued to level at other Gulf states, Batmanghelidj notes, citing a Financial Times report on the truce. The UAE exported more crude through the Strait of Hormuz than any other Gulf producer in July, with supertankers loading from secondary terminals at Zirku and Das islands and smaller vessels conducting ship-to-ship transfers off Fujairah before crossing the strait - a sign, he writes, that the FT's characterisation of the truce as a "bold gamble" is paying off.
Emirati officials deny making direct financial transfers to Iran, and Batmanghelidj is sceptical of reports the UAE paid Tehran "billions of dollars" to halt attacks, arguing any such inflow would show up immediately in Iran's foreign-exchange markets. What Iran needed, he argues, was not cash but the logistical and financial channels to procure goods.
Over 50 container ships crossed between the UAE and Iran in July, according to shipping-data provider Kpler, approaching pre-war levels - feeder services between the Iranian ports of Bandar Lengeh and Bandar Abbas and the Emirati ports of Port Rashid and Jebel Ali, carrying fruit and vegetables out and industrial intermediate goods back. At least eight bulk carriers crossed the strait in the past week to call at Bandar Imam Khomeini, delivering grain and animal feed to a country reliant on imports to cover its food-consumption shortfall; Iranian importers regained the dollar liquidity needed to pay for those cargoes through the UAE's financial system, reversing a block Emirati authorities imposed in early March after the first wave of Iranian strikes on Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Not appeasement, but interdependence
Batmanghelidj pushes back on Western commentary that frames the UAE's continued economic engagement as a form of appeasement.
"It is a reflection of the deep and long-standing interdependence between the two countries," he writes. "As the war dragged on, Emirati officials needed to mitigate harm to key parts of the economy, ranging from the oil industry to the tourism sector. Likewise, Iranian officials needed to restore critical supply chains, sustaining manufacturing output and safeguarding food security to maintain stability during the war."
He argues the dynamic also explains why a reported Israeli push for a "land blockade" of Iran - convincing regional states to shut border crossings and ports to Tehran - has gone nowhere: neighbouring states' own economic engagement with Iran is what lets them manage the instability created, in his telling, by the Trump administration's oscillation between offering a deal and threatening further strikes.
"Six months on, it is clear that the war has no military solution, only a diplomatic one," Batmanghelidj concludes, framing the UAE's restored trade with Iran as evidence that regional actors, not Washington, are setting the terms of how the conflict actually winds down.

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 17:18:02 +0000

WHAT'S IMPORTANT!
UKMTO: Crew safe after another vessel hit in Strait of Hormuz
08.08.2026, dpa

Another vessel has been attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported on Saturday, as the security situation in the waterway remains tense.
The UKMTO said it had received a report of an incident 18 nautical miles (33 kilometres) east of the northern Omani port of Al Khasab.
A vessel was hit by an "unknown projectile," causing a fire on board which has been extinguished, according to the report.
The ship and its crew were safe, UKMTO said.
Iranian forces have repeatedly attacked tankers and other vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for the global oil and gas trade, since the start of US-led strikes in late February.
The waterway has effectively been closed since, disrupting global trade and sending oil prices soaring.
The reopening of the Strait is a key sticking points in negotiations between Tehran and Washington on a long-term end to the war.
UKMTO statement
(c) 2026 dpa Deutsche Presse Agentur GmbH

Indian Cargo Vessel Sunk by Bomb-Boat Attack Off Hodeidah, 14 Rescued
Traffic in the southern Red Sea, August 4 (Pole Star Global)
Published Aug 4, 2026 5:28 PM by The Maritime Executive

India's shipping ministry reports that an Indian-flagged vessel was hit and sunk in the southern Red Sea, the latest war-risk casualty off the coast of Yemen. Maritime security consultancy Windward identified the incident as a bomb-boat attack. As of Tuesday, no group has claimed responsibility for the strike.
Indian Ports, Shipping and Waterways Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said in a brief statement that the vessel Faize Noore Oliya was attacked and sunk off the coast of Yemen on August 4. All crewmembers aboard were rescued by the coast guard of the internationally-recognized Yemeni government.
13 members of the crew are Indian nationals, and the nearest Indian embassy - in Riyadh - is working with Yemeni authorities to ensure their wellbeing.
"I have instructed the Director General Maritime Administration (DGMA) to take immediate steps, in coordination with all agencies, to ensure the absolute security of Indian seafarers in the region and provide all necessary assistance to the rescued crew," Indian Ports, Shipping and Waterways Minister Sarbananda Sonowal wrote in a statement.
India's ministry of foreign affairs added in a statement that "the targeting of commercial shipping in the region must end, and free and unimpeded navigation . . . must be restored at the earliest."
Consultancy Windward put the location of the sinking at a site about 13 nm to the south of Hodeidah, a port controlled by Yemen's Houthi rebels. The group has imposed a blockade on Saudi shipping, and has attacked as many as four Saudi-flagged vessels since last month. It has pledged to allow free navigation for all other traffic, but in past conflicts, it has had a history of striking targets that appear to be unrelated to its military objectives. Houthi forces have not claimed responsibility for the strike.
Windward's tracking suggests that the Oliya had a history of AIS-dark operations, including the 44-day period immediately prior to the attack. Known calls before the incident included visits to the UAE, Oman and Djibouti.

Report: U.S. Officials Back Plan for Iran & Oman to Split Control of Hormuz
Iran's preferred control scheme runs through Iranian territorial seas, above. The reported compromise would put the inbound lane in Iranian waters and outbound traffic in Omani waters (IRGC)
Published Aug 4, 2026 6:18 PM by The Maritime Executive

The U.S. government is on board with an Iranian proposal to split control of the Strait of Hormuz with Oman, and plans to portray it as a "temporary" measure needed to restart ship movements, according to The Guardian's Patrick Wintour.