(Bloomberg) --The U.S. Treasury Department banned transactions of a key bond issued by Venezuela’s state-owned oil company for one year, the longest since it first stepped in to shield its U.S.-based refining arm from creditors, amid its economic downfall and political crisis. U.S. administrations under Donald Trump and now Joe Biden, had prev...

NEW YORK (Bloomberg) --The era of ever-cheaper clean power is over, giving a fresh jolt of uncertainty to global energy markets battered by one supply crisis after another. Relentless price declines over the past decade made renewables the cheapest sources of electricity in much of the world. In the past year, though, prices for solar panels hav...

(Bloomberg) --Chesapeake Energy Corp. is in advanced talks to acquire privately owned natural gas producer Chief Oil & Gas Inc. for about $2.4 billion including debt, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter. A deal could be announced as soon as this week, Reuters said. The news agency reported in October that Chief Oil &...

(Bloomberg) --Vistra Corp. said two units of Energy Transfer LP are threatening to cut off natural gas supplies to power generation facilities it owns in Texas because of a payment dispute over last year’s catastrophic winter storm. Vistra subsidiaries including Luminant Energy asked Texas oil and gas regulators to prevent Energy Transfer from...

FRANKFURT (Bloomberg) --The Netherlands is throwing a hydrogen life preserver to pipelines that are on the brink of becoming stranded assets. The nation will end most natural-gas production this year, forcing NV Nederlandse Gasunie to find alternative uses for its 15,000 kilometers of pipes. The state-owned company is studying which segments of...

DUBAI (Bloomberg) --The United Arab Emirates’ biggest renewable-energy company will make acquisitions and sell bonds as part of a plan to more than double its operations this decade and help the country achieve a net-zero target. “We have very significant growth ambitions,” Masdar’s Chief Financial Officer Niall Hannigan said in an inter...

(Bloomberg) --Texas natural gas production dropped for the second time this month because of freezing temperatures settling over the state. Output on Thursday was down 6.2%, according to preliminary BloombergNEF data based on pipeline flows. That’s the biggest decline since Jan. 2, when a similar blast of frigid air curbed supplies. “It...

Maersk Drilling has been awarded a contract with TotalEnergies E&P Danmark which will employ the high-efficiency jack-up rig Maersk Reacher for well intervention services in the Danish North Sea. The contract is expected to commence in July 2022, with a duration of 21 months. The contract includes options to extend the duration by up to 27 addi...

LONDON (Bloomberg) --OPEC and its allies are increasing oil production but can’t solve all the sector’s issues alone, the United Arab Emirates’ energy minister said. The industry needs investment, through the involvement of international oil companies, in order to provide adequate supplies, Suhail Al-Mazrouei said, according to the UAE’s...

Ghana’s state-owned oil company is progressing with plans to sell liquefied natural gas throughout West Africa after shipments of the fuel begin to flow to an import terminal this year. Tema LNG Terminal Co. is expected to start commercial operations at the plant in the second quarter and can help create an energy hub for the region, Hamis Uss...