No tanker fees
** Secretary of State Marco Rubio again rejected the idea on Thursday of Iran or any nation charging commercial vessels to transit the Strait of Hormuz, and Oman’s government said any system it creates with Iran to manage maritime traffic “will not involve imposing any transit fees.”
Tankers moving
** About 35 tankers a day are clearing the Strait of Hormuz, down from 120 to 150 before the war, and roughly 10 million barrels a day of production is still sitting offline.
EU Rework
** The U.S. and Qatar urge the EU to rework planned rules meant to curb methane emissions from oil and gas imports, claiming they can’t meet the regulations and would have to reduce European shipments.
Battery swap
** British energy giant Octopus and battery maker CATL launch a battery-swapping network for electric trucks in the UK and Europe, furthering a technology that’s made little progress in the U.S.
** United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for more transparency on data centers’ energy, water and land use in a speech earlier this week in London.
US Energy
** The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s top Democrat Rep. Frank Pallone unexpectedly calls for a nationwide moratorium on data center development as Congress crafts legislation to protect ratepayers from data center-induced power bill price spikes.
**President Donald Trump directs the Justice Department to probe fossil fuel companies for alleged gasoline price gouging amid the country’s war with Iran.
** Gas prices in the United States fell last week below $4 per gallon for the first time since March, bringing some relief to consumers.
** Over the past several weeks, Google, Amazon and Microsoft have each launched new efforts to explain and justify the water use of their AI infrastructure, highlighting measures such as water replenishment projects, recycled-water use and new cooling technologies.
