Stuck
** Oil prices remain stuck in a tight range as traders look past geopolitical headlines and wait for clarity on the fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire.
Friendly again
** An Iraqi oil delegation visited Turkey to discuss the future of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline agreement after Ankara had stated it sees no point in extending it, with Baghdad hoping to sign a temporary protocol to avoid a complete halt past the July 27 deadline.
Search expanded
**The European Union has expanded the mandate of its operation against tankers transporting Russian oil, prompting Cameroon to drop 39 shadow tankers from its ship registry after at least 5 flags with Cameroonian flags were detained in 2026 to date.
New pipeline
** The government of Canada has formally announced it would build a new oil pipeline connecting Alberta to the Pacific coast, easing the country’s reliance on US transits, with construction on the 1 million b/d conduit expected to begin as early as September 2027.
Big User
** In 2025, nearly 40% of all power demand from data centers came from facilities based in the U.S., according to this year’s Statistical Review of World Energy from the Energy Institute. It’s the first year the sweeping annual report has tracked data center demand, a sign of how central the question of powering these massive facilities has become.
U.S. Energy
** The largest data center project ever proposed in the U.S. is officially dead. Blackstone-owned QTS Realty Trust withdrew its appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court on July 2, closing out a three-year legal fight over the Prince William Digital Gateway, a planned 2,100-acre campus in Prince William County, Virginia that would have packed 37 buildings and 22 million square feet of data centers next to Manassas National Battlefield Park.
** Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said AI data centers must be prohibited from being built in rural neighborhoods. Speaking recently at a campaign event in Bullard, Abbott said he has already made it clear that data centers wanting to build in Texas need to bring their own money, power, and water.
** The Massachusetts Senate passed a sweeping energy-affordability bill that aims to save residents $14 billion over 10 years in a state that has some of the country’s highest utility costs.
** A wave of new gas power plants for AI data centers in the U.S. would release as much greenhouse gas pollution as the entire nations of Australia or France, a recent analysis finds. The 74 natural gas-fired power plants meant to provide power for the rapidly growing data center industry are expected to release 662 million tons per year of greenhouse gas pollution. That is the equivalent of 140 million cars and trucks driving for a year, according to “The Power Behind AI,” a new report by the Environmental Integrity Project.
** A Government Accountability Office audit finds Puerto Rico has only received about 25% of the $14 billion it was allocated for grid repairs and a solar and battery buildout after 2017’s Hurricane Maria destroyed much of the island’s energy system.
** The DOE proposes weakening regulations that push consumers toward efficient and electric stoves, dryers, water heaters, and other appliances.
