Iranian site?
** President Trump warned Iran that growing activity around its Pickaxe Mountain nuclear power site might result in another attack by the U.S. “We may have to give them a shot there, too, because somebody said there was a little movement at the site,” Trump warned in a Wednesday night speech in Dallas. “I would advise Iran not to get cute because we will have to hit them very hard. We have no choice, right?”
UN
** The UN’s nuclear watchdog agency is asking the body to hold Iran accountable for failing to stick with safeguards meant to prevent the development of nuclear weapons, diplomatic officials announced Wednesday. 23 governors sitting on the International Atomic Energy Agency voted Wednesday to report Tehran to the Security Council, with Russia, China and Niger voting against the action, which stems from a June 2025 resolution declaring Iran non-compliant with nuclear safeguards.
Prices
** President Donald Trump said Wednesday that oil prices that have surged because of the Iran war likely won’t come down until after U.S. midterm elections. Oil prices on Wednesday jumped more than 3%, pushing international Br Trump, in an exchange with reporters before traveling to Dallas for the midterm Republican convention, added that he believes Iran will finally relent after the pivotal elections are held in the U.S.
EIA
** The U.S. forecasts oil production in the Middle East will rise in the coming months because of gradually increasing flows through the Strait of Hormuz and the use of alternative routes out of the region, according to our September 2026 STEO. However, we assume some constraints to exporting oil from the Middle East will persist through the end of the year, which keeps crude oil production in the region below pre-conflict averages until the second quarter of 2027 (2Q27).
U.S. energy Developments
** The latest round of U.S.-Canada tariffs has done little to loosen those ties in oil. Canadian heavy crude has become harder for U.S. Gulf Coast refiners to replace as Mexican production declines; Venezuelan supply is rising but still somewhat uncertain and the Iran war complicates shipments of competing Middle Eastern grades. The surge in Permian production offers only a partial substitute because much of it is lighter than the crude many Gulf Coast refineries were designed to process.
** Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will hold a bipartisan briefing next week to discuss the “extraordinary dangers” posed by AI, according to Axios. Rogue AI incidents and dire warnings from the very people building ever more powerful models are fueling fresh alarm in Washington. Sanders, the lawmaker behind legislation that would pause AI development, is bringing that debate directly to senators.
** A New York woman has pleaded guilty to federal charges of concealing her husband’s crime of conspiring with others to steal, transport and sell stolen, used cooking oil.
** The U.S. Energy Information Administration anticipates record amounts of electricity to be used this year and next. It expects electricity sales in the United States to total 4,135 billion kilowatt-hours (BkWh) in 2026 and 4,211 BkWh in 2027, driven by data center development and increased manufacturing activity in the commercial and industrial sectors. The biggest growth will be in the West South Central region of the US.
