Oil and Gas Prices Surge as Trump Warns of Prolonged War in Iran

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THE TOP FIVE

1. Oil and gas prices surge as Trump warns of prolonged war in Iran

We are only four days into the bombing campaign the United States and Israel began Saturday in a bid to topple the Islamic Republic’s regime. Oil prices closed Monday nearly 9% higher than where trading started last Friday. Natural gas prices, meanwhile, spiked by 5% in the U.S. and 45% in Europe after Qatar announced a halt to shipments of liquified natural gas through the Strait of Hormuz, which tapers at its narrowest point to just 20 miles between the shores of Iran and the United Arab Emirates. It’s a sign that the war “isn’t just an oil story,” Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin wrote yesterday. Like any good tale, it has some irony: “The one U.S. natural gas export project scheduled to start up soon is, of all things, a QatarEnergy-ExxonMobil joint venture.” Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer further explored the LNG angle with Eurasia Group analyst Gregory Brew on the latest episode of Shift Key.

At least for now, the bombing of Iranian nuclear enrichment sites hasn’t led to any detectable increase in radiation levels in countries bordering Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday. That includes the Bushehr nuclear power plant, the Tehran research reactor, and other facilities. “So far, no elevation of radiation levels above the usual background levels has been detected in countries bordering Iran,” Director General Rafael Grossi said in a statement.

2. BlackRock is buying utility giant AES

Financial giants are once again buying a utility in a bet on electricity growth. A consortium led by BlackRock subsidiary Global Infrastructure Partners and Swedish private equity heavyweight EQT announced a deal Monday to buy utility giant AES Corp. The acquisition was valued at more than $33 billion and is expected to close by early next year at the latest. “AES is a leader in competitive generation,” Bayo Ogunlesi, the chief executive officer of BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners, said in a statement. “At a time in which there is a need for significant investments in new capacity in electricity generation, transmission, and distribution, especially in the United States of America, we look forward to utilizing GIP’s experience in energy infrastructure investing, as well as our operational capabilities to help accelerate AES’ commitment to serve the market needs for affordable, safe and reliable power.” The move comes almost exactly a year after the infrastructure divisions at Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, bought the Albuquerque-based utility TXNM Energy in an $11.5 billion gamble on surging power demand.

3. In China, solar overtakes wind for the first time

China’s output of solar power surpassed that of wind for the first time last year as cheap panels flooded the market at home and abroad. The country produced nearly 1.2 million gigawatt-hours of electricity from solar power in 2025, up 40% from a year earlier, according to a Bloomberg analysis of National Bureau of Statistics data published Saturday. Wind generation increased just 13% to more than 1.1 million gigawatt-hours. The solar boom comes as Beijing bolsters spending on green industry across the board. China went from spending virtually nothing on fusion energy development to investing more in one year than the entire rest of the world combined, as I have previously reported. To some, China is — despite its continued heavy use of coal — a climate hero, as Heatmap’s Katie Brigham has written.

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4. Canada’s top uranium miner inks a major deal with India

The Sue E open pit uranium mine in McClean Lake, Canada. DAVID BOILY/AFP via Getty Images

Canada and India have a longstanding special friendship on nuclear power. Both countries — two of the juggernauts of the 56-country Commonwealth of Nations — operate fleets that rely heavily on pressurized heavy water reactors, a very different design than the light water reactors that make up the vast majority of the fleets in Europe and the United States. Ottawa helped New Delhi build its first nuclear plants. Now the two countries have renewed their atomic ties in what the BBC called a “landmark” deal Monday. As part of the pact, India signed a nine-year agreement with Canada’s largest uranium miner, Cameco, to supply fuel to New Delhi’s growing fleet of seven nuclear plants. The $1.9 billion deal opens a new market for Canada’s expanding production of uranium ore and gives India, which has long worried about its lack of domestic deposits, a stable supply of fuel.

India, meanwhile, is charging ahead with two new reactors at the Kaiga atomic power station in the southwestern state of Karnataka. The units are set to be IPHWR-700, natively designed pressurized heavy water reactors. Last week, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India poured the first concrete on the new pair of reactors, NucNet reported Monday.

5. Spain moves forward with $1.2 billion green hydrogen megaproject

The Spanish refiner Moeve has decided to move forward with an investment into building what Hydrogen Insight called “a scaled-back version” of the first phase of its giant 2-gigawatt Andalusian Green Hydrogen Valley project. Even in a less ambitious form, Reuters pegged the total value of the project at $1.2 billion. Meanwhile in the U.S., as I wrote yesterday, is losing major projects right as big production facilities planned before Trump returned to office come online.

THE KICKER

Speaking of building, the LEGO Group is investing another $2.8 million into carbon dioxide removal. The Danish toymaker had already pumped money into carbon-removal projects overseen by Climate Impact Partners and ClimeFi. At this point, LEGO has committed $8.5 million to sucking planet-heating carbon out of the atmosphere, where it circulates for centuries. “As the program expands, it is helping to strengthen our understanding of different approaches and inform future decision-making on how carbon removal may complement our wider climate goals,” Annette Stube, LEGO’s chief sustainability officer, told Carbon Herald.