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The week in Global Energy & Infrastructure
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US and Iranian attacks, blockades, boarding operations, and shifting transit policies kept Hormuz at the center of energy risk all week. Oil continued moving through the chokepoint, but concealment, rerouting, and enforcement threats made access increasingly uncertain.
The fighting expanded beyond shipping and oil flows to bridges, ports, communications, a nuclear facility, desalination, and Gulf power infrastructure. Repeated damage and retaliation turned the conflict into a wider regional public-services and energy-security crisis.
Tighter refined-fuel and LNG markets evolved into a broader oil shock as inventories fell and shipping risks rose. India moved to retain fuel for domestic use, while higher prices supported US drilling and pushed gasoline costs toward $4 a gallon.
Data-center growth increasingly drove new solar, storage, financing, and transmission decisions while exposing shortcomings in capacity markets and demand forecasts. Regulators and grid operators struggled to account for a projected supply gap exceeding 100 gigawatts by 2030.
Russian production and export logistics came under pressure from Ukrainian strikes, attacks on tankers, proposed tariffs on buyers, and a stoppage at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal. The disruptions added a separate threat to regional crude availability beyond Hormuz.
Iraq advanced and then formalized Western-backed plans to rehabilitate the Kirkuk to Baniyas route through Syria. The proposed corridor could diversify Iraqi exports, but it would attach energy security to Syria’s political and security risks.
A major Canadian hydropower link remained offline through repeated failures as heat raised New York City demand. The outage coincided with rising bill concerns and a state pause on large data-center construction, tying reliability and affordability to new-load decisions.
Sodium-ion batteries moved from an alternative chemistry toward mass production and a commercial modular system. The technology could reduce storage costs and lithium exposure, although it still trails lithium cells in some applications.
Day’s Recap