Modo Energy has flagged that a beast is waking up on the network. Coalburn 1, a 500 MW / 1GWh battery is flicking on & off now as seen in the Balancing Mechanism, beating Thurrock at 300 MW into 2nd place. A 500 MW BESS is a huge tool for NESO to call on, but it won't hold the record for long.

One of those rare days in renewables for GB today. Wind is relatively constant during a sunny(ish) day down south, and as the sun sets the wind picks up with total fleet always above 20 GW all day. Who needs storage, anyway. Oh, it's rare you say?

Usually for stuff like this we have to wait a year, or at least months to bestow the 'This aged like a half filled glass of milk, with the other half filled with tinned tuna, left behind a radiator that's always on' award. But here, we should be able to award it in a matter of hours. How exciting.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterday

Bessent: "We've seen President Trump last week threaten what would have been the largest military campaign since World War 2 against the Iranians, and now because of that we are in talks with the Iranians. I think there's a chance we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open the strait."

Oh, and while we're on a data binge this morning, if you're not seeing European gas storage corrected for actual demand (and not total storage capacity that was built for the market in the 2000s) then you're not seeing the actual picture:

Refining is really, really where the action is. If you're not a refiner in the Americas or Europe, you have been scuppered either by missiles (Middle East/Russia) or lack of supply (Asia) which pushes global refining runs well below the historic range.

Hard agree.

George Eaton@georgeeaton.bsky.social · 2d ago

It’s long been clear that Reform is beatable – Farage’s terrible personal ratings, toxic brand, mass tactical voting against them. The narrative that victory for them is inevitable was based on superficial analysis + wishful thinking on the right.

As we enter into August the game has changed. TTF traders have essentially spent summer so far not battling Asian buyers for LNG deliveries which has hurt injections. I suspect as a risk management tool (implicit TACO trade) but the window begins to close now so TTF will have beat JKM.

Tom Haddon@tomh-analyst.bsky.social · 3mo ago

That's why if you didn't know any context on market dynamics, apart from looking at storage injections in Europe...everything looks totally and utterly unremarkable through April. The month of May could well be the same, but June/July/August is the real quiz. bsky.app/profile/tomh...

Oil prices off quite heavily this morning on the back of more talks, but there is a growing sense of barrels are getting out as well. If you convert number of known transits into barrels its going at 5-7mmbl per day. Well below the 20mmb level but slowly creeping which probably helps.

For balance, I had a great experience with Gridserve yesterday outside Oxford. A shame for them that you wouldn't know they were Gridserve though as they had been dressed up in the livery of the 'diner' they sat next to. Only nerds like me notice.

Tom Haddon@tomh-analyst.bsky.social · 3mo ago

And it's supposed to be the new kid on the block but software & reliability is awful. Had to plug into 4 at Chieveley on Tuesday before I found one that didn't just freeze for a while and then flick to an 'out of order' screen. If it were busy it would be carnage.

Oh hello there. Crude oil futures (i.e. Brent) are currently $0-$40 a barrel cheaper than in April (mostly cheaper but not more expensive) Petrol prices just about to hit the maximum (diesel doing weird things but just wait for that). Did the government do anything to explain? Nope.

Tom Haddon@tomh-analyst.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I've said it before: government has to find a way to explain this, or least get the message out there that futures is decoupling from physical costs because futures will go down on Trump's latest wheeze, but the physical situation *will not change* and consumers will not see any relief.

The YOLOing (a technical term) in the Strait has meant tanker crossings at ~10% of historic levels even as drones and missiles have started to fly again. Usual caveat applies that I don't know how much 'dark' transits this is covering but it can't be miles off.

Tom Haddon@tomh-analyst.bsky.social · last wk.

It would appear that LNG prices have found the level for certain tanker Captains to close their eyes and 'YOLO' it through the Strait. It doesn't seem to be widespread though as tracking services are able to pick off individual ships reappearing on the other side. oilprice.com/Latest-Energ...

Choose your fighter: 1) The Tufton Street view of Chinese Power (no point in little old us decarbonising blah blah blah) 2) The actual view of Chinese Power. It's is being marginalised by a yearly compounding effect and it means drastic change over the next 10 years.

Evergreen post:

Simon Evans@drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · 6d ago

🧵UK media has been duped about net-zero (again) The playbook is identical: 1️⃣ Find a big scary number 2️⃣ Speed-dial non-specialist hacks 3️⃣ Do say “serious economic damage” 4️⃣ Don’t say “we pretended gas is free” 5️⃣ That's it! Many papers still fell for it 🤷

There are several unanswerable questions in our philosophical framework; is there a God? What is the meaning of life? Why is oil not $200/bbl?

Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social · last wk.

Trump: US strikes will take place against Iran in response to attacks on US targets in Jordan.- Fox In same interview he also said the U.S. willl keep talking to Iran.

There is some absolutely bananas things going on in diesel crack spreads: diesel prices are not budging while crude prices fall. This is US refiners but given they are now integral to European diesel, it tells you diesel inventories are *tight* as export demand is pulling diesel out of the US.

When I was in charge of thought leadership for PwC in the EV charging space, we would never do this. I relied on interviews with people in the sector to collect hallucinations such as "our network will be profitable really soon".

Noah Barkin@noahbarkin.bsky.social · last wk.

PwC published reports on AI and electric vehicles riddled with fake footnotes, misattributed claims and unverifiable information, the latest example of a Big Four firm’s slapdash use of AI-generated content. www.ft.com/content/7e14...

It would appear that LNG prices have found the level for certain tanker Captains to close their eyes and 'YOLO' it through the Strait. It doesn't seem to be widespread though as tracking services are able to pick off individual ships reappearing on the other side. oilprice.com/Latest-Energ...

ADNOC Defies Hormuz Risks as UAE LNG Exports Continue | OilPrice.com

The UAE continues exporting LNG through the Strait of Hormuz despite heightened security risks, underscoring strong global demand and ADNOC's strategy to expand its LNG business.

oilprice.com

Who has jawboned crude prices down today then? 5% down today, which following yesterday's 10% drop is pretty significant.

I'm not sure why but I found this quite funny, just the way it's written I guess. It's like the person who wrote the first sentence hasn't met the person who finished the post.

The absolute underlying problem driving all the nonsense policy is: you don't know when you're going to die. The 2nd problem is; an economist is going to suggest a policy where everyone has fixed death dates...

Dan Neidle@danneidle.bsky.social · last wk.

I have a modest proposal for a new tax. It involves a deck of cards and a monkey throwing darts. Here are the rules:

Brent sank as low as 11% down today on reports that bombing was ceasing/potential space for negotiations. In the meantime, shipping trackers are showing basically nothing of note happening, and Bent has recovered to 'just' 6% down and back into >$90bbl. Fundamentals (not) be damned (a bit).

Only up to May so not super current, but look at that red line (US -> EUR) and blue line (US -> Asia) LNG trade. That's pretty much historically high Asian buying of what is *supposed* to be a US to Europe methane conveyor belt. TTF/NBP is going to have to battle JKM this summer.

There are a few things going on here. Get ready for another exciting episode of 'things that grind Tom's gears', where I point out all the nonsense in energy media headlines / articles... Continues below.

Andy Scollick@andyscollick.bsky.social · last wk.

The Times has done it again! The juxtaposition of an image of our climate changed hell beneath a leading article undermining the energy transition. Conclusion? It's certainly no editorial accident.

Where I live, we haven't been able to open our windows for days because of this. Remember, this is the crap they want us to adapt to. Climate adaptation is a society and economic con job.

Dave Vetter@davidrvetter.bsky.social · 2w ago

I join you from the Blaenavon wildfire in Southeast Wales, brought to you by BP, Shell and Equinor. Though it does not look dramatic, the fire has been out of control for days - for a very particular reason. 🧵

Might have to zoom in quite a bit as I have lifted/stolen this; but I think this is potentially the best summation of all the weird strategic and hypotheticals that price signals are factoring in across crude oil. C/O @roryjohnston.bsky.social

Stock markets are black out drunk; example #8776213 A falling crude price means nothing when the Asian crude product crisis is now revving back into gear (and will spread if it really gets going) Plus, crude prices have come off because the US has spewed tariffs everywhere...is that good!?

Crude prices cooling a touch today, back down to $97/bbl after hitting $102/bbl overnight. I haven't seen much that could be considered as helping the market cope. I can only assume we're back 3 months in the past.

Tom Haddon@tomh-analyst.bsky.social · 4mo ago

So we will get to a position whereby he will claim that Jesus Christ himself is coming down from heaven to personally ferry tankers through the Strait and prices will barely come down at all. The floor is cranking up, and there is potentially nothing he can do to stop that now.

Such a copy and paste job. Even a lazy journalist gets AI to write it, they don't just reuse copy. Every year without fail Chris O'Shea warns about this in his utterly cringey attempts to get public money for Rough storage.

How do you say "data centre capex spend is not sustainable" in Silicon Valley speak? God, I can't wait for the music to stop. Yes it's going to be bad, but it's such a fabricated rubbish basis of 'growth', just sucking everything else dry.

George Pearkes@peark.es · 2w ago

And I ooop $GOOGL

Crude oil (Brent) making moves this morning, fighting chance it's above $100bbl by close of play. Currently floating around above $98bbl. Increasing attacks on shipping, now spreading out the Strait we know all to well, into another theatre off the coast of Yemen means risk is legging up again.