2026-01-25 22:20

HOUSTON, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Baker Hughes (BKR.O) , opens new tab on Sunday reported an 11% rise in adjusted profit for the fourth quarter as demand for its gas technology equipment and services more than offset weakness in its oilfield services and equipment business. The company has banked on demand for equipment and services, such as gas turbines and compressors, it provides to liquefied natural gas (LNG) companies in recent quarters as weak oil prices have hurt drilling and completions activity in oil basins. Sign up here. Revenue from the company's industrial and energy technology business, which houses gas technology and services and contributes just over half its revenue, rose 9% to $3.8 billion. Revenue from its oilfield services and equipment business, meanwhile, fell 8% to $3.6 billion, the company said, adding that cost savings helped boost margins. The Houston-headquartered company forecast mid-single-digit growth in its adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, with margins in its industrial and technology business expanding to its 20% target and oilfield service and equipment business margins remaining relatively flat. Baker Hughes added that it expects industrial and energy business orders to remain at robust levels, thanks to continued momentum in LNG development, strong demand for floating, production, storage and offloading units and gas infrastructure, as well as for power systems. Adjusted net income attributable to Baker Hughes was $772 million, or 78 cents per share, in the three months ended December 31, up from $694 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier. The company took a $215 million restructuring charge, among others in the quarter. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oilfield-service-company-baker-hughes-posts-11-rise-adjusted-quarterly-profit-2026-01-25/

2026-01-25 19:50

New England leans heavily on oil-fired power plants PJM generation outages surge Spot electricity prices rise to several hundred dollars per MWH BOSTON/HOUSTON, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Power plant outages surged along the eastern United States on Sunday as constricted natural gas supplies and frigid temperatures cut the electricity output of the region's generation fleet. The PJM Interconnection, the largest U.S. regional grid that serves 67 million people in the East and Mid-Atlantic, reported nearly 21 gigawatts of generation outages, with most of that capacity being forced offline. Those outages represented about 16% of PJM's Sunday afternoon demand of 127.4 GW. Sign up here. On Sunday afternoon, PJM issued a pre-emergency order mandating that some customers in its curtailment program curb their electricity use. Customers in the program get paid to curb their electricity during critical periods. PJM's order sought to ease an upswing in demand in PJM's territory while asking some generator operators to preserve their run time for colder weather and higher electricity demand later in the week. Without native supplies of natural gas, the Eastern seaboard relies on a pipeline network that is historically constricted during extended bouts of frigid weather, said Pieter Mul, a grid expert and associate partner at PA Consulting's energy and utilities practice. Domestic demand of natural gas, net of exports, is estimated at 146.7 Bcf/d, down 3.6 Bcf/d compared to Saturday and ranks at No. 10 all-time. "From a natural gas production and price perspective, the current US winter storm so far is less severe than prior storms such as Uri and Elliott of 2021, 2022, but the risk isn’t over, with sustained cold lingering behind the storm,” said Matthew Palmer, the head of Americas Gas Research at S&P Global Energy. PJM's outages are higher than the grid planned, Mul said, adding that there is less flexibility in the PJM system than a few years ago because of power plant retirements and a surge in demand from data centers. PJM's territory also is hurt by bottlenecks in its transmission system of high-voltage power lines, hindering the transfer from west to east. For example, cheap power in Illinois on Sunday - sometimes dipping into negative prices because of abundant wind energy - could not be moved to help out other sections of PJM. As snow and sleet hit the major cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, the power grid also lost access to solar power in the afternoon from an increase in cloud cover. Meanwhile, power prices in PJM and the electric grids for New York and New England surged between $400 and $700 per MWh Sunday afternoon, grid operators reported. The increases reflected demand that continues to top grid operator forecasts. ISO New England, which serves a six-state region that includes Boston and Hartford, reported about 20.2 gigawatts of demand at 1:45 p.m. EDT, or greater than a projected peak load of 19.5 GW expected later in the day. With constricted natural gas access, nearly 40% of the New England grid's output came from oil-fired power plants. Natural gas, usually the grid's main source of fuel, accounted for just 30% of the grid's fuel source for power plants. But as Mul noted, New England supply of diesel fuel oil can be depleted and not easily resupplied during hazardous winter conditions. ISO New England's surplus capacity dropped to about 1.1 GW, down from earlier estimates of several gigawatts. Earlier on Sunday, ISO New England issued an "abnormal conditions" alert asking power plant operators not to schedule any maintenance or anything else that would affect the grid's reliability. Outside of Washington D.C., real-time wholesale electricity prices topped $1,800 per MWh early Sunday in Dominion Energy's Virginia territory, up from $200 per MWh on Saturday morning. Virginia houses the biggest cluster of data centers in the world, which are used to power things like artificial intelligence and have been responsible for rising power demand and prices in swaths of the country. The demand spike began late Saturday night, according to data from PJM as Winter Storm Fern swept across parts of the country. PJM predicts an all-time winter demand record on Tuesday, partly due to data center electricity needs. Dominion has said extended frigid temperatures this week, along with heavy snow, have the potential to be one of the largest winter events to affect the utility's operations. PJM predicts demand at 147.2 gigawatts, which would beat the current record winter electricity demand of 143.7 GW set in January 2025. Spot wholesale electricity prices across the U.S. have been elevated throughout the weekend as regional grids strain to meet surging demand. When demand is higher than the forecasts, utilities can be forced to pay elevated spot prices for electricity to meet the demands of their residential and business customers. Regional grids feed their power into the local distribution lines that bring electricity to homes and businesses. Those local power lines are showing disruptions, with nearly 1 million customers without power on Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us, with more than 300,000 in Tennessee and more than 100,000 each in Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana. Other states affected included Kentucky, Georgia, Virginia and Alabama. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state's main grid operator, forecast peak demand of 85.1 GW for Monday morning, compared to seasonal capacity of nearly 100 GW. Day-ahead market prices indicate the price of electricity per MWh could top $1,000 on Monday morning, according to ERCOT data. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/power-prices-surge-winter-storm-spikes-demand-us-data-center-alley-2026-01-25/

2026-01-25 19:05

Yen surged on Friday after New York Fed rate checks Japan PM vows 'necessary steps' in abnormal markets Thin Asia morning session could see sharp moves Dollar down slightly vs yen in early Sunday trade SINGAPORE/MILAN, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Foreign exchange markets are starting the week on edge amid the possibility of official yen buying to build on the currency's spike on Friday and a subsequent pledge by ‌Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to act against speculative moves. In evening European trading on Sunday, the yen edged up against a weaker dollar, extending Friday's surge. Sign up here. By 2045 GMT, the dollar was down by about 0.8% against the yen , trading at 154.56, its lowest level since December 17. The dollar index fell 0.4% to 97.085, while the euro was traded at $1.1869, up 0.3%. The low-liquidity hours early in Asia's Monday morning will likely be particularly jittery with a holiday in Australia further thinning trade, which can exaggerate moves. Short sellers are already ‌nervous after the yen finished Friday with its sharpest rise in nearly six months to 155.73 per dollar . On Friday, after the yen slid towards 160 to the dollar - where markets think intervention is a risk - it rebounded as the New York Federal Reserve conducted so-called rate checks, according to a source. Some traders saw the move as heightening the chance of joint U.S.-Japan intervention to halt the currency's slide. That would be the first joint move since ‍Group of Seven countries sold yen in 2011 after the massive Tohoku earthquake, that time in a bid to restrain a surge in the yen. This time, the yen has been weakening for years and is not far from multi-decade lows on the dollar. The slump has been drawing increasingly vocal complaints from officials, who say it is beginning to hurt the economy. ⁠On Friday, the yen zoomed higher twice: once, suddenly, in the London morning, and again in the New York session. The dollar has finally topped out against the ‍yen, said Elias Haddad, strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. That opens the way for a move toward 140.00-145.00, a range implied by interest rate differentials, he said. "First, worries over Japan ‌fiscal profligacy ‌are overdone given that growth comfortably exceeds borrowing costs. Second, Japan's mix of loose fiscal policy and tighter monetary policy is JPY positive," he wrote in an email on Sunday. Takaichi said on Sunday the government "will take necessary steps against speculative or very abnormal market moves," without specifying which market she was referring to. A MAR-A-LAGO ACCORD? The weak yen has become a source of headaches for Japanese policymakers as it pushes up import costs and broader inflation, hurting households' purchasing power. It has lost more than ⁠5% on the dollar since Takaichi took ⁠charge of Japan's ruling party and bond yields have soared on concern her government's spending plans demand more borrowing. Last week the yen touched record lows against the euro and Swiss franc before rebounding, and traders think it could rally beyond Friday's closing price of 155.73 per dollar if markets see prospects for U.S.-Japan buying. "Then, efficacy of future actual intervention, if any, will likely be more significant," Nomura analyst ‍Yusuke Miyairi said. Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said earlier in January she and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent shared concerns over what she called the yen's recent "one-sided depreciation". Bessent has also discussed South Korea's won with his counterpart there and wrote on X that its recent slide was not in line with fundamentals, prompting speculation about a "Mar-a-Lago accord" to weaken the dollar against the won and the yen. "It's not ridiculous to believe that following Bessent's comments on KRW ... the U.S. and some Asian ‍partners have agreed to stabilise or strengthen JPY, KRW, TWD (?)," Brent Donnelly, a currency trader and founder of analytics firm Spectra Markets, said in an emailed note. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/currency-market-guard-intervention-japans-yen-2026-01-25/

2026-01-25 16:33

HOUSTON, Jan 25 (Reuters) - A crude tanker chartered by Trafigura departed on Sunday from Venezuela's Jose port to Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), LSEG data and documents showed, the first cargo going directly to the U.S. as part of a 50-million-barrel supply deal agreed this month between Caracas and Washington. This month, trading houses Vitol and Trafigura received the first U.S. licenses to load and export Venezuelan oil as part of the deal. They have since shipped cargoes to storage terminals in the Caribbean, and from there they have been marketing and selling the crude to refiners worldwide. Sign up here. The Liberia-flagged tanker Gloria Maris, carrying some 1 million barrels of Venezuela's Merey heavy crude, is the first sent by the traders directly from Venezuela to a U.S. port since the deal began, according to the documents and data. A smaller tanker, the Barbados-flagged Volans, also departed from Jose on Sunday carrying some 450,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude to the Bullen Bay terminal in Curacao, the LSEG data showed. The traders have shipped between 10 million and 11 million barrels of Venezuelan oil as part of the supply deal so far, according to shipping data. They are getting ready to begin exporting fuel oil as well, according to the sources and documents. Before Venezuela can reverse output cuts it has made during a U.S. blockade of all sanctioned tankers, the country needs to drain most of the over 40 million barrels it accumulated in storage since last month. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/tanker-carrying-venezuelan-heavy-oil-departs-louisiana-shipping-data-shows-2026-01-25/

2026-01-25 16:04

Jan 25 (Reuters) - Delta Air lines (DAL.N) , opens new tab said on Sunday it is operating a reduced flight schedule as winter weather continues to affect several U.S. regions, while closely monitoring conditions in the Northeast and at its Atlanta hub. Due to proactive schedule adjustments, Delta said the current scheduled flying is operating as planned. Sign up here. The winter storm is disrupting U.S. air travel, prompting airlines to cancel flights, warn of delays, and issue travel waivers as ice, snow, and strong winds sweep across major hubs and regional airports in the South, East, and central parts of the U.S. Delta on Saturday made additional flight cancellations for Atlanta and along the U.S. East Coast, including at its hubs in Boston and New York due to winter storm Fern. The National Weather Service warned that a mix of freezing rain, sleet and snow could make travel hazardous and cause power outages and tree damage across the Southeast, with heavier snowfall expected farther north as the storm moves up the country. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/delta-operates-reduced-schedule-amid-ongoing-winter-weather-2026-01-25/

2026-01-25 15:41

MARSEILLE, France, Jan 25 (Reuters) - The captain of an oil tanker intercepted by the French navy has been detained under investigations into whether it was operating under a false flag, the Marseille prosecutor’s office said on Sunday. The vessel named Grinch was seized in the Mediterranean on Thursday, then diverted to anchor off the French port city, on suspicion of being part of the shadow fleet that lets Russia export oil despite sanctions. Sign up here. The 58-year-old captain, an Indian national, was detained as part of the preliminary investigations, the prosecutors said in a statement that did not mention Russia. The vessel left the Russian port of Murmansk in early January, sailing under a Comoros flag, French authorities have said. Other crew members, also Indian nationals, remain on board the ship while investigators verify the validity of the flag and the vessel's navigation documents, the statement added. The EU has imposed 19 packages of sanctions against Russia, but Moscow has adapted to most measures and continues to sell millions of barrels of oil to countries such as India and China, typically at discounted prices. Much of the oil is carried by what is known as a shadow fleet of vessels operating outside of the Western maritime industry. In October, France detained another sanctioned tanker, the Boracay, off its west coast and released it after a few days. https://www.reuters.com/world/india/france-detains-indian-captain-suspected-shadow-fleet-tanker-2026-01-25/