US-Iran Peace Talks Collapse Again, Keeping the Strait of Hormuz in Limbo
The second round of US-Iran negotiations fell apart over the weekend after President Trump cancelled his envoys’ planned trip to Islamabad, citing “infighting and confusion” within Tehran’s leadership. Iran quickly floated a new proposal — reopen the strait in exchange for the US lifting its port blockade, with nuclear talks deferred — but the White House held firm on its red lines, and both sides continue to restrict shipping through the key waterway. The strait has been effectively closed since late February, when the US and Israel launched military operations against Iran; it accounts for roughly 20% of global LNG trade, and the disruption has pushed European TTF benchmark prices to approximately €43–45/MWh, running about a third above pre-war levels. Goldman Sachs raised its Brent forecast to $90/barrel by late 2026 on expectations that normalization will come slower than markets hoped. Meanwhile, US Henry Hub prices have been falling as domestic supply builds with nowhere to go — a sharp transatlantic spread that tells you almost everything about where the pain is actually landing.
Trump Administration Buys Out Two More Offshore Wind Leases for Nearly $1 Billion in Taxpayer Money
The Department of Interior announced Monday that Bluepoint Wind — planned for waters off New York — and Golden State Wind, off California, have each agreed to cancel their federal offshore wind leases. In exchange, the government will reimburse the projects a combined approximately $885 million, contingent on equal reinvestment in oil, gas, or coal projects aligned with administration priorities. Both projects were co-owned by Ocean Winds, a joint venture of EDP Renewables and Engie, and had a combined potential capacity of 4.4 GW. This is the third such arrangement in two months: TotalEnergies walked away from two projects for roughly $1 billion in March after courts repeatedly blocked the administration’s attempts to halt offshore wind through executive action. Total taxpayer exposure across all three deals is now approaching $2 billion, which has prompted a formal congressional investigation from House Democrats on the Natural Resources and Judiciary committees. The legal mechanism — the Treasury’s Judgment Fund — is drawing growing scrutiny, though no court challenge has been filed yet.
New York’s Grid Is Walking Into Summer on a Very Short Rope
New York’s grid operator released its annual Summer Reliability Assessment last week, and the numbers are genuinely uncomfortable. The projected baseline capacity margin heading into summer 2026 is just 417 MW — the lowest in recent history and an approximately 78% drop from the 1.9 GW buffer the state held as recently as 2022. The culprit is structural: thermal retirements mandated under state clean energy policy, with essentially no new dispatchable generation stepping in to fill the gap. If a three-day heat wave with average daily temperatures of 95 degrees parks over the state, NYISO projects a capacity shortfall of -1,679 MW; at 98 degrees, that deficit grows to -3,370 MW. The grid operator says it can deploy up to 3,166 MW of emergency actions — demand response, imports from neighboring systems, voluntary curtailment — but that’s a thin margin in a state that saw six days at or above 95 degrees last summer. Governor Hochul is reportedly reconsidering the state’s landmark 2019 climate legislation, though whether that produces anything actionable before August is another question.
FERC Misses DOE’s April 30 Deadline on Large-Load Interconnection, Targets June Instead
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will not be meeting the April 30 deadline the Department of Energy set last October for a final rule standardizing how large loads — primarily AI data centers and industrial facilities over 20 MW — interconnect to the bulk transmission system. FERC has signaled it will act by the end of June, roughly 60 days late. The delay isn’t a surprise: the rulemaking sits at the center of a contested jurisdictional question about whether FERC can assert authority over load interconnections at all, a function historically managed at the state level under retail tariffs. State regulators through NARUC, grid operators including PJM and MISO, consumer advocates, and industrial customers have all filed comments raising concerns ranging from cost allocation to sovereignty. FERC has framed the extra time as necessary to produce something legally durable rather than something that immediately disappears in court, which is a reasonable position given the stakes for every data center project currently queued up in the country.
Georgia Power Goes Back to the PSC: Up to 6,000 MW More Dispatchable Capacity on the Table
Georgia Power filed with the Georgia Public Service Commission on April 23 seeking approval to issue a 2032–2033 all-source RFP for between 2,000 and 6,000 MW of new dispatchable capacity, covering thermal generation, battery storage, and battery-plus-renewables hybrids. The filing follows a December 2025 PSC approval of approximately 9,900 MW of combined-cycle gas turbines, battery storage, and solar-plus-storage, and it’s being driven by a pipeline that keeps growing: 32 large-load customers are now committed to roughly 15,600 MW of contracted electric service, with 21 projects actively under construction. If the PSC approves the RFP framework, bids would be accepted in Q2 2026 and selected projects submitted for certification by mid-2027. Georgia is doing something methodical here — layering procurement tranches in sequence while enforcing real financial screens on its large-load pipeline. For utilities navigating the same data center land rush across the Southeast, this is the playbook worth watching.
House Republicans Introduce a Bill to Revive the Renewable Tax Credits They Voted to Kill
Four House Republicans — led by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania — introduced the American Energy Dominance Act on April 24, which would roll back the accelerated phase-out deadlines the One Big Beautiful Bill Act imposed on the 45Y clean electricity production tax credit and 48E investment tax credit. Under current law, wind and solar developers face a July 2026 construction-start deadline to qualify for full credits, with steep step-downs after that — a timeline that has already killed a significant volume of projects. Fitzpatrick’s bill would replace those hard deadlines with a phase-out tied to actual power-sector emissions reductions, and also restores the 45V hydrogen production credit construction timeline and the 179D commercial building efficiency deduction. The bill was developed in partnership with the North America’s Building Trades Unions and received immediate support from SEIA. Passage odds are long in the current Congress, but the fact that Ways and Means committee Republicans are introducing legislation to undo their own budget reconciliation bill sends a signal — the abrupt withdrawal of investment certainty is producing consequences that are hard to paper over, even for members who voted yes.
Sempra’s Energía Costa Azul Takes First Feed Gas at Mexico’s Pacific LNG Terminal
A meaningful operational milestone cleared on April 28: the first volumes of natural gas entered Sempra Infrastructure’s Energía Costa Azul LNG facility in Baja California, putting Mexico’s first large-scale LNG export project on a live commissioning footing. Phase 1 has a nameplate capacity of 3.25 million metric tons per year and will draw feed gas primarily from the Permian Basin via the El Paso Southern Mainline and North Baja pipeline system, adding up to roughly 0.44 Bcf/d of incremental demand from West Texas and New Mexico when fully ramped. Commercial operations under 20-year SPAs — TotalEnergies taking approximately 1.7 mtpa and Mitsui 0.8 mtpa — are targeted for summer 2026. The timing matters beyond the construction milestone: with Qatari LNG effectively stranded by the Hormuz closure, Pacific Basin buyers are scrambling for every alternative supply source they can source, and a new Pacific Coast export terminal could not be coming online at a more commercially advantageous moment.
Henry Hub Hits 11-Week Low as Spring Builds Pile Up and Producers Cut Back
US natural gas futures fell to $2.52/MMBtu by late last week — the lowest level since October 2024 — as mild spring temperatures and a strong injection season have pushed domestic storage roughly 8% above seasonal norms. The EIA reported a 103 Bcf injection for the week ended April 17, well above last year’s 77 Bcf and the five-year average of 64 Bcf. Producers are responding: EQT and others have trimmed output over the past 18 days, pulling domestic production to an 11-week low of approximately 108 Bcf/d. The notable counterweight is LNG export demand — feedgas flows to US liquefaction terminals averaged approximately 18.9 Bcf/d in April, near record levels, as the Hormuz disruption sustains elevated international prices and pulls US cargoes toward both Atlantic and Pacific Basin buyers. The dynamic playing out is worth watching: a domestic market in structural surplus whose floor is increasingly being set by export infrastructure utilization rather than weather. When ECA LNG Phase 1 ramps to full capacity this summer, West Texas basis will feel it.