Oil markets got more interesting on several fronts since our last edition — from India to Iran to U.S. production — so let's unpack what's up.

Catch up quick: India has "committed" to stop importing Russian oil, President Trump wrote in an executive order Friday lowering tariffs on the country.

• It puts in black and white a claim that White House officials have recently made.

Why it matters: Big if true!

• India became a major market for discounted Russian barrels after Europe and others shunned Kremlin oil over the invasion of Ukraine.
• Those revenues help keep the grinding campaign going.

Yes, but: Russian oil exports to India — its second-largest crude market behind China — have indeed been falling amid U.S. pressure.

• They were down 29% month-over-month in December, per the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, and slipped again to 1.2 million barrels per day last month, per analytics firm Kpler data via Reuters.
• It's well below the roughly 2 million barrels per day in mid-2025.

Reality check: Analysts are dubious about Trump's claim of India fully phasing out Russian oil, despite reductions as the nations negotiate a trade deal.

• "What we are seeing instead is tactical adjustment," Tatiana Mitrova, a fellow at Columbia's Center on Global Energy Policy.
• "Volumes are reduced at the margin, discounts are increased, and refiners diversify some purchases toward non-sanctioned crudes," she said via email.
• This allows India to "signal responsiveness to US pressure without abandoning cost-competitive supply."

The intrigue: One reason for skepticism is that the joint India-U.S. statement on a "framework" for a trade deal doesn't mention Russian oil.

• "For economic, diplomatic, and strategic reasons, India is highly unlikely to stop buying cheap oil from Russia, one of its closest partners," Atlantic Council senior fellow Michael Kugelman wrote in a post last week.
• His view hasn't changed since Trump's exec order claim late Friday, he tells Axios.

What we're watching: How much the squeeze on Russian oil might change talks over a settlement in Ukraine.

• EU leaders on Friday proposed a "full maritime services ban for Russian crude oil," saying it would "slash further Russia's energy revenues and make it more difficult to find buyers for its oil."

And three other things on our petro-radar...

🇮🇷 Trump threatened new tariffs on countries doing business with Iran, and the U.S. expanded oil sanctions on Iran on Friday, targeting 14 more "shadow fleet" tankers and companies trading in Iranian oil products.

• Why it matters: The pressure comes amid U.S.-Iran talks over Iran's nuclear program and Trump administration threats of a military strike.

🇺🇸 U.S. crude oil production dipped to 13.78 million barrels per day in November from 13.86 mbd the month before, per new U.S. Energy Information Administration data.

• What we're watching: Is it time for the Michael Cera "it's happening, isn't it" meme? It's "still too early to declare shale in retreat, but this is pretty aligned with what we would have expected coming out of sharp April 2025 price rout," oil analyst Rory Johnston posted.
• The big picture: EIA's latest outlook sees U.S. production basically flat this year on an annual basis, and declining slightly in 2027.

🇻🇪 Energy Secretary Chris Wright will visit Venezuela "before too long," he told reporters Friday.

• Why it matters: Trump officials are keen to spur investment there by U.S. companies, but the appetite is uncertain.
• State of play: "I will meet with all the leadership in the country there and get a better understanding of the on-the-ground oil and gas production operations," Wright said at a press briefing.

Chris Wright was only supposed to talk about electricity use during the recent winter storm at a Friday news conference — but he served up some tart opinions on blue-state energy issues, too.

Why it matters: The energy secretary has proven that — like his boss — he can deliver a blunt sound bite.

Driving the news: Wright lit up energy social media with his comment on New York City laws that prevent gas stoves in new buildings: "This is bats--- crazy."

• On another New York issue, Wright dinged Gov. Kathy Hochul for clashing with the Williams Companies and Trump administration over reviving the Constitution natural gas pipeline.
• "It's politics that's standing in the way of the Constitution pipeline, and I believe we will win that political battle," he said.

Friction point: He took a swipe at new Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger's decision to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

• Wright dismissed RGGI as "effectively a carbon tax to make it more expensive to generate electricity from non-wind-and-solar assets."
• "Where did Virginia get over 90% of its electricity during the storm?" he asked. "Not from wind, not from solar."

The other side: Spanberger's office didn't respond to requests for comment. But Ivy Main, a Virginia Sierra Club official, noted that wind and solar provide only a relatively small share of the Old Dominion's electricity.

• "We certainly saw in Texas that it was wind and solar that kept the grid powered," Main told Axios. "You need a market force [for more renewables], and that's what RGGI does. It's nonsense."

What we're watching: How much more blunt Wright becomes in the future.

Pete Buttigieg is widely admired as a first-class communicator. But many Democrats think he's lacking as an administrator — and are pointing to his time as President Biden's transportation secretary.

Why it matters: Several of Buttigieg's potential rivals for the 2028 Democratic nomination for president are quietly beginning to pick at his work in Biden's Cabinet as a vulnerability, rather than an asset.

• They argue that Buttigieg was at times unable to navigate the federal bureaucracy to get hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of infrastructure projects built or launched quickly enough, and that such failures contributed to Donald Trump returning to the White House.

By the numbers: In December 2021, Buttigieg cautioned that some projects in the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill Congress passed that year would take many years to complete.

• But he boasted that EV charging stations would be "sprouting up very quickly around the country," with a goal of 500,000 stations by 2030 aided by a $7.5 billion plan.
• Two years later in December 2023, zero chargers had been built with the infrastructure law funding. By March 2024, only seven charging stations funded under the new law were operational and just 25 were open by November 2024.

Full story

Ben Geman contributed.

America's EV charging infrastructure got a lot better in 2025, with more fast-chargers, improved reliability and increased standardization.

Why it matters: The record surge in public charging came despite a slowdown in EV adoption as federal tax credits dried up.

Driving the news: Public charging improved in multiple ways last year, per the firm Paren's new "US EV Fast Charging" report.

• The number of high-speed chargers increased 30%, but so did network usage — demonstrating there's ample demand.
• Charging speeds increased, with more stations offering power levels as high as 400 kW.

State of play: Reliability also improved and pricing stabilized, as maturing networks updated their equipment and figured out their business models.

Full story

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TotalEnergies this morning unveiled new power purchase deals to supply 1 gigawatt of solar capacity to Google data centers in Texas.

• It follows separate deals between renewables-focused Clearway Energy — which is 50% owned by TotalEnergies — and Google that span several markets. Go deeper.