Greetings from the IMAGE ‘26 conference in Houston. I was told that there are more than 7,000 energy professionals and geoscience community members from around the world attending!
It is so fun to see old friends and meet new ones during this annual gathering. The first AAPG annual conference I attended was in 1985 in New Orleans, when I was a young graduate student at Fred Ziegler’s Paleogeographic Atlas Project at the University of Chicago. How time flies!
AAPG is at booth #2022, and it has launched a line of new branded merchandise. We hope you will visit and show your AAPG pride! If you are not at the show, but would like to browse AAPG-branded products, you can see options here.
Now, let’s zoom out and discuss two pieces of energy news from this week.
Shangyou Nie
Editor, Well Read
BP Signs Venezuelan Deal for Offshore Gas Acreage
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BP and partners were awarded an offshore gas block (Phase 2 of the Loran field) in the Plataforma Deltana area in Venezuela, after signing several government agreements to advance offshore gas development.
This is the second agreement of its kind for Venezuela: Shell signed a similar deal in June.
About the agreements:
According to BP, the agreements were signed in Caracas on 13 August when BP CEO Meg O’Neill was visiting Venezuela.
Loran Phase 2 is estimated to contain 4 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas resources.
Loran Phase 2 will be delivered in parallel with Phase 1, which Shell signed in June, as we previously reported in Well Read.
BP will be the operator and own 33.3 percent of the equity alongside two equal equity partners, XRG—ADNOC’s international energy investment arm—and Qatar-based UCC Holding.
According to the Financial Times, UCC is a private company owned by Qatari Syrian businessmen and brothers Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat.
The license award follows an MoU signed between BP and the Venezuelan government in April 2026, which set the framework for collaboration for exploration and development in the Plataforma Deltana area.
BP and the Venezuelan government signed another MoU for the Carúpano East Block in the Caracolito sub-basin of the Mariscal Sucre maritime area.
Background:
There is currently no LNG export facility in Venezuela.
Gas produced from Loran Phases 1 and 2 will be fed into the Atlantic LNG in Trinidad and Tobago, a facility jointly owned by BP and Shell.
Accelerating gas development was emphasized as a priority for the Venezuelan government and PDVSA during a presentation given at AAPG’s 2026 Venezuelan Technical Symposium and E&P Summit in Houston in May.
New oil contracts, on the other hand, have been slow to be realized.
According to UCC, the holding group also signed an Exploration and Production Sharing Agreement (EPSA) for Area 47 in Libya in July, through its subsidiary Urbacon Energy Libya.
What they are saying:
“We have finally managed to provide the necessary impetus for gas production in this extraordinary field,” said Delcy Rodríguez, acting president of Venezuela.
“BP has a long-standing presence in the region and deep experience developing major gas resources. Together, these agreements provide a strong foundation to progress Venezuela’s offshore gas potential and unlock the next phase of development,” said O’Neil.
“Our entry through Loran reflects XRG’s strategy to invest with partners in advantaged resources with access to established infrastructure and clear routes to market,” said Mohamed Al Aryani, President, International Gas, XRG.
What to watch:
When will the Venezuelan government successfully attract new investors for oil projects in the country?
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Elon Musk Says Gas Will Power His AI and Data Center Projects
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According to the Wall Street Journal, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is turning to U.S. natural gas as the main power source for new technology plants in Texas, Tennessee, and Mississippi.
Musk plans to build around 10 gigawatts of capacity, expandable to 15 gigawatts. That would make SpaceX the biggest data center operator in the United States, surpassing Amazon’s 13 gigawatts.
The latest:
Last week, SpaceX announced plans to build a power plant in Grimes County, Texas, using natural gas, according to the Wall Street Journal.
SpaceX is building a $16.8 billion, 100 million-square-foot chip manufacturing facility, called Terafab, in the same location.
Grimes County is located about 70 miles northwest of Houston.
SpaceX is headquartered at Starbase, Texas, near Brownsville. It relocated from California in July 2024.
Background:
Musk built much of his fortune on technologies that would replace fossil fuels, electric cars, solar cells, and batteries.
Musk was quoted about a decade ago as saying that relying on fossil fuels is “the dumbest experiment in history,” as fossil fuels would run out eventually.
Tesla was viewed as one of the leaders in accelerating the energy transition globally.
The emergence of AI and data centers has changed Musk’s view about using fossil fuels in the near-term.
In June, Musk announced that his startup xAI will build a supercomputer center in Memphis, Tennessee
Six months prior, Musk had announced that xAI would invest $20 billion to build a data center in DeSoto County, Mississippi.
Both facilities will use natural gas as their basic power supply.
In the meantime, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced on 3 August that the state will halt data center connections to the power grid.
Abbott ordered an audit by the Public Utility Commission of Texas on all data centers that might connect to ERCOT’s interconnection, to determine whether data centers are providing their own power or depending on the grid, in addition to water use.
“Any project that fails to comply with the requirements set forth by the PUCT and ERCOT, and by state law, must be denied connection to the Texas grid,” said Abbott.
What they are saying: “We’re bringing our own power,” and “We are going to be building very large battery arrays in order to store energy,” said Riley Trettel, a lead for the Terafab project.
What to watch:
Musk still has plans to build data centers in space, using solar power, vs “terrestrial data centers,” as he calls them.
However, “I do think that AI training will continue to be on the ground, but AI inference, the day-to-day use of AI, will be in space,” said Musk on 11 August.
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