MONEY, POWER AND PROFIT

Energy Intelligence for Investors Who Think Ahead

Monday, May 11, 2026

Dear Reader,

The U.S. Navy escorted two tankers through the Strait of Hormuz this week under fire. Iran shot missiles. Iran sent drones. The Navy stopped them all. The ships got through. WTI crude jumped back above $100 this morning.

OPEC+ voted to add 188,000 barrels a day in June. Saudi Arabia cheered. Then Saudi Arabia looked at the Strait of Hormuz, still shut, and saw it cannot ship a single extra barrel. The vote was theater. The market knew.

A grid watchdog just issued its most urgent warning ever. The reply deadline for U.S. utilities is tonight at midnight. No one is talking about it. We are.

Here is what it means for your money.

THE WIRE

What you need to know before the market opens

• THE BARREL: WTI crossed $100 this morning. Brent hit $105. OPEC+ voted a hike no one can deliver. There is one reason U.S. oil producers are quietly winning this war right now. More below.

• THE GRID: The nation's top grid body issued a Level 3 alert, its highest warning, on data center power demand. Reply deadline: midnight tonight. Sixty data centers in Virginia tripped at once and nearly blacked out the region. More below.

• THE POLICY DESK: Iran is reading a U.S. peace offer. China quietly cut oil imports 25 percent. That one move is the reason Brent is not at $150. There is a sanctions hit most analysts missed. More below.

• THE PLAY: When a strait shuts down, the toll moves onshore. One class of U.S. energy asset earns more the longer the crisis runs, no matter how the Iran talks end. More below.

THE BARREL

Oil, gas, and what the markets are telling you

WTI opened at $99.89 this morning. Up five dollars from Friday. Brent hit $105.57. Both are up over 60 percent since New Year's Day.

OPEC+'s June quota hike of 188,000 barrels a day is a paper number. Saudi Arabia's real output in March was 7.76 million barrels a day. Its quota is 10.29 million. The UAE left OPEC after 60 years last week. The cartel voted anyway.

The Baker Hughes rig count rose one spot last Friday to 548 total U.S. rigs. Gas rigs climbed four in a week, now 22 above last year. U.S. producers are drilling into the price signal. Qatar's LNG output is halted after strikes on its facilities. Golden Pass in Texas shipped its first-ever cargo on April 22. U.S. gas is filling the gap.

Robert's take: U.S. refinery use is at 90 percent. Crude stocks drew down 6 million barrels last week. Demand has not blinked. America is the world's relief valve right now.

THE GRID

Nuclear, power, and the electrons America needs

Every major U.S. utility must sign off on a Level 3 grid alert by midnight tonight. Level 3 is the highest rating the North American Electric Reliability Corp issues. This one is about data centers.

In Virginia, 60 data centers tripped off at once. Grid power spiked. The region almost went dark. One AI campus today can pull 1,000 megawatts, the same as a full nuclear plant. When those loads cut off in seconds, the grid cannot keep up.

The nuclear buildout is moving. TerraPower broke ground April 23 on a 345-megawatt Natrium reactor in Wyoming. That is the first new advanced reactor under build in the U.S. Brookfield Asset Management struck a deal to restart VC Summer in South Carolina, the largest abandoned nuclear site in U.S. history. The NRC rolled out a new fast-track license path that could cut permit time to six months and save the industry up to $11.84 billion.

The takeaway: Texas wholesale power prices could jump 79 percent by 2027 in a high-demand case. Nuclear is not a long bet. It is a now bet.

THE POLICY DESK

Washington, geopolitics, and who pulls the levers

Iran is reading a U.S. peace offer sent through Pakistan. Trump said talks are going well. Iran said it will open new war fronts if the nuclear terms are rejected. Operation Freedom, the Navy escort mission through Hormuz, paused May 6 for talks. Iran seized a tanker on May 8.

The number no one is printing: China cut oil imports 25 percent from pre-war levels. China was pulling 5.4 million barrels a day through Hormuz before the war. That demand cut is the only reason Brent has not hit $150. JPMorgan says it will if flows stay blocked into mid-May.

The U.S. Treasury hit Hengli Petrochemical in Dalian, one of China's biggest private refiners, for buying Iranian crude. Chinese banks were told to stop new loans to five sanctioned refiners. Beijing told those same firms to ignore U.S. rules in public while quietly guarding their dollar access. The FERC chair pledged to act by June on grid hookups for large loads like data centers.

The takeaway: Watch the China sanctions line this week. If Beijing pulls dollar protection from its refiners, Iranian oil dries up and Brent goes to $120.

THE PLAY

Robert's investor angle on today's energy picture

My rich dad asked one question. Not who wins. He asked: who collects the toll no matter who wins.

Right now, the toll collectors are U.S. LNG terminal operators. Golden Pass shipped its first cargo April 22. Cheniere is at record output. The Corpus Christi expansion just got DOE sign-off. Every week Qatar stays dark, U.S. gas flows to Asia and Europe at top prices. These terminals charge by volume. They do not need Hormuz open. They earn more the longer it stays shut.

The same holds for U.S. pipeline firms moving Permian crude to Gulf refineries. And for nuclear plant owners selling baseload power that AI firms will pay any price to lock in. These are B-quadrant assets. They own the pipe and the wire. They set the price. Everyone else pays.

The market is betting on a deal. WTI futures for December 2026 sit at $78.82, well below today's spot near $100. The market thinks Hormuz opens. It may be right. But if the deal breaks, those futures are off by $30 or $40. The toll collectors win either way.

To your power,
Robert Kiyosaki