Today’s Key Takeaways: Oil majors expand while smaller producers retreat. Questions answered about AKLNG. Antimony recovery begins at Mohawk Mine near Ester.
OIL:
American Oil Majors Expand as Smaller Producers Retreat Amid Price Pressures
Alex Kimani, OilPrice.Com, September 14, 2025
- U.S. oil hit a record in June (13.58 mb/d), but momentum is fading.
- Smaller operators are pulling back, and only the majors are still adding barrels.
- The EIA sees output easing from about 13.6 mb/d late-2025 to roughly 13.2 mb/d by end-2026 as low prices slow drilling and completions.
Previously, we reported that U.S. oil production has maintained its upward trajectory in the current year even as oil prices have sunk to multi-year lows. According to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), U.S. crude oil production hit an all-time high of 13.58 million barrels per day (mb/d) in June 2025, exceeding the previous record set in October 2024 by 50 thousand barrels per day (kb/d), and the pre-COVID November 2019 high by 582kb/d. Commodity experts at Standard Chartered have predicted that U.S. production will continue to grow before peaking at 14.34 mb/d in March 2026.
However, the U.S. oil sector is already showing a clear trend of slowing growth, with the year-over-year increase clocking in at just 328kb/d in June. Further, production in Texas, the country’s leading oil production hub, fell 33 kb/d y/y and is now 109 kb/d lower than its October 2024 peak of 5.832 mb/d. That said, this slowdown is not uniform, with small U.S. producers in decline but oil majors and independent producers continuing to grow. According to global energy consultant FGE, overall U.S. oil production increased throughout 1H 2025 despite declines from smaller producers. This trend is pretty much in line with FGE’s earlier prediction that lower crude prices will have the biggest impact on smaller, higher cost producers in the United States.
GAS:
3 questions answered about Alaska LNG
Carlos Anchondo, E & E News, September 15, 2025
The lead developer of a mammoth natural gas pipeline and export terminal long planned for Alaska touted new deals and heightened interest last week, but the project remains far from the finish line.
The Glenfarne Group — the majority owner of the Alaska LNG project — unveiled two new partnerships last week: one with JERA, Japan’s largest power generation company; and another with POSCO International, a South Korean trading and investment company.
Reactions were mixed on what the new agreements mean for Alaska LNG, with observers noting both the project’s public momentum and the fact that the deals are not final. Alaska has been trying to build a gas pipeline for decades — and its no small feat.
“It’s a tall order and it’s an expensive order,” said Brigham McCown, a senior fellow and director of the Initiative on American Energy Security at the Hudson Institute.
McCown said success “really turns” on lining up binding supply and purchase agreements. McCown is the former chief executive of the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., which operates the Trans Alaska Pipeline System that moves crude oil.
The cost of the Alaska LNG project, including the pipeline and the export terminal in southern Alaska, has been put at an estimated $44 billion. But observers say it could actually cost billions of dollars more.
On Wednesday, Glenfarne signed a nonbinding letter of intent with JERA, where the Japanese company said it would buy 1 million metric tons a year from the Alaska project over a 20-year time span. The agreement with POSCO is to “advance a strategic partnership” for Alaska LNG’s development, including initial terms for POSCO to supply steel to the pipeline and also to buy gas from the project.
Though the agreements are preliminary, Glenfarne CEO Brendan Duval touted interest in the project, which he called a “signature North American LNG project” in a news release. The new deals follow earlier agreements with Taiwan’s CPC Corp. and Thai national oil company PTT — agreements announced since Glenfarne took over as the lead developer this year.
GOP Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy “sees momentum behind the Alaska LNG project and is encouraged by the preliminary agreements Alaska LNG has reached with Pacific Rim nations, utilities, and international energy firms,” said Jeff Turner, Dunleavy’s communications director, in a statement Friday.
In Italy last week as the gas industry gathered for a conference, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum attended a Glenfarne signing ceremony with JERA.
The Alaska LNG project is “one of the greatest energy infrastructure projects in our nation’s history” and one that can provide “enormous energy security to the United States and our allies,” Wright said in the announcement about JERA.
Here are three questions answered about the Alaska LNG project:
MINING:
After VIP tour, mining company starts efforts to recover antimony from site near Fairbanks
Patrick Gilchrist, KUAC, September 15, 2025
A Dallas-based mining company says it started its first work to recover antimony from previously mined land in Alaska on Monday.
The new activity is taking place at the Mohawk Mine, which is in the Ester Dome area near Fairbanks. It’s currently a small operation, but part of the U.S. Antimony Corporation’s broader campaign, through subsidiary Great Land Minerals, to mine the critical mineral in Alaska and transport ore to the Lower 48.
The company says its projects will reduce domestic reliance on foreign adversaries for materials, like antimony, which are essential to national defense and energy technologies.
The United States didn’t produce any antimony domestically in 2024, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Last year, the U.S. imported more than 60% of its antimony from China, which banned export of it and other minerals to the U.S. in December.
Though conducting exploration for potential underground mining in Alaska in the future, U.S. Antimony says it’s prioritizing a strategy to recover the mineral from discarded rock waste at historic mining sites.
Antimony reclamation operations started at the Mohawk property after an “exclusive VIP site visit” on Monday, the company says. Industry leaders, local and state elected officials and their staff, as well as staff for Alaska’s congressional delegation were among those invited. U.S. Antimony planned for about two dozen to make it to the tour.
KUAC did not confirm how many of them attended, but Rep. Ashley Carrick, a West Fairbanks Democrat, was there, she said. Carrick represents House District 35, which includes the Ester area.
Carrick said they visited multiple parcels around Ester Dome that the company has acquired. She opposes U.S. Antimony’s projects, and said the tour only compounded her worries. That’s in part because the claims have grown to include patented land, or land where owners possess both surface and mineral rights.
“Especially after having seen the long-term, future plans and size of this project, I’m even more concerned about it than I was previously,” she said.
In total, U.S. Antimony says it has about 240 mining claims covering around 25,000 acres near Fairbanks, Tok and the Maclaren River. The Mohawk property is located a little less than a mile north of the junction of St. Patrick and Henderson roads in Ester.
U.S. Antimony says it acquired the site at the end of June. It’s patented land.
“Therefore, permitting is much simpler and expeditious,” the company wrote in July.
East Fairbanks Republican Rep. Will Stapp also went to U.S. Antimony’s exclusive tour, he said. Stapp said he thinks the company’s plans to invest in the area are promising.
“I was definitely optimistic,” he said. “I think economic growth is generally a good thing, and I think responsible resource development is also a good thing, and we just want to make sure that the operations out there are as safe and as least disruptive for the residents as possible.”
The company says its plans would include trucking raw ore from its Alaska claims to a smelter in Montana more than 2,000 miles away at a rate of 20 loads per month.
But for now, Mohawk is the first site where mining activity is getting underway. Carrick said U.S. Antimony officials told the group that crews were going to begin reclaiming antimony from old deposits right after the visit ended Monday.
That was another part of her concern. Carrick, who lives in the vicinity of the mine, said the company has yet to engage with the community through any public meetings.
“So, the project is already happening, and the plans for expansion are already developed,” she said. “I hope, because they did suggest they have a commitment to hearing from the public, I hope that that actually happens. And I hope that the community is listened to.”
In response to an interview request, company CEO Gary Evans said in an emailed statement that they hosted the officials this week to “foster open dialogue and highlight how the project can contribute to the Interior’s economy while reinforcing Alaska’s role in critical mineral security.
“By working within already mined terrain, we can minimize new disturbance and ensure the project reflects the priorities of Alaska communities,” he said in the statement.
In a letter Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) received in August, the Dallas-based company indicated that it’s targeting antimony in up to 5,000 cubic yards of waste piles generated by mining at the Mohawk Mine in the 1930s.
“No new ground will be broken outside the waste pile footprint and existing mined areas,” the letter reads.
DNR gave the go ahead on Sept. 5, saying in a response that the operations at Mohawk are small enough in scope to meet permitting exemptions in state law.
DNR Director of Communications Lorraine Henry said by email that “[b]ecause the proposed activities meet the small operation exemption and are on private land … only a regulatory filing is needed.”