Colombia’s De la Espriella faces first major protests after two months in office

The protesters' demands ranged from labour rights and public education to teachers’ health conditions and the rights of Indigenous communities. / xinhuaFacebook

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By Cynthia Michelle Aranguren Hernández in Bogota October 14, 2026

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Bogotá on October 14 in a nationwide day of protest against the government of President Abelardo de la Espriella, two months after he took office on August 7. Trade unions, teachers, Indigenous organisations, political movements and social collectives joined the marches to challenge the government’s economic, labour and security policies.

Supporters of former leftist president Gustavo Petro were among those who gathered in the Plaza de Bolívar. Petro himself took part in the Bogotá march alongside opposition senator Iván Cepeda, El Espectador reported. Protests were also scheduled in Medellín and other major cities.

The demands ranged from labour rights and public education to teachers’ health conditions and the rights of Indigenous communities. Fabio Arias, president of the CUT trade union confederation, said the marches had been called to reject the government’s measures on labour rights, pension reform and the minimum wage, as well as changes to police protocols for demonstrations, according to La FM.

Those changes lie at the heart of a dispute over civil liberties. On October 13, the eve of the protests, De la Espriella signed Decree 1525, modifying a 2021 protocol on police action during demonstrations. The text establishes prioritising dialogue and mediation as a general rule, but states that this does not delay police action against individuals who commit physical violence. The president said on X that peaceful protest is respected but that violence, vandalism and blockades are not tolerated. Cepeda said the decree had been issued “to repress social protest.”

De la Espriella followed the protests from the Casa de Nariño. He thanked the National Union of Judicial Workers and Prosecutors for rejecting the marches, saying Colombia “cannot keep being held hostage by those who seek to paralyse it”, according to Semana.

The marches also severely disrupted Bogotá’s transport network. By around midday, TransMilenio said 200,538 passengers had been affected by operational changes, and that its tally would continue to be updated. Eight stations along Carrera 10 faced temporary closures and return manoeuvres. One march set out from Fontibón, in western Bogotá, at 6am bound for the Plaza de Bolívar. Heavy rain and hail fell on the square during the march.

Foreign policy, where the right-wing leader has broken sharply with his predecessor, has deepened the political divide. On September 8 in Barranquilla, De la Espriella and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a roadmap built around rebuilding the country, recovering the economy and shielding the hemisphere, cementing a closer alignment with Washington. Two memorandums of understanding, on civil nuclear energy and critical minerals, were also signed.

Colombia also reinstated its free-trade agreement with Israel on October 13, reversing Petro’s decision to terminate it, and on October 14 reopened its embassy in Jerusalem, becoming the tenth country to do so. The moves unwind the diplomatic break Petro ordered in May 2024 over Israel’s controversial military campaign in Gaza.

Energy policy is another fault line. State oil company Ecopetrol went four years without signing new exploration contracts under Petro, whereas De la Espriella’s government is seeking to reactivate exploration and even to consider fracking, angering environmentalists across the country.

The protests also come as the government tries to contain a widening deficit. The Finance Ministry aims to cut next year’s shortfall to 7.2% of GDP, from a projected 9.4%, through a spending-cut bill, while the government has recently opened talks with the IMF that could lead to a programme mandating lower investment and less aid for the poorest.

Trump gets richer while gas prices soar

Troy Farah
Sat, October 10, 2026 

SALON



Donald Trump dances after speaking during an election rally at the Oncenter on October 09, 2026 in Syracuse, New York. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images


In mid-September, Chinese scientists announced a breakthrough in extracting hydrogen and fresh water from the ocean with about 15% better energy efficiency than older techniques. Their research, published in Nature Energy on Sept. 15, underscores that China continues to dominate in the renewable energy race, generating so much that the country can't even use it all. As Reuters reported in August, "China turned away enough clean energy to power Mexico ​for a year in the six months through June as its grids hit their limits." At the Fortune Leaders Forum in Macau on Sept. 8, Youyuan Huang, executive vice chairman of BTR New Material Group, the world's top maker of battery anode materials, said "China's grid is a very strong and stable one . . . but we've installed too much green energy."

Boy, the U.S. could sure use some of that excess juice. Currently, this country is embroiled in a self-inflicted energy crisis, largely a result of President Donald Trump's war against Iran, that is sending deep ripple effects across the globe as oil prices spike. In the U.S. alone, diesel prices have risen around 70% since before the war began on Feb. 28, hitting a record $6.52 on Sept. 22, and in the last two months, at least 16 trucking companies, both large and small, have been bankrupted. The world's richest nations are trying to staunch the bleeding, recently vowing to release up to 100 million barrels of diesel and crude oil within four months. But on Monday, Amin Nasser, CEO of Aramco, the world's largest oil company, cautioned that this is little more than a Band-Aid and that long-term supply issues remain. Until the Strait of Hormuz "fully reopens and confidence returns, the crude reality is that pressure at both ends of the barrel will intensify," Nasser said at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London.

Some "crude reality" would be another nice-to-have for those helming U.S. policy. The rising fury against the war and high energy prices threatens to clobber Republicans in the midterm elections. So the Trump administration is frantically trying to drive down diesel prices, first by floating the idea of banning exports. This tactic, criticized as "unwise" by some oil executives, has been abandoned for now, but at a Monday rally in Nebraska — where Trump also seemed to promote the idea of Iran attacking two California cities — he signed an executive order promoting the use of red-dyed diesel. Normally reserved for agriculture operations, red diesel is exempt from highway fuel taxes, but experts caution that expanding its use probably won't help much because major fuel suppliers are unlikely to go along with it. For one, the taxes are only deferred, meaning companies could end up paying them later. But red dye, when used, can also gum up tanks and fuel systems. "We do not expect most reputable diesel retailers and fuel marketers to do this," the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America and the National Association of Truck Stop Owners said in a note to their members, citing "limited upside."

On Friday, Trump announced his latest bid to reduce prices: buying oil from Russia. Shortly afterward, the Treasury Department issued a temporary license allowing Russian diesel to be supplied to the global market. Though details were scarce, this undermines the president's own sweeping Russia sanctions law he signed last month. Regardless, it doesn't look like it will do much to lower prices. "It's kind of shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic," Michael Lynch of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, told the Associated Press. "If we get diesel from Russia, basically it means that their existing customers are not going to get it and they'll have to go somewhere else, and that will keep the price basically where it is now."

With diminishing options — besides the obvious one of ending the Iran war immediately, which Trump can do whenever he wishes — the administration's primary strategy is to blame everyone else. On Monday, he repeated claims on social media that Ukraine is most at fault for high oil prices thanks to their continued attacks on Russian oil refineries, and that "What's driving up gasoline is no longer the Strait of Hormuz." The president also said the closure of oil refineries in "blue states" is part of the problem.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright has also spread these claims, appearing Oct. 4 on "Face the Nation" to blame Ukraine and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the latter for closing two refineries. (In fact, Newsom had nothing to do with the refinery closures.) Wright insisted that fuel prices will drop soon, as Trump has been claiming for months now. He also said that Trump was warned before attacking Iran that it might create an energy crisis — "he was well aware of the risk to energy flows that were coming out of the Persian Gulf region" — but the president insisted it would all be worth it to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

Wright has been especially busy lately trying to instill a sense of optimism around the energy sector, dismissing climate change as a non-issue while laundering Trump's vision of "energy dominance." All of this is remarkably myopic. Half of it is an artificial war against renewable energy projects, including the cancellation of almost $8 billion in Biden-era clean energy grants, and using specious claims about "national security" to cancel offshore wind projects. The other half is accelerating oil, gas and coal extraction while slashing protections for endangered species threatened by drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. But here's the rub: Neither approach has made fuel cheaper, and it doesn't seem that will change any time soon.

There's little wonder why: Wright founded Liberty Energy in 2011, one of the fossil fuel giants that led that decade's fracking boom, and he has attacked renewable energy projects almost as enthusiastically as Trump, saying they can never fully meet increasing energy demands. China and other countries have conclusively proved that false, but it's not an either-or situation. Despite being the world's No. 1 renewable energy producer, China is also rapidly expanding its coal industry. "The growth of renewable electricity is not incompatible with maintaining, and sometimes developing, fossil-fuel capacity," science and technology historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz explains in his 2025 book "More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy."

In other words, human energy consumption is rising so fast that we're continuing to grow all energy sectors rather than entirely replacing fossil fuels with renewables. (That's not great news for the climate, of course.) But only the U.S. is leaning quite so hard into 19th-century fossil fuels instead of 21st-century solutions.

Why would the Trump administration push so hard for retrograde technology? Perhaps it's time to admit that the president actually has no interest in driving down consumer prices or the cost of living, let alone ending the war, whether it hurts his party's electoral chances or not. Trump is deeply invested in oil and gas companies, which have enjoyed obscene profits throughout the conflict. As Reuters reported in late September, "The ​five largest Western oil companies — BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies — are expected to report combined third-quarter profits of around $53 billion, according to RBC Capital Markets estimates, up from $48 billion ‌in the second quarter and more than double year-earlier levels."

Trump has caught plenty of these profits, with an August report from the Joint Economic Committee finding that the president "owned as much as $45.6 million in oil and gas company stocks in 2025, a portfolio that is now worth as much as $61.1 million given the surge in oil and gas stocks driven by Trump's war in Iran."

No wonder Trump continues to hint that the Iran war will heat up again after the midterms: He has a vested interest in keeping it going and inflating gas prices, so maybe it makes sense to call his bluff here. After all, truckers may be dropping more than $1,000 every time they fill up, or losing their jobs entirely, but the ultra-rich aren't feeling much stress from all this. They are well positioned to buy up bankrupt trucking companies and jack up prices, further consolidating their monopolistic or oligarchic power. It's the classic "shock doctrine," in which corporations exploit disaster conditions, created intentionally or not.

It would be more sensible to follow China's lead on renewable energy, just as it would probably be smart to retreat on Iran rather than get entrenched in another forever war. But that just wouldn't generate such spectacular windfall profits for Trump or those in his orbit. The solution is to nail these people to the consequences of their decision. They don't want to end this crisis, so we must make them.

FRACKING BY ANY OTHER NAME

Quaise Energy makes news at US geothermal conference with announcement of up to $25 million US funding, talk on company’s progress to date, and awards to two employees

Company aims to harness underground source of zero-carbon power for the world

Science Communications

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Trenton Cladouhos, Vice President of Geothermal Resource Development at Quaise Energy, presented a paper at the 2026 Geothermal Rising Conference on the company’s work to date toward developing the world’s first superhot geothermal power plant. Cladouhos was honored at the conference with its Geothermal Pioneer Award.

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Credit: Quaise Energy

HOUSTON, Texas—All eyes were on Quaise Energy at the 2026 Geothermal Rising Conference, the flagship conference for the geothermal industry, in late September. The news related to Quaise included:

• an announcement from the U.S. Department of Energy that Quaise is among five entities selected for an award of up to $25 million to support the company’s work on what it believes will be the world’s first commercial superhot geothermal power plant,
• a presentation on the company’s significant progress to date in Oregon, and
• awards to two Quaise employees: the Geothermal Pioneer Award and the Young Professional (Technical) Award.

Only a month earlier the company announced a close of $180 million in Series B financing led by Nabors Industries and Prelude Ventures, with participation from JERA Co., Inc. and Idemitsu Kosan.

Toward the Superhot

According to a 2025 report from the Clean Air Task Force, “If successfully developed, [superhot rock, or] SHR could supply 63 terawatts of firm, carbon-free power by tapping just 1% of the world’s SHR resources – more than eight times current global electricity generation.”

Today, however, rock at those superhot temperatures can be accessed at only a few locations around the globe, such as Iceland, where it is relatively close to the surface. There are power plants under development at those locations, but none are online yet.

The mother lode of geothermal energy is some four to 12 miles beneath the surface. That can’t be accessed today because we can’t drill down far enough. Drills used by the oil and gas industries can’t withstand the formidable temperatures and pressures found that far down. As a result, drilling becomes exponentially more expensive with depth.

Quaise aims to solve the problem with a completely new way to drill using millimeter wave energy (cousins to the microwaves we cook with) that can literally melt and vaporize rock.

Project Obsidian

Project Obsidian, currently under construction in Oregon, aims to be the world’s first  commercial superhot geothermal power plant.

The work is moving quickly. “Beginning in early 2025 we leased the land involved, filed the necessary permits, began surface construction of the site, and assembled our team. This July we began drilling our first confirmation well,” says Dr. Trenton Cladouhos, Vice President of Geothermal Resource Development at Quaise. Cladouhos presented a paper on Project Obsidian at the 2026 Geothermal Rising Conference (GRC 2026) held September 20-23 in Houston.

That first well will be drilled to a depth of about 15,000 feet—almost three miles—reaching rock as hot as 750 degrees F (about 400 degrees Celsius). It will be used to confirm key variables such as bottom-hole temperature and the geomechanical and physical properties of the superhot rock.  It will also be fitted with sensors to monitor the surrounding conditions, and test a never-before-integrated set of high-temperature technologies key to harnessing the superhot power.

Cladouhos notes that Quaise is also funding concurrent work at Oregon State University (OSU) to recreate in the lab the conditions found miles underground. The goal of the Experimental Deep Geothermal Energy (EDGE) lab, established last year, is to learn ever more about the interaction between superhot rock and the water injected to extract its heat. Data from controlled studies in the lab complement those from the field.

Recently, says Cladouhos, the EDGE lab ran successful flow tests of water through rock at superhot temperatures and pressures. The lab’s equipment can operate at up to 932°F (500°C) and 500 atmospheres (500 times surface pressure). The OSU work is led by Dr. Brian Tattitch, Assistant Professor and Barrow Family Chair in Mineral Resource Geology.

Reducing Risk

The confirmation well is the first of seven wells to be drilled in Phase One of Project Obsidian, which is expected to generate  more than 50 megawatts of electric power to the grid by 2030.

The other six wells will make up two separate geothermal systems (three wells each). One will target rock at temperatures reaching as high as 689 degrees F (365 degrees C) with an average temperature of 315 degrees C. The other will target rock at temperatures as high as 779 degrees F (415 degrees C) with an average temperature of 365 degrees C.

The one targeting an average of 315 degrees C is on the cusp of what is achievable today, so it’s lower technical risk. “We’ll learn a lot from that first system. Combined with the OSU lab testing, that will reduce the technology risk for the second, higher-temperature system,” says Cladouhos.

For each of the two geothermal systems, water will be pumped down one well to the hot rock. The two production wells on either side of the injector will capture the hot water that results from flowing through the hot rock and bring it to the surface and a waiting power plant.

Cladouhos notes that the seven wells will have a surface footprint of just 20 acres while covering a subsurface area of 200 acres. That underscores a key advantage of geothermal energy compared to other sources of renewable energy. According to the University of Texas at Austin, geothermal systems use less than three percent of the land required for similar solar- and wind-energy sites.

A Superhot Blueprint

The Quaise blueprint for developing superhot, superdeep geothermal energy worldwide involves three phases, or tiers. These are based on geothermal gradients, or how close the resource is to the surface. 

Project Obsidian is a Tier I location, able to access superhot temperatures at about three miles beneath the surface. The first wells at Project Obsidian will be drilled conventionally, without millimeter wave energy. That, too, is part of the Quaise blueprint, which involves a hybrid approach to drilling. Conventional drilling technologies will remove rock near the surface (what they were optimized for), followed by millimeter waves for powering through the basement rock below. Millimeter waves won’t be used until the 365°C wells at the earliest. 

Tier II sites will access rock at intermediary geothermal gradients. Nearly 40% of the world falls into this category. Tier III sites will involve drilling as much as 12 miles down. The latter “hold the key to making superhot geothermal a truly global energy source,” according to this Quaise video. “Tier III sites could provide power to more than 90% of humanity.”

Award-winning Staff

Two Quaise employees received awards at GRC 2026. Cladouhos was honored with the Geothermal Pioneer Award, which “recognizes an outstanding achievement and contributions to the development of geothermal resources [that have] led the way for the rest of us.”

Daniel Dichter, a senior mechanical engineer at Quaise, won the Young Professional (Technical) Award, which “recognizes young innovators and researchers, under the age of 35, whose applied research contributions have helped advance knowledge and innovation in the geothermal industry or geothermal community.”

Carlos Araque, CEO and President of Quaise, is proud of his team and what it has accomplished in the eight years since the company was founded. “Our ambition has always been to make superhot geothermal a backbone of the modern energy system, offering affordable, zero-carbon power and true energy independence for communities and nations everywhere," he says. "Project Obsidian is where we first deliver on that promise.”

 

By Elizabeth A. Thomson, correspondent for Quaise Energy

Quaise Project Obsidian Plant Rendering [VIDEO] 

Work is well underway on Quaise Energy’s Project Obsidian, located in central Oregon. The company believes Project Obsidian will be the world’s first commercial superhot geothermal power plant.

Credit

Quaise Energy

The Downstream Consequences

Many lakes and streams across the country have been industrialized, polluted, or paved over; this has real consequences for community health and safety, from deadly flooding to toxic taps.

A river runs through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
(Photo by Matthew Dillon/ Flickr / CC BY 2.0)

Crystal Davis
Sep 13, 2026

Common Dreams


Water has always held a sacred place in Black life. Long before environmental policy debates filled congressional hearing rooms, water shaped our stories. Creeks, marshes, and wetlands provided both livelihood and refuge when access to land and opportunity was denied elsewhere. For many Black communities, water is not just a resource. It symbolizes memory, survival, and possibility.

Today, many Black neighborhoods are cut off from the waterways that sustained earlier generations. Despite their cultural and ecological importance, many lakes and streams across the Midwest and the country have been industrialized, polluted, or paved over. This has real consequences for community health and safety, from deadly flooding to toxic taps.

Until now, the rivers, lakes, and streams that flow through national parks and other federally protected landscapes have been spared this fate. Despite bipartisan support for protecting our nation’s most beloved lands and waters, their future is at risk. Some are losing long-standing safeguards, opening the door to mining, fracking, and data center development. We’re seeing this right now in the West, where the administration recently slashed Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments by a staggering 91%.

These two landscapes are sacred to Tribal Nations that have called them home for millennia, carefully tending the cliffs, canyons, and plateaus as well as the rivers that run through them. They have fought tirelessly to close them to development. At Bears Ears, the administration abruptly dissolved an Inter-Tribal Coalition meant to co-manage the lands, ignoring the long history of stewardship by the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni, and the Ute Indian Tribe, and jeopardizing their ability to hunt, fish, and collect plants and medicines. The Tribes are fighting this decision, backed up by a broad range of partners that understand the shared stakes for people and the planet.

Let’s make sure we’re electing leaders who will fight for the rights of communities that have borne the brunt of past injustice, and a future where we can all count on clean water and learn our shared history.

As a Black woman who works at the intersection of parks and water, I am watching the ongoing push to restore protections at Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante closely. We know that access to the outdoors is already racialized in this country, much like access to clean air or safe drinking water.

When environmental and health protections get stripped away, Black and Indigenous communities are the first to suffer. But the impacts are not isolated. They cascade across communities, as pollution flows downstream, tainting streams where families boat and swim, and driving up drinking water treatment costs.

Fortunately, parks and clean water are two areas where people across the political spectrum agree: The public good must be put above corporate profit, keeping public lands in public hands, and preventing pollution at the source to ensure safe and affordable water in every home in America. And we’re seeing people rise up.

Black and brown leaders are stepping forward as champions for water protection and climate resilience. They are notching important victories, from restoring a federal environmental justice grants program to historic water funding in Texas and hyperlocal wins like a new well in Allensworth, California, to closing coal plants to build parks and gardens in Chicago.

These bright spots show what’s possible when ordinary people come together to defend our national heritage and demand basic needs like clean water and livable communities.

This fall, we’ll have a chance to make our voices heard at the ballot box. Let’s make sure we’re electing leaders who will fight for the rights of communities that have borne the brunt of past injustice, and a future where we can all count on clean water and learn our shared history by visiting parks and monuments that celebrate the beauty and diversity of this magnificent place we call home.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Crystal Davis
Crystal Davis is an executive leader, public policy strategist, and coalition builder working at the intersection of people, place, policy, and purpose. She currently serves as the senior Midwest regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association. Her impact resonates in policies for equity and justice in the Great Lakes region and beyond.
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DEGREASERS AND DETERGENT SURFACANTS 

‘Soap Cocktails’ Help U.S. Shale Boost Oil Production

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Aug 30, 2026

• U.S. shale producers are increasingly using advanced chemical surfactants to release more oil from tight rock and boost recovery from existing wells.
• 
  
• Chevron has deployed its proprietary treatment in more than 600 wells, while Ovintiv says surfactants have helped improve Permian oil productivity by around 9%.
• 
  
• Combined with AI, longer laterals and improved stimulation techniques, surfactants could help sustain U.S. shale growth despite declining well productivity and fewer rigs.
• 
  

U.S. shale innovation is not limited to drilling techniques and engineering breakthroughs. Producers are testing and already getting more oil out of existing wells in the shale formations with the use of advanced chemicals.

The mixture of cocktails of various chemicals, the so-called surfactants, helps release oil from the tight and shale formations. And shale drillers, including supermajors and independent producers, are increasingly perfecting the right cocktail mix to release more oil from the rocks.

These advanced chemical mixtures, together with the drilling of longer laterals and other technological breakthroughs, are helping producers get more oil out of the ground with the same or fewer number of rigs.

Chevron, for example, has developed a proprietary chemical technology to address the problem that only about 10% of the oil trapped in the shale and tight formation ever reaches the surface with fracking only.

“A simple way to think about this chemical treatment is like washing grease off your hands with soap and water,” Johannes Alvarez, Chevron’s enhanced oil recovery manager, says.

“The right chemical mixture can help loosen oil from the rock and fractures so it can move more easily toward the well.”

This extraction method with surfactants helps loosen oil from the rock, make it easier for oil to move through tiny spaces, and improve the flow of production, Chevron notes.

As of July 2026, the U.S. supermajor was using these advanced chemicals in more than 600 wells, with the first use tested in the Permian, of course, the biggest shale field in the U.S. and Chevron’s key upstream asset, where the company produces about 1 million barrels of oil-equivalent per day.

After the Permian, Chevron has expanded the use of its proprietary advanced chemical solutions to the Bakken, in the Rockies, and in Argentina.

Last month, Chevron even moved to commercialize its proprietary technology under a technology licensing agreement with ZL Chemicals, which works in enhanced oil recovery chemistry. Under the licensing agreement, ZL may commercialize Chevron-developed chemical surfactant technology. ZL plans to offer products and services utilizing the licensed technology under the Vantis™ brand.

“Technology creates more value when it can be applied broadly,” said Chevron’s chief technology and engineering officer Ryder Booth.

“Through this licensing agreement, we’re creating a pathway for ZL to bring this technology to a broader market, and at scale.”

Advanced chemicals, AI, and stimulation technologies have the potential to keep the Permian Basin production growing further, Chevron’s CEO Mike Wirth said on the Q2 earnings call last month.

“When you’re leaving 90% of the molecules in the ground, there's a huge incentive to figure out how to unlock all of that,” the executive added.

Chevron will get licensing revenue from the licensing agreement with ZL, “but in a company our size, the real opportunity is on the application of the chemicals,” Wirth said.

It’s not only Chevron that is testing various surfactant cocktails to boost oil recovery in shale formations.

Ovintiv, for example, said at the Q2 earnings call that it had completed about 400 Permian wells with surfactants since 2019, and has seen about a 9% improvement in oil productivity versus a non-surfactant-treated well.

“We think surfactants account for roughly half of the productivity uplift we've seen over the last few years. At a cost of only $100,000 per well, these custom treatments are generating impressive returns,” Greg Givens, EVP and COO at Ovintiv, said.

Surfactants are a real “needle mover” for boosting well productivity, Ovintiv’s chief executive Brendan McCracken told Bloomberg in an interview

This year, almost every well in the Permian is going to have a surfactant treatment, McCracken said on the earnings call, adding that the company is now just starting to deploy the surfactant cocktail to the Montney shale play in Canada, too.

Diamondback Energy also tests ways to increase recovery using surfactants and other enhanced oil recovery methods, CEO Kaes Van't Hof wrote in a letter to stockholders early this year.

“We invested approximately $30 million in late 2025 on a pilot project testing 60 wells with surfactants. These results have been positive, and we expect to build on our learnings with more testing planned this year,” the executive added.

As well productivity in the shale wells drops dramatically after several months of exploitation, advanced chemicals and various surfactant ‘cocktails’ have the potential to boost U.S. shale production more than analysts and industry had expected just a year ago.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

Is Germany's Laacher See volcano stirring again? Scientists detect hundreds of deep earthquakes

Copyright Df1paw, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Franziska Müller

Published on 30/08/2026 - EURONEWS

The Laacher See volcano last erupted around 13,000 years ago. Now, deep below the Eifel, scientists are reporting signs it remains active.

Earthquakes occur in Germany again and again, but many never notice them.

That's because these tremors occur deep below the ground and often have low frequencies.

But far beneath the surface, something could be stirring. That is the suspicion of researchers who have been monitoring Lake Laach in the Eifel region in western Germany over the last few years.

Between September 2022 and August 2023, they used several monitoring stations to record more than 500 micro-earthquakes beneath the lake - which formed in the crater of a volcano that last erupted around 13,000 years ago.

Germany's most powerful volcano

That last explosion was so powerful that ashfall was carried as far as Sweden and Italy, and experts still call for continuous monitoring of the site today.

Several studies show that there is still activity underground. In October 2025, a renewed increase in seismic activity was reported in the Eastern Eifel, most recently confirmed by a study published in 2019.

Researchers refer to these movements as deep low-frequency earthquakes, or DLF for short. These DLF quakes are seen as a sign that the Laacher See volcano could one day erupt again.

The focus of investigations is Lake Laach in Rhineland-Palatinate, the largest lake in the federal state.

The region is known as the Volcanic Eifel for good reason - the Eastern Eifel alone is home to a volcanic field with around 100 volcanoes.

"DLF earthquakes are regarded worldwide as an indication of the movement of magmatic fluids at great depth," explains Torsten Dahm, head of the Earthquake and Volcano Physics section at the GFZ, referring to a study from 2019. "Under active volcanoes, for example in Iceland, Japan or Kamchatka, such earthquakes can be observed regularly."

According to the study, magmatic fluids appear to accumulate at depths of about 12 to 14 kilometres. Magmatic fluids can be water, oxygen, sulphur compounds or halogens. They are released from molten rock and play a key role in determining how explosively a volcano erupts. Their movement can also trigger earthquakes in the subsurface.

These magmatic fluids could rise from the upper mantle into the Earth's crust. According to the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, they would ascend along the Ochtendung fault zone - evidence that the volcanic system at Lake Laach is still active.

They also indicate that magma chambers exist in the Earth's crust beneath Lake Laach and may be slowly filling.

On the night of 10 October 2025, there was an unusual earthquake swarm with around 92 small microquakes within twelve hours. The strongest quake had a magnitude of just 0.9.

"In total, four spatially confined clusters of such DLF earthquakes have been detected in the Eastern Eifel over the past five years," said lead author Martin Hensch from the Association of State Seismological Services in 2019.

However, researchers do not expect any volcanic activity in the near future. Dating of the magma produced when the volcano last erupted suggests that it may have taken around 30,000 years for the upper magma chamber beneath Lake Laach to fill before the eruption eventually occurred, according to a GFZ statement.

"The ascent of magma into the shallow crust is almost always accompanied by high-frequency earthquake swarms. Such activity has not yet been observed in the Eastern Eifel," said Joachim Ritter from the Geophysical Institute (GPI) at KIT.

"Moreover, there is no evidence of uplift of the Earth's surface, which would have to be clearly detectable in the event of massive magma ascent," adds Dahm.

In addition to the small quakes and, most recently, a so-called earthquake swarm, there are further signs of ongoing CO2 degassing from the mantle.

Bubbles of carbon dioxide can repeatedly be seen on the surface of the lake. Gases rise up from the depths. RaSlaMa, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In 2024, the GFZ carried out RMT measurements at two locations around Lake Laach. At both sites the emission of CO2 gases of magmatic origin was detected. Taken together, all these activities ultimately indicate that underground processes are active.

From September 2022 to August 2023, geologists recorded more than 500 local micro-earthquakes in a study published in 2026. In the process, the rock is hydraulically fractured; the researchers describe this as an example of natural hydraulic fracking.

They also found that there is likely a reservoir structure, such as a possible magma chamber, at a depth of around 12 to 14 kilometres. It extends horizontally over 15 kilometres beneath the active earthquake zone.

Ice Age eruption

During the Ice Age, the volcano in the Eifel erupted. Recent studies have redated the eruption: it is now thought to have occurred 13,084 years ago, around 184 years earlier than previously thought.

The eruption was enormous. Volcanic ash is thought to have risen into the stratosphere and probably reached an altitude of 30 kilometres. Winds are believed to have transported the ash over thousands of kilometres - north as far as Sweden and south as far as northern Italy. Today, its explosive power is estimated to be equivalent to around 500 Hiroshima bombs, according to the website of nearby Maria Laach abbey.

Volcanic ash and pumice formed a seven-metre-thick layer in the Rhine valley. Near the volcano, this layer is thought to be around 60 metres thick. In what is now the Cologne-Bonn region, volcanic ash accumulated to a depth of up to one metre.

Lake Laach is the largest lake in Rhineland-Palatinate. Bungert55, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It was only after this that Lake Laach formed. The eruption lasted for 10 days, interrupted by several periods of relative calm. Hot gases, which shattered the basement rock and ancient lava flows when they came into contact with groundwater, cleared a path for magma rising from below.

To date the eruption precisely, a research team from the universities of Mainz, Frankfurt and Heidelberg searched for sulphur deposits in various natural climate archives. They found evidence both in an ice core from Greenland and in a stalagmite from a cave in the Westerwald, with the sulphate concentration proving key.

The volcanic rocks produced during the eruption were later used, among other things, as building material in the 19 Century.