North America’s Only Cesium Project Moves Closer to Production

By Tom Kool - Aug 17, 2026

Power Metals is advancing what it describes as North America’s only cesium project at a time when America’s defense ambitions are colliding with the reality of critical mineral supply chains.

The U.S. imports 100% of its required cesium, a rare mineral used in atomic clocks, GPS systems, aerospace solar technology, advanced communications networks, and high-tech defense equipment.

That could make a high-grade cesium discovery in Ontario a potential source of new North American supply.

And now it’s moved from a discovery story to a development one, as Power Metals (TSXV: PWM; OTC:PWRMF) advances one of the continent’s few cesium-focused projects.

For years, cesium occupied a niche corner of the critical minerals market.

But national security has changed that.

Now, governments are moving to secure supply chains, boosting defense spending and driving up growing demand for advanced communications, aerospace technologies, and next-generation computing infrastructure.

At the same time, the global cesium supply has become even more concentrated.

Only a handful of cesium deposits have ever been mined commercially, and most are either depleted, inactive, or controlled by Chinese interests.

That backdrop helps explain why Power Metals’ Case Lake project has drawn attention.

Located in northeastern Ontario, Case Lake hosts a high-grade cesium resource alongside lithium and tantalum mineralization. The project has already completed extensive drilling, established a maiden resource, and advanced into the permitting process as the company works toward its stated target of early 2027 production.

The opportunity facing the company today looks very different from what it did just a few years ago.

Back then, Case Lake was being explored primarily as a lithium-cesium-tantalum pegmatite system. Drilling eventually confirmed a less common form of mineralization: extensive pollucite mineralization containing high cesium grades reported by the company.

Subsequent drilling at the West Joe dyke returned intervals grading more than 20% cesium oxide, with individual pollucite lenses reaching grades of up to 26% Cs?O.

Those results helped establish Case Lake as a notable cesium discovery in the Western world.

A Different Path to Production

One reason Case Lake has attracted attention is that the path to production appears potentially less complex than many comparable projects.

The cesium mineralization occurs close to the surface, allowing Power Metals (TSXV: PWM; OTC:PWRMF) to pursue a quarry-style operation rather than a large-scale underground mine.

The company has outlined a development plan centered on crushing and sorting ore on site before shipping concentrate to customers.

That approach reduces both capital requirements and operational complexity compared with many critical minerals projects currently competing for financing and permits. The company says this approach may also reduce environmental impacts by limiting the operational footprint. 

Rather than pursuing a large-scale mining operation from the outset, Power Metals is advancing a staged approach designed to bring an initial cesium operation into production while exploration continues across the broader property.

According to the company, the initial operation will focus on extracting high-grade pollucite while continuing to expand the broader resource through ongoing exploration.

Power Metals’ strategy reflects the way the Case Lake deposit has evolved.

“We’re taking advantage of the way this deposit occurs. The cesium mineralization is close to the surface, which allows us to pursue a quarry-style operation and a staged development approach. We don’t need a large processing facility to produce concentrate, and that gives us a potential path to production with lower capital requirements and less complexity than many critical mineral projects,” said Johnathan More, Chairman of Power Metals.

The current resource is centered on the West Joe dyke, but it represents only a small portion of the broader project, which spans approximately 11,000 hectares and hosts multiple lithium-cesium-tantalum pegmatite targets.

More than 24,000 metres of drilling have been completed across the property, and the company continues to identify additional exploration targets beyond the existing resource footprint.

In other words, the objective is to establish production first, potentially generate cash flow, and continue expanding the project as additional targets are drilled and evaluated.

The company is currently advancing environmental studies, permitting, and stakeholder engagement activities as it works toward a production decision.

The World’s Most Exclusive Critical Mineral Market

Unlike lithium, copper, or rare earths, cesium is not a market with dozens of producers competing for market share.

Commercial production has historically come from only a handful of deposits worldwide, making it one of the most concentrated supply chains in the critical minerals sector.

For years, the market was dominated by three mines: Tanco in Canada, Bikita in Zimbabwe, and Sinclair in Australia. Today, Sinclair is inactive, Bikita remains under Chinese control and facing a battle to send raw materials out of Zimbabwe at present, and Tanco has largely shifted to recovering lower-grade material from existing stockpiles and historical workings.

That has left the global cesium market relatively tight, and that scarcity is reflected in pricing.

While cesium markets remain largely opaque, certain cesium compounds have traded at prices exceeding US$200,000 per tonne, according to data compiled by Shanghai Metals Market.

The structure of the industry is equally unusual.

The industry’s concentration can be seen in the companies that have historically dominated it. Sinomine controls the Tanco mine in Manitoba, one of the world’s best-known cesium deposits, while Albemarle remains one of the few Western companies with decades of experience producing cesium chemicals and specialty products.

That explains why Albemarle’s relationship with Power Metals (TSXV: PWM; OTC:PWRMF) has attracted attention.

The company holds the cesium offtake associated with Case Lake and has provided a US$5 million prepayment to support development. More recently, former Albemarle exploration executive Eric Schrimsher joined Power Metals’ Cesium Advisory Committee, adding another layer of industry expertise to the project.

The involvement of established industry participants has contributed to market interest in the project.

Albemarle (NYSE: ALB) provides the clearest large-cap connection to Case Lake. The U.S. specialty chemicals producer is one of the few Western companies with decades of experience in the cesium business, holds the project’s cesium offtake, and has provided a US$5 million prepayment to support development. If Power Metals reaches production, that relationship could give Albemarle access to a new North American source at a time when global cesium supply remains highly concentrated.

The strategic importance extends much further downstream. Cesium’s use in atomic clocks, GPS and advanced communications makes secure supply relevant to major aerospace and defense companies such as Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), which builds GPS satellites for the U.S. Space Force, and RTX (NYSE: RTX), whose businesses span missile defense, radar, communications and advanced aerospace systems. Neither company is identified as a direct Case Lake customer, but both illustrate the enormous strategic industries that ultimately depend on resilient Western critical-mineral supply chains.

As Power Metals advances Case Lake toward production, it is doing so with a project that occupies a distinctive position in the market: what it describes as North America’s only cesium project, backed by one of the few companies in the world with decades of experience in the cesium business.

Commercial cesium production has historically been limited to a small number of producers.

Today, the number of active sources appears to have narrowed.

“There is currently no operating source of high-grade cesium production anywhere in the world,” said Haydn Daxter, CEO of Power Metals.

That is the backdrop against which Case Lake is advancing.

If the company succeeds, North America would gain a potential new source of cesium supply at a time when governments, defense contractors, and technology companies are searching for secure access to critical minerals.

By. Tom Kool

 

Chevron Strikes Oil and Gas Offshore Angola in Major Discovery

By Michael Kern - Aug 17, 2026

Chevron has announced a new oil and gas condensate discovery offshore Angola, hitting more than 2,000 feet of hydrocarbons in a Block 0 exploration well that could be tied directly into the company’s existing production infrastructure in the country.

The 105-4X well encountered more than 300 feet of net pay in the Pinda reservoir in the Lower Congo Basin, with Chevron describing the reservoir quality as “excellent” in a press release. The company has not yet disclosed an estimate of recoverable resources or potential production.

Chevron subsidiary Cabinda Gulf Oil Company operates Block 0 with a 39.2% interest. Angola’s state-owned Sonangol E&P holds 41%, TotalEnergies 10% and Azule Energy, the BP-Eni joint venture, 9.8%.

Chevron is now evaluating whether 105-4X can be connected to existing Block 0 facilities instead of being developed as a standalone project, potentially reducing both the capital spend and the time needed to bring it online.

The discovery follows first oil from Chevron’s South N’dola Platform in Block 0 in December 2025, and comes less than two weeks after Sonangol confirmed strong appraisal results at Katambi-2 in Angola’s offshore Block 24.

Another commercially viable discovery could help Angola reverse the long decline of its oil industry, which at one point produced close to 2 million barrels per day. Production has stabilized at around 1.1 million bpd after falling below 1 million bpd last year, with new fiscal terms and exploration incentives drawing investment back into mature and frontier acreage.

Chevron’s Angola find plays into its aggressive return to African exploration. Since late 2024 alone, Chevron has seen three near-field discoveries in Nigeria and is preparing additional drilling across Angola, Namibia and other West African basins. In Namibia, it plans to drill the Nabba-1X well before the end of 2026.

What Angola has that other frontiers don’t, however, is infrastructure already in place to turn a discovery into production.

By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com

 

Carbon Capture’s Biggest Problem Isn’t Capturing Carbon

By Leon Stille - Aug 17, 2026

• Europe’s carbon-capture ambition is moving from isolated equipment toward shared transport, storage and contractual infrastructure.
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• The central barrier is increasingly not whether CO2 can be captured, but who pays the cost gap and accepts long-term volume, performance and liability risks.
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• Projects such as Northern Lights and the UK clusters show that bankable contracts and shared networks can convert technically feasible capture into investable industrial systems.
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Carbon capture is still debated as if technical performance were the decisive question. Can a solvent remove carbon dioxide from flue gas? Can the CO2 be compressed, transported and injected underground? Will the storage remain secure?

These questions matter, but they no longer explain why most announced projects do not reach construction.

The missing component is usually commercial. A cement plant can capture carbon and still lose money on every tonne. A storage site can be technically ready and remain empty without contracted volumes. A pipeline can lower costs for an industrial cluster but cannot be financed if every emitter waits for someone else to move first.

Carbon capture will not scale where the technology is most impressive.

It will scale where the contracts make the system investable.

Europe’s Ambition Is Far Ahead of Its Market

The European Commission’s Industrial Carbon Management Strategy sets the scale of the challenge. The EU aims for at least 50 million tonnes of annual CO2 storage capacity by 2030. Its modelling points toward roughly 280 million tonnes of captured CO2 per year by 2040 and around 450 million tonnes by 2050.

Those are industrial-system numbers. They cannot be delivered through a collection of bespoke capture demonstrations.

Europe needs common specifications, transport networks, storage capacity, measurement rules, liability frameworks and customers willing to sign long-term contracts. Capture equipment is only one part of that chain.

This explains why the sector has produced far more announcements than final investment decisions. Each project depends on infrastructure that may not exist until other projects commit. Emitters face a cost without a conventional product premium. Transport operators need guaranteed volumes. Storage developers need confidence that customers will still deliver CO2 years later.

Every participant is waiting for bankability from the others.

Northern Lights Sells a Service, Not a Storage Reservoir

Norway’s Northern Lights project is important because it changes the commercial shape of CCS. Instead of each emitter developing a dedicated pipeline and storage site, customers can liquefy captured CO2, ship it to a receiving terminal and purchase transport and permanent storage as a service.

Phase 1 provides 1.5 million tonnes per year of capacity. The first injection took place in 2025 using CO2 from Heidelberg Materials’ Brevik cement plant, and the initial capacity is fully booked. A second phase is intended to expand capacity to at least 5 million tonnes per year from 2028, supported by contracts including Stockholm Exergi’s planned biogenic CO2 volumes.Related: Venezuela’s Oil Revival Accelerates as U.S. Majors Push Trump’s New Energy Order

The absolute scale remains small compared with Europe’s 2040 ambition. The commercial model is the larger achievement.

Northern Lights separates storage access from ownership of a complete chain. Shipping allows geographically dispersed emitters to participate before a dense pipeline network exists. Standard contracts create a service that industrial companies can place into project finance models.

The reservoir matters. The product is certainty.

The UK Is Contracting Around the Missing Revenue

The United Kingdom has taken a different but complementary approach. It is developing industrial clusters in which capture projects connect to regulated transport and storage networks, while tailored business models support different types of emitters.

The reason for multiple contracts is simple: a gas power station, cement plant, waste incinerator and engineered carbon-removal facility do not earn revenue in the same way. One generic carbon price may not address their different exposure to fuel costs, output markets, capture performance and international competition.

UK industrial carbon-capture contracts are designed to cover part of the gap between the cost of producing a low-carbon product and the market value of the conventional alternative. Transport and storage networks receive a regulated framework intended to support capital investment before utilization reaches maturity.

In late 2025, the government reported final contracts for the Padeswood cement capture project and the Protos waste-to-energy project. These milestones are more important than another large project pipeline. They show where public policy has moved from targets to contractual allocation of risk.

The strongest criticism is obvious: these models can create large and long-lived subsidy commitments. That concern is legitimate. Poorly designed contracts can protect operators from risks they should manage themselves, reward low capture performance or lock consumers into expensive infrastructure.

But refusing to design a business model does not create a market. It creates another decade of pilots.

Carbon Prices Help, but They Do Not Finance the Whole Chain

Europe already has a powerful decarbonization instrument in the EU Emissions Trading System. A higher carbon price improves the economics of capture because each stored tonne avoids the need to surrender an allowance.

Yet a volatile allowance price is not necessarily sufficient security for a project financed over decades. Investors must compare uncertain future carbon savings with very certain construction debt, operating costs and transport fees.

CCS projects also face risks that a carbon price does not allocate. What happens if the storage network is delayed? Who pays when the capture plant is available but the pipeline is not? Who carries long-term liability? What if an industrial facility produces less CO2 than contracted, leaving the network underused?

These are not chemistry questions.

They are contract questions.

Carbon contracts for difference, regulated-asset models, minimum-volume commitments, government-backed storage development and green public procurement can each address part of the gap. The correct mix depends on the sector. The objective should not be to eliminate risk, but to place each risk with the party best able to manage it.

Clusters Turn Cost Into Infrastructure

The cluster model is more than a way to share a pipeline. It changes the strategic value of CCS.

An isolated capture plant is a costly environmental retrofit. A network serving cement, chemicals, waste, refining and carbon removals can become regional industrial infrastructure. Additional customers lower unit costs, while common transport and storage allow companies to invest without becoming subsurface specialists.

Clusters also create options. Biogenic CO2 and direct-air-capture projects can use the same storage system as industrial emitters, potentially generating permanent removals. Future CO2 utilization projects may connect where they offer credible long-term demand, although utilization should not be treated as permanent storage when the carbon is quickly re-released.

This is how transitions scale: not when every company purchases a standalone technology, but when shared infrastructure makes the new operating model normal.

Start With the Customer Who Can Sign

Carbon-capture developers often begin with capture rate, energy consumption and equipment design. Those metrics matter. But the first development question should be more basic: who is purchasing the avoided or removed tonne of CO2, under what contract, for how long and with which performance conditions?

Without that answer, engineering detail can create false progress.

The strongest early markets are likely to remain sectors with few alternatives, concentrated emissions and policy support: cement, lime, some chemical processes, waste-to-energy and selected carbon-removal projects. Gas power with CCS may have a role where systems value dispatchable low-carbon capacity, but its economics depend heavily on utilization and fuel price.

Not every emitter should receive capture equipment. Electrification, efficiency, material substitution and renewable energy should come first where they are cheaper and more direct. CCS becomes credible when it targets residual emissions and proves that captured carbon reaches verified permanent storage.

Europe has already demonstrated that carbon can be captured. The next challenge is building a market in which capture, transport and storage operate as one investable service.

The technology removes the CO2.

The business model removes the reason projects never get built.

By Leon Stille for Oilprice.com

 

China's Renewables Boom Faces Record Clean Power Curtailments

By Charles Kennedy - Aug 17, 2026

Grid constraints and rising coal-fired power generation in China led to soaring curtailment rates of solar and wind power generation in the first half of the year.

China curtailed as much as 360 terawatt-hours (TWh) of solar and wind generation between January and June, up by 49% from a year earlier, a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and Global Energy Monitor (GEM) showed.

All the clean electricity curtailed would have been enough to meet all of China's electricity demand growth in the first half of 2026 and allow coal power generation to fall, the organizations said.

As China's solar and wind installations soar, power generated from these assets needs to be curtailed at times when generation exceeds the amount the grid can absorb.

Renewable electricity curtailment is set to “pose a major risk to income stability alongside power price fluctuations,” Wood Mackenzie said in an analysis of China's renewables growth at the end of last year.

WoodMac forecast that average wind and solar curtailment rates will exceed 5% in seven and 21 provinces, respectively, over the next 10 years.

Provinces with high curtailment rates and volatile power prices will face challenges attracting investment under the new pricing mechanism in China's renewables sector, said Sharon Feng, senior analyst, China power market at Wood Mackenzie.

“Developers need to carefully evaluate provincial grid conditions and long-term price projections when making investment decisions,” Feng added.

The rise in coal generation so far this year has meant that China's wasted solar and wind power generation has soared to new highs.

“The rapid expansion of coal power capacity has deepened oversupply in the power system, reflected in both falling coal power plant utilisation and growing volumes of wasted clean electricity,” CREA and GEM said in their report.

“Curtailed wind and solar alone exceeded the entire increase in power demand during the period.”

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

 

Graphic: Gold price shows early signs of reclaiming safe-haven appeal after Iran war selloff

Reuters | August 17, 2026 | 

Stock image.

Gold’s 9% rebound in August to around $4,400 an ounce suggests bullion is starting to regain favour with institutional investors and central banks, leaving the market better placed to extend gains as it moves beyond the initial shock of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

The outbreak of the war in late February drove gold from a record high of $5,595 per ounce in January to below $4,000 in June as investors sought liquidity and some central banks tapped reserves to support domestic economies amid an oil price rally.

“It feels as though the handbrake has finally been released from gold,” said Ross Norman, an independent analyst.

Gold prices have broken above two key resistance levels this month, helped by lower oil prices and softer U.S. inflation data that reduced expectations for future rate hikes.

“If oil doesn’t steal the show again, if the situation in the Middle East does not erupt and oil prices spike, then it looks as if the path of least resistance for gold is higher,” said James Steel, chief precious metals analyst at HSBC.

The strength of the price rebound over the past two weeks suggests central banks or sovereign wealth funds may have been active, Steel said, adding that this thought was an inference rather than confirmed knowledge.

Another likely source of support was institutional demand for large bars as premiums in Asian trading hubs, including China, implied renewed buying interest. In China, the gold premium was at $1.50 an ounce last week. GOL/AS

“It is really, I think, the rebuilding of positions that large institutions had before the conflict with Iran,” Steel said.

Limiting the upside for bullion are faltering talks to end the Iran war, subdued jewellery and coin demand as well as flows into gold-backed ETFs, which are sensitive to interest rates. According to the World Gold Council, these ETFs added only $7 billion to $582 billion of assets under management in the first half of August.

Technical signals also act as a headwind: the relative strength index suggests gold is approaching near-term “overbought” levels, keeping the 200-day moving average, currently at $4,504, as a strong resistance level.

Source: Reuters

(Reporting by Polina Devitt; editing by Paul Simao)

 

The Next Energy Crisis Could Be a Water Crisis

By Leonard Hyman & William Tilles - Aug 17, 2026

• Water scarcity is becoming an energy-security threat, affecting hydropower, thermal plants, grids and rapidly growing AI data centers.
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• Markets alone may not solve the problem, as water is essential, politically sensitive and constrained by climate and infrastructure.
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• Water could become a defining commodity of the 21st century, as supplies remain constrained while energy and industrial demand rises.
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Strategic shortfalls? Maybe in getting cobalt out of the Congo or rare earth powders from China or natural gas from Russia or oil from the Persian Gulf? Or maybe something closer to home. Thanks to climate change (yes, just say it and hope the big boss doesn’t hear you), temperatures have risen, and rainfall patterns have changed dramatically. As an example of the consequences, the Colorado River’s flow has diminished and Lake Mead, its principal reservoir, has dropped to record low water levels. Aside from the obvious impact on water users in the Southwest, Hoover Dam, at the foot of Lake Mead, is a large power producer and one of its biggest customers is the giant Metropolitan Water District of California. ( In other words, the MWD stands to lose twice over: water and power).

European power producers have a different problem: not enough water in rivers to cool the power stations or carry fuel on barges. (Still another issue, if sea level rises, is the impact of that rise on coastal power stations. But that’s a little farther off.) And, in case you didn’t know, extremely hot weather affects the carrying capacity and operations of electricity transmission and distribution facilities. The big new electricity users, the AI centers, need water not only for their own operations but also for their power plants. Are we heading for markets in which power producers, power users, and everyone else will have to bid for a static or declining water supply? Power generation already accounts for roughly one third of water use in the USA. The Trump administration promotes still more water use by killing offshore wind projects (no freshwater needs) and encouraging, as replacements, nuclear and coal plants  (big water users) as well as downplaying efforts to clean up water supply (less pollution increases usable water supply). So, the government is not here to help you. Maybe Ronald Reagan was right

Do we need a coordinated effort to look at the two industries in a systemic manner, to encourage inter-industry planning to assure water supply to the energy sector or to assure that the energy sector does not mess up everyone else’s water supply?  Why not just let the market do it? Set prices and supply will come. The Field of Dreams approach. There are several reasons to think this will not work well:

• First, higher prices won’t increase precipitation where and when needed, although it might discourage consumption, while encouraging efforts to reduce water losses and to reuse water and making desalination more economical. All that will help, but only so much.

• Second, water is a necessity for the entire population, with no substitutes available, so raising prices or shifting resources to big users could produce damaging social consequences. Do politicians want their constituents to go without sufficient, affordable water?

• Third, for the market solution to work, to efficiently allocate resources, prices must reflect all the long term costs (on the books of account, socially and environmentally) of production and usage, which we doubt is the case now, and would require politically fraught price hikes.

• Fourth, the plethora of laws, jurisdictions and water suppliers with parochial interests will complicate and hinder any process of change. Nobody wants to give up long-held rights.

The electricity and water industries built their infrastructures around certain environmental assumptions that are no longer valid. They have not modified them sufficiently to take into account current and future conditions, in our view, from lack of money, or lack of urgency (the environment changed faster than expected) or ideological rigidity. Sooner or later, the chickens will come home to roost, but how soon?

We don’t see the Trump administration as bringing forth a coordinated approach to water or to the interaction of water and energy because that would involve admitting to the disruptive impact of climate change on both sectors. (The National Academies just removed a chapter on climate from its science manual for the courts. Apparently, the administration believes all that climate stuff is alarmist.) So, if you are in the energy sector (user or producer), just play it cautiously when planning for water supplies (don’t assume they will be there when you need them), expect political interference when the well runs dry, and don’t buy into those estimates based on 100-year average water conditions. You don’t need water issues to add to your problems. You will be busy enough dealing with those overheated, sagging transmission lines that traverse dry forests.

Let’s summarize the political and social issues this way:

A lot of people still haven’t made the connection that adequate supplies of electricity depend on adequate supplies of water. The present administration has no interest in pointing this out. There are really two separate themes here: the emerging environmental polycrisis (a water scarcity triggers electricity shortages in this case, or when the water gets too hot it won’t cool the plants, etc), and the second part is whether the pricing mechanism is even appropriate when there is no elasticity of demand. As we asked previously, what’s the appropriate price for electricity or heat when it’s the temperature hits 20 below zero, and your choice is to heat your house or literally freeze? As Herb Stein, the economist,  said “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” That’s the situation here. Across the political spectrum, people are angry about the extra pollution, rising prices, loss of water etc. We don’ know how this will manifest itself politically, but we have enormous faith that some enterprising politician somewhere will try to use this pent up anger to gain popularity. We seem to be speed-running the excesses of the Gilded Age. The political reaction, if any, remains to be seen. But it surely is coming.

As investors, rather than gloomy economic or environmental prognosticators, though, we would reiterate a conclusion we shared with you before. Water in absolutely essential commodity whose supply remains unchanged while demand for it rises. You can’t beat that combination. Water will be the essential commodity of the 21st century, long after we quit looking for lithium.

By Leonard Hyman and William Tilles for Oilprice.com

Automation Could Start Eating Into U.S. Diesel Demand

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Aug 17, 2026

• AI and autonomous freight could reduce U.S. fuel demand by improving efficiency and cutting fuel consumption per shipment.
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• Driverless trucking is already scaling, with Aurora and Gatik expanding commercial operations across major U.S. freight routes.
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• Diesel supplies about 22% of U.S. transportation energy, making freight automation potentially meaningful for petroleum demand.
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The rise of automation, AI, and electric trucks can fundamentally change the freight transportation industry in the United States, leading to a revolution in transport fuel demand.

Various vehicle and technology companies and U.S. cities and states have launched in recent years automation trucking pilot programs. In barge transportation on the Mississippi River, AI-assisted co-pilot projects are already being used to make transportation more efficient.

The increase in efficiency, via technological, autonomous, or AI-enabled systems, could optimize freight efficiency, including by reducing fuel per-unit use and inefficiencies in supply chains, Reuters columnist Gavin Maguire argues.

Vehicle automation is a promising fuel-reducing strategy. Moreover, truck platooning, the linking of trucks in a convoy to travel closer together by using connectivity technology and automated driving support systems, is a “likely contender to reduce energy requirements for the heavy-duty vehicle sector,” says the transport and mobility research team at the National Laboratory of the Rockies.

Platooning allows multiple vehicles to travel closer together, accelerate or brake simultaneously, and reduce aerodynamic drag to create significant energy or fuel savings, NLR notes.

Self-driving trucks in Texas and AI-assisted navigation on the Mississippi River are making inroads in boosting the efficiency of freight transportation in the United States.

Aurora Innovation, a self-driving freight developer, last year launched a commercial self-driving trucking service in Texas, starting regular driverless customer deliveries between Dallas and Houston.

This year, Aurora Innovation and its manufacturing partner Roush launched their second-generation driverless trucks. Aurora plans to deploy the new fleet across its commercial network, which currently encompasses 10 driverless routes throughout the U.S. Sun Belt, to serve additional customers.

“By working with a world-class manufacturing partner like Roush, we can meet our customer demand and continue to make the movement of goods safer and more efficient across the country,” said Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder of Aurora Innovation.

Also this year, PepsiCo and Gatik announced a multi-year strategic partnership to bring autonomous freight into PepsiCo’s North America food and beverage supply chain. This is the largest commercial autonomous freight deployment to date, PepsiCo said. Today, Gatik is already operating for PepsiCo across Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas.

Gatik’s autonomous trucks help PepsiCo’s regional transportation networks, where products move daily from site to site.

“Autonomous trucking has reached commercial scale when it operates inside one of the most demanding supply chains on the planet,” Gautam Narang, CEO and Co-Founder of Gatik, said in June.

“That is what Gatik is doing with PepsiCo. Our autonomous trucks are already moving products every day across Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas, and this partnership is proof that Gatik is becoming central to how the world’s largest companies move goods.”

Jim Farrell, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain, PepsiCo, said, “Gatik is already operating inside our networks and brings the autonomous freight technology, commercial experience, and scale we need to strengthen service, add capacity, and move products more consistently for our customers.”

On the Mississippi, maritime autonomy and situational awareness systems developer Mythos AI last year installed its Advanced Pilot Assist Systems (APAS) on a Southern Devall tow vessel, the first deployment of this type of technology on the Mississippi River.

Technology and automation could soon transform American inland shipping, too.

All these advances in freight transportation technologies suggest that U.S. fuel demand could fundamentally change in the coming years thanks to fuel savings and electrification.

In 2025, transportation accounted for about 29% of total U.S. energy consumption. Petroleum products accounted for about 89% of the total energy use of the U.S. transportation sector, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

In 2025, the annual use of diesel, the backbone of the freight sector and a driver of any economy, in the transportation sector accounted for about 75% of total U.S. distillate consumption and about 14% of total U.S. petroleum consumption. On an energy content basis, diesel fuel accounted for about 22% of total energy consumption in the U.S. transportation sector and for about 6% of U.S. total primary energy consumption, per EIA data.

Automation and other technology breakthroughs could soon reshape energy use in the transportation sector.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com