Ukraine Keeps Coming . The Energy Report 11/17/2025

It’s astonishing that oil prices aren’t soaring higher, given the dramatic headlines. Ukraine has managed to strike deep into Russia with long-range drones, hitting one of the country’s top ten refineries at Novokuybyshevsk and a military base—an operation confirmed by Ukraine’s General Staff and reported by the Kyiv Independent. Meanwhile, in the Gulf of Oman, the Marshall Islands-flagged tanker Talara was intercepted and diverted by Iranian Revolutionary Guards on November 14, suspected of carrying unauthorized goods. US Central Command and UKMTO have issued warnings about persistent threats in the region, urging extreme caution for maritime transit.

Yet, despite these significant disruptions, Russia’s flagship oil price just plunged to its lowest in over two and a half years, mere days before new U.S. sanctions are set to target the nation’s two biggest producers. The price drop is set to squeeze Russian oil companies’ finances and shrink tax revenues for the Kremlin—funds that help sustain the war in Ukraine. Discounts on Urals crude widened to an average of $23.52 per barrel below Brent last week, the biggest gap since June 2023, according to Argus data. On Thursday, Urals crude from the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk plummeted to $36.61 a barrel, its lowest since March 2023, with a similar story in the Baltic Sea market. Prices did inch up on Friday, but the trend remains surprising.

For a country where oil and gas make up about a quarter of the state budget, it’s truly remarkable that—with all the geopolitical turmoil—oil prices are not climbing higher. Oil continues to kind of struggle and because some Russian refineries are down, it’s assumed they’ll be dumping cheap barrels of crude even though no one wants to buy them right now. Still if you look at the crack spreads – call Phil Flynn 888-264-5665 to learn more about spreads – they have continued to stay strong signaling a very tight product market. Given the expected cold weather, crude oil prices are unlikely to decrease much further, and there remains considerable risk of a price spike in the coming month.

The other big picture is the demand for artificial intelligence and data centers. Market watcher Tom Conrick wrote that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is making a historic investment in Indiana, with a massive $13 billion data center campus under construction between South Bend and New Carlisle. This project, which marks the largest single corporate investment in the state’s history, spans over 600 acres acquired through the shell company Razor5. Located along Indiana State Road 2 and Larrison Boulevard, the campus features at least seven buildings, each measuring 216,000 square feet, with their shells already completed.

The scale of the investment has grown from its initial $11 billion announcement, and AWS expects to create 1,000 jobs for both its own staff and contract workers. The company has secured sales tax exemptions for eligible capital investments over a 50-year period. Construction is moving at an “unprecedented” pace, with the first facilities scheduled to become operational in the first quarter of 2025. AWS has already started recruiting for technical and operations positions, underscoring the project’s momentum.

This new campus is strategically significant, as it will support AWS’s expanding need for cloud services and AI workloads. The development is also positioned near the $3.5 billion GM/Samsung electric vehicle battery plant, signaling the emergence of a high-tech corridor in northern Indiana. Similar activity is underway elsewhere in the country, including Chicago, where the former CBOE Global Markets headquarters is being converted into a 33-megawatt data center by Legacy Investing, a Virginia-based real estate firm. The building, which sold in October 2025 following upgrades to its power capacity, is expected to complete its transformation by late 2026. Another notable example in Chicago is the former R.R. Donnelley printing plant, now the Lakeside Technology Center at 350 East Cermak Road, recognized as one of the world’s largest data centers and a major internet interconnection hub.

Across the United States, the scale of data center development is remarkable. More than 3,000 facilities are currently tracked for development, expansion, or retrofitting. In August 2025 alone, 10.5 gigawatts of planned capacity were filed, representing billions of dollars of investment in states such as Texas, Kansas, and New Mexico. The year-to-date construction value for 2025 stands at $12.9 billion, a 48% increase over the previous year, with $2.4 billion in new projects launched in June. The South and Midwest are especially active, with states like Ohio, Georgia, Arizona, and Texas leading the charge. Major projects include Amazon’s $2 billion facility in Sunbury, Ohio, Google’s $600 million data center in Mesa, Arizona, and the $100 billion Stargate joint venture by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle.

Infrastructure trends show rising power demand, prompting increased investment in energy infrastructure, while the acceleration of AI and cloud computing is driving the construction of hyperscale and edge data centers. Many previously paused projects are now resuming construction, reflecting renewed confidence in the sector. As of mid-2025, about 404 data centers are actively under construction across the U.S. Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, has noted that these developments will require hundreds of thousands of electricians and plumbers, highlighting the significant workforce implications of the ongoing data center boom.

Natural gas is going to be a big part of that and the weather is going to be a big part of natural gas pricing. Fox Weather reported that, “Record-breaking November heat wave grips the South after major deep freeze for millions. The heat surge isn’t done yet, with the warmth shifting to the Southern Plains and Southeast this week. Over 100 million Americans are expected to experience warmer-than-normal temperatures to start the week. Fox Weather says that It has been a whirlwind of weather across parts of the U.S. since last week, as some states experienced freezing temperatures before jumping back into late spring-like heat. Last week, some areas in the Southeast experienced record-breaking low temperatures amid a fall freeze.

According to the FOX Forecast Center, over 80 record low temperatures were broken before the start of the weekend. A significant dip in the jet stream allowed arctic air to surge south, as locations such as Macon, Georgia, broke a 100-year-old record with temperatures dropping to 25 degrees at one point.