Energy security and reliability gain priority

Safety moment: Extreme weather is now a front-line safety risk

Weather is no longer an external factor to manage. It is a direct safety risk that must be planned for like any other workplace hazard. In many places around the world, extreme weather has become one of the most significant safety challenges facing energy workers in 2026.

Across North America, utilities and energy infrastructure operators have contended with prolonged heat waves, wildfires, severe storms, and grid restoration activities performed under increasingly hazardous conditions.

The trend is equally evident in Europe, where record-setting summer temperatures increased safety concerns for transmission crews, renewable-energy construction teams, and technicians working outdoors.

Heat stress can impair concentration, increase fatigue, and elevate the risk of errors. For an industry already facing skilled labor shortages, protecting workers from environmental hazards is increasingly tied to both operational reliability and workforce retention.

Practical safety tips for energy workers

• Treat heat as a hazard, not an inconvenience. Increase hydration breaks, monitor employees for early signs of heat illness, and adjust schedules during peak afternoon temperatures.
• Use weather-triggered work controls. Work sites and shipping/receiving locations should establish clear thresholds for stopping or modifying work during extreme heat, lightning, high winds, rain, or wildfire smoke conditions. They should also clearly document the criteria and recovery plan for resuming work and recovering from delays.
• Prioritize crew monitoring. Encourage workers to watch for signs of fatigue, dehydration, and heat stress in teammates.
• Plan worker recovery as carefully as crisis response. Post-storm restoration and emergency repairs often create the highest exposure to environmental and fatigue-related risks.

Geothermal energy shifts from renewable alternative to reliability solution

As power demand surges globally, geothermal energy is increasingly viewed as more than just a renewable solution. More and more, it is lauded for its reliability advantages. Unlike wind and solar, geothermal can provide 24/7 baseload power, which is why it is drawing growing interest from utilities, data centers, and industrial users.

In 2024, Runar Nygaard, director of the Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, described geothermal as "the next energy source that will change the energy mix in the U.S. the way solar and wind have done for the last couple of decades."

Behind the geothermal trend

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), geothermal energy has historically been concentrated in regions with a unique geological combination of heat, permeability, fluids, and economically drillable depths, in areas such as the western United States, Iceland, and Türkiye.

However, advances in enhanced geothermal systems, horizontal drilling, and reservoir engineering are expanding access to geothermal resources far beyond traditional hotspots.

The IEA notes that technologies advanced by the oil and gas sector are opening geothermal opportunities in regions that previously lacked commercially viable resources, like Alberta, Canada; Germany; and Eastern Europe.

Recent projects reinforce that momentum: Fervo Energy secured approximately $20 million in U.S. Department of Energy funding to advance enhanced geothermal projects in Idaho and Nevada, highlighting continued investment in technologies designed to expand geothermal development beyond traditional resource basins.

The largest obstacle remains proving underground resources before investing in development. A failed well can cost millions of dollars, making subsurface risk a financial hurdle.

How oil and gas enable geothermal

The IEA highlights that many of the technologies enabling geothermal expansion originated in the oil and gas sector, including directional drilling, hydraulic stimulation, and advanced subsurface modeling.

Research from the University of Oklahoma, along with industry discussions convened by Rice University's Baker Institute, point to opportunities to repurpose retired wells, leverage existing infrastructure, and apply oilfield expertise to geothermal development. The result: Today's oil-and-gas regions could become tomorrow's geothermal regions

The energy supply chain takeaway

As geothermal deployment expands, portions of today's oil and gas supply chain may effectively become geothermal supply chains. Here’s what energy supply chain leaders should watch as geothermal expands into a viable source of reliable, around-the-clock power.

• Monitor geothermal investment activity in oil-and-gas-intensive regions where existing infrastructure and workforce expertise could accelerate development.
• Evaluate opportunities to support geothermal developers with drilling, engineering, field-service, and heavy-haul transportation capabilities.
• Investigate sourcing requirements for specialized alloys, high-temperature components, sensors, and other materials needed to operate in geothermal environments, and how those requirements differ from traditional energy projects.
• Identify where geothermal projects may create different logistics cost structures than traditional oil and gas operations, for example from less emphasis on recurring fuel transportation and greater demand for equipment, construction, and maintenance movements.

Energy security becomes the new optimization strategy

For many years, energy markets operated under a relatively simple assumption: efficiency wins. Producers chased the lowest-cost barrels, refiners optimized feedstock economics, and supply chains prioritized cost over redundancy.

Now, industry analysts and energy executives are increasingly focused on a different question: not where the cheapest barrel comes from, but where the most reliable barrel comes from.

Behind the energy security trend

Recent disruptions across the Middle East, continued attacks on energy infrastructure in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, pressure on key maritime chokepoints, and declining inventory buffers have exposed vulnerabilities in a highly optimized global energy system.

Within that context, the United States and Venezuela are reportedly discussing frameworks that could expand U.S. access to Venezuelan reserves and future production capacity.

While significant political, legal, and infrastructure hurdles remain, the discussions highlight a broader reality: Energy-consuming nations are placing greater value on supply options and geographic diversification. Large undeveloped resource bases in the Western Hemisphere are taking on relevance beyond economics alone.

Why energy security matters more today

As governments, refiners, and producers increasingly prioritize resilience alongside cost, investment decisions may begin favoring supply security, regional diversification, and long-term resource access. The result could be a gradual shift away from purely cost-optimized energy networks toward more durable and adaptable ones.

This resembles the emerging dynamic in critical minerals and rare earth elements, where policymakers increasingly view domestic and allied supply chains as strategic assets. Beyond fuel supplies, materials essential to grid infrastructure, nuclear power, advanced manufacturing, batteries, and defense technologies are becoming part of the broader energy-security conversation.

What it means for energy supply chains

• Supply-chain resilience and energy security may become more important investment criteria alongside traditional cost and efficiency metrics.
• Energy and mineral infrastructure decisions are likely to be evaluated through both economic and national-security lenses.
• Western Hemisphere energy and critical mineral assets could attract increased strategic attention as governments and industry seek geographic diversification, building more secure regional supply chains.
• Companies with visibility into evolving trade flows, infrastructure constraints, critical-mineral supply chains and regional supply risks may gain an advantage.

Tariff updates

• The September U.S.-China summit produced several announcements. Most notably, both governments said they agreed to a new "30-for-30" framework that could reduce tariffs on approximately $30 billion of non-sensitive goods. No list of goods has been released.
• The U.S. administration has expanded restrictions on trade with Iran and Russia. Increasingly, enforcement is eyeing third-country companies that finance, arrange, or otherwise facilitate prohibited trade.

For additional information on these developments, see the Trade Policy & Customs section of this report.

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