Estimates on the number of people who died due to the Texas winter storms and prolonged blackouts stand around 200.

As Texas plunged into darkness last month, its power markets turned to chaos. The financial repercussions of that chaos are becoming apparent now.

The polar vortex which incapacitated much of the electric grid in Texas is gone, but the financial vortex is happening now in the state and will be around for years, if not decades.

That brings the total shortfall to nearly $2.5 billion, according to a market notice.

"The entire energy sector failed Texas," said NRG Energy Inc Chief Executive Mauricio Gutierrez, who testified.

Those essentials include power for natural gas wells, processing plants and compressor facilities, but Texas Energy Reliability Council Chairman James Cisarik said keeping natural gas flowing to power plants requires operational water, communication and transportation infrastructure.

The unusually cold temperatures caused life-threatening blackouts that left millions of Texans without power for days. And although residents of that state suffered the brunt of the energy crisis, the repercussions spread across the country.

Severe cold weather in parts of the USA last week contributed to power outages affecting millions of electricity customers across Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

The power supply collapse in Texas was caused by extreme and aberrant cold weather, freezing the electric generators. The system wasn’t designed to withstand what occurred -- and what may occur elsewhere in a time of new and terrifying instability in the world’s weather systems.

Over the past six weeks, the growth in US industrial gas demand has been fueled in large part by industries in the Northeast, Texas and the Southeast, which together account for over 60% of US industrial gas consumption.

The Spanish energy group Iberdrola, through its affiliate Avangrid, has acquired PNM Resources, the power utility of New Mexico and Texas, for a total consideration of US$8.3bn.

Of the top 25 solar power generating facilities in the US, 15 are located in California, four in Arizona, four in Nevada and two in Texas. Four of the top five solar facilities by sales volumes reported to FERC are located in California, while one is in Arizona.

That, in turn, has prompted several lawmakers from Texas, North Dakota, Alaska and other oil states to directly lobby Saudi Arabia, stressing the two countries' decades-long ties.

Brent crude oil spot prices will average $65 per barrel (b) in 2020 and $68/b in 2021, compared with an average of $64/b in 2019. EIA expects West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices will average about $5.50/b lower than Brent prices through 2020 and 2021, compared with an average WTI discount of about $7.35/b in 2019.

Enter the Distribution Fault Anticipation, or DFA for short. Developed by a team of researchers at Texas A&M, the DFA is a suite of technology designed to monitor grid systems and identify potential problems before they happen. More specifically, it’s a distributed computing system that works autonomously to give operators a non-stop picture of the condition of each circuit.

Brent crude oil spot prices averaged $63 per barrel (b) in November, up $3/b from October. EIA forecasts Brent spot prices will average $61/b in 2020, down from a 2019 average of $64/b. EIA forecasts that West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices will average $5.50/b less than Brent prices in 2020. EIA expects crude oil prices will be lower on average in 2020 than in 2019 because of forecast rising global oil inventories, particularly in the first half of next year.

Brent crude oil spot prices averaged $60 per barrel (b) in October, down $3/b from September and down $21/b from October 2018. EIA forecasts Brent spot prices will average $60/b in 2020, down from a 2019 average of $64/b. EIA forecasts that West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices will average $5.50/b less than Brent prices in 2020. EIA expects crude oil prices will be lower on average in 2020 than in 2019 because of forecast rising global oil inventories, particularly in the first half of next year.

Brent crude was up 27 cents, or 0.4%, at $59.89 a barrel, West Texas Intermediate crude rose 32 cents to $54.50 a barrel,

Brent crude was down 32 cents, or 0.‮‮5‬‬%, at $61.7‮‮0‬‬ a barrel by ‮‮0‬‬933 GMT, having gained more than 4% last week, its best weekly gain since Sept. 20. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was down 33 cents, or 0.6%, at $56.33 a barrel, after rising more than 5% last week, also the biggest weekly increase since Sept. 20.

UAE is the leading Arab investor in the US, while noting that the value of the non-oil trade doubled over the past decade, reaching some AED90 billion (US$24.5 billion) in 2018, and explaining that the UAE trades with almost all US states, especially Washington, California, Texas, Florida and New York.