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Crypto World

World has ‘never experienced’ refining margins like this

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Watch CNBC's full interview with TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné
Watch CNBC's full interview with TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné

Roughly 15% of TotalEnergies’ production is offline, as the war with Iran nears the one-month mark, but surging oil prices have more than made up for the lost barrels, chairman and CEO Patrick Pouyanné told CNBC in an exclusive interview.

With Brent crude trading solidly above $100 a barrel, much of the attention has focused on oil prices, but Pouyanné said the crisis is having a much larger impact on product prices.

“The Brent market is ok, but the products market, which is the one which impacts customers … is much higher than Brent,” he told CNBC at S&P Global’s CERAWeek energy conference in Houston. He added, the world has “never experienced” refining margins from products including Asian jet fuel at current levels. In addition to petroleum products, about 30% of global fertilizer moves through the Strait of Hormuz, jeopardizing the spring planting season.

TotalEnergies is a major player in the global LNG market, including the largest exporter of U.S. LNG. The CEO said the company can still fulfill customer orders in Europe and Asia thanks to its diversified global portfolio. 

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Last week, QatarEnergy said its Ras Laffan plant suffered “extensive damage” following Iranian drone attacks, effectively taking 20% of global LNG supply offline. The shutdown has sent natural gas prices in Europe and Asia surging.

Pouyanné expects prices could move substantially higher if the war drags on through the summer, since Asian demand rises over the summer just as Europe looks to refill storage. European natural gas traded around $18 per million British thermal units Tuesday, but Pouyanné said prices could hit $40/MMBtu over the summer if the conflict continues.

TotalEnergies is a major investor in U.S. energy. On Monday, it struck a deal with the Trump administration to abandon its offshore wind projects in return for $1 billion. The company agreed to reinvest the money into U.S. oil and gas projects instead.

The federal government is key for offshore wind permitting, and the current administration has been a vocal critic of the industry. Pouyanné said he did not want to litigate with the administration over its offshore wind leases – acquired under former President Joe Biden – and so approached the administration with a deal. He added that in the U.S. offshore wind no longer makes sense given cheaper alternatives.

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“In the specific situation of the U.S., where you have a lot of land, you have a lot of gas, you have a lot of coal, you have a lot of land to build onshore solar, onshore wind, batteries, we don’t need to have offshore wind,” he said. “It’s a marginal technology, which is not affordable.”

“I prefer to allocate my capital to technologies which are more efficient, which give affordable electricity to customers,” he said.

As part of its expanding U.S. portfolio, TotalEnergies recently inked a 15-year agreement with Google to supply renewable power for data centers. Pouyanné said other hyperscalers – including Amazon and Microsoft – are now speaking to TotalEnergies directly. 

“These hyperscalers have understood that an energy company – like TotalEnergies –  because we have also capacity, not only to build, to invest, to have land, to trade, we were quite a good partner for them,” he said.

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Crypto World

21shares Says Active Products Are Next Phase for Crypto ETPs

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21shares Says Active Products Are Next Phase for Crypto ETPs

Crypto asset manager 21shares sees actively managed exchange-traded products as the next phase of crypto investing, as the market matures beyond simple price-tracking funds.

Duncan Moir, president of 21shares, told Cointelegraph in an exclusive interview that because crypto is a nascent and growing asset class, it is particularly well suited to active management.

He said the company combines bottom-up research on individual assets with quantitative and discretionary top-down strategies to manage risk and position portfolios, adding that 21shares has been expanding its portfolio management and trading teams to support more sophisticated products.

We’ve had to hire and build out the team with people who have different trading and portfolio management expertise, but now we have a solid team and we think we’ll be able to deliver strong actively managed products.

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Active ETFs worldwide held nearly $1.8 trillion in assets at the end of 2025, according to data compiled by Morningstar and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Moir added that integration with FalconX, which acquired 21shares in October, is expected to accelerate product development, particularly as the company expands into more complex offerings.

Demand for crypto ETPs and ETFs varies by region, Moir told Cointelegraph. He said: 

The interest is still concentrated in the larger coins in the US. In Europe, institutional clients are more interested in newer assets and the application layer beyond the layer-1s.

He attributed the divergence to a more mature investor base in Europe, where institutions that already hold Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) are increasingly looking to expand their crypto allocations. 

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Against that backdrop, 21shares recently launched an exchange-traded product in Europe linked to Strategy’s preferred stock (STRC), offering exposure to a high-yield instrument linked to the company’s Bitcoin-focused capital strategy. 

Moir said the product has seen strong early demand across multiple regions, reflecting investor appetite for yield-generating assets that are easier to access through traditional brokerage platforms.

Related: Crypto ETF inflows slow to $230M as Fed caution dents momentum: CoinShares

Crypto ETPs evolve beyond passive exposure

As the crypto ETP and ETF market matures, issuers are moving beyond simple price tracking, with more complex structures emerging across the US and Europe.

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One area gaining traction is staking, a process that allows investors to earn yield by locking up crypto assets to help secure blockchain networks. In October, Grayscale introduced staking across its ETPs, making its Ether funds the first US-listed spot crypto ETFs to offer staking rewards while extending the feature to its Solana trust pending ETP approval.

In March, asset manager BlackRock launched a Nasdaq-listed Ethereum product that incorporates staking, combining spot Ether exposure with yield generation. The fund recorded $15.5 million in trading volume on its first day.