Nuclear reactor developer X-energy priced its initial public offering at $23 per share on Thursday, raising $1.02 billion in an upsized offering that came in above the marketed range of $16 to $19, with shares beginning trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on April 24 under the ticker symbol "XE."

The small modular reactor company backed by tech giant Amazon surged by roughly 27% on its trading debut on Nasdaq , signaling that Wall Street's appetite for nuclear power has moved well beyond the speculative phase.

X-energy has a deal with Dow to provide heat and power to a chemical plant in Texas and another with Amazon to sell as much as 5 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2039 , according to TechCrunch. The company has yet to begin construction on any of its reactor facilities, but it already has an order pipeline of more than 11 gigawatts thanks to partnerships with companies including Amazon, Dow and Centrica , CNBC reported. The IPO's success reflects a broader shift: hyperscalers with rapidly growing AI compute footprints are making long-dated, utility-scale power purchase agreements with nuclear developers because no other technology can reliably deliver carbon-free baseload electricity at the scale and predictability that AI infrastructure requires .

Oil Crisis Hits Far Beyond the Pump

While nuclear developers celebrate, the ongoing Iran war continues to send shockwaves through global energy markets and far beyond. As of midday Friday, Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading at $105 a barrel, up 44% since before the war started , CBS News reported. According to market data, WTI Crude traded at $71.50 per barrel on Friday, up 0.6%, while Brent Crude stood at $75.20 per barrel, up 0.5%.

Procter & Gamble warned of a roughly $1 billion hit to its fiscal 2027 profit from surging oil prices due to the Middle East conflict, with finance chief Andre Schulten saying "A lot of our materials are petrol-based, so with oil at around $100, there's a significant impact in terms of input cost" on a media call, according to ESM Magazine. The Pampers and Tide maker's estimated profit hit is among the highest outside of airlines, which rely heavily on oil for fuel , Reuters reported.

The conflict has caused the restriction of nearly all traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, leading to what the International Energy Agency has characterised as the "largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market" . The EIA estimates that Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain collectively shut in 7.5 million barrels per day of crude oil production in March, with production shut-ins assessed to rise to 9.1 million b/d in April .

The Aluminum Shock Nobody Saw Coming

Beyond oil, another commodity crisis is unfolding with less fanfare but potentially deeper consequences. Mercuria commodities analyst Nick Snowdon told Reuters "The scale of the supply shock we're seeing in the aluminum market is probably the largest single supply shock a base metals market has suffered in the post-2000 era" .

The Gulf states produce roughly 10% of the world's aluminum and rely mostly on the Strait of Hormuz to move it globally, but that has ground to a halt since the war began late February and Iran effectively shut down traffic through the strait, says Ross Strachan, head of aluminum raw materials at CRU, which specializes in the metals industry , NPR reported. The price of aluminum hit a four-year high last week because of Iranian and U.S. blockades of the Strait of Hormuz .

The Gulf supplies 9% of the world's aluminum, and Mercuria sees at least a 2 million-ton deficit by year-end against just 3 million tons of total global stock, with Goldman and JPMorgan echoing the warning and JPMorgan saying the market is heading for a 'prolonged supply outage' even if shipping through Hormuz resumes soon , according to OilPrice.com.

Natural Gas Takes a Different Path

While oil and aluminum prices surge, natural gas is telling a completely different story. According to market data, Henry Hub Natural Gas traded at $3.25/MMBtu on Friday, down 2.4%. Working gas in storage was 2,063 Bcf as of Friday, April 17, 2026, according to EIA estimates, representing a net increase of 103 Bcf from the previous week .

US natural gas futures fell to $2.57 per MMBtu, reaching their lowest since October 2024, pressured by ample storage levels and continued strong injections into inventories, with a federal report showing utilities added 103 billion cubic feet of gas to storage for the week ended April 17, above expectations , according to Trading Economics. Mild spring weather has kept heating demand subdued, allowing above-normal injections and pushing total inventories to about 7.1% above typical levels .

The divergence creates an unusual dynamic. The widening spread between domestic and international prices as a result of continued disruptions to LNG exports through the Strait of Hormuz encourages increased LNG exports from the United States, although capacity is constrained , the EIA noted in its Short-Term Energy Outlook.

What This Means for Energy Markets

The energy landscape is fragmenting in ways that defy simple narratives. Nuclear power is attracting billion-dollar investments as data centers scramble for reliable electricity. Oil markets remain elevated and volatile, with geopolitical risks showing no signs of abating. Aluminum faces what traders are calling a generational supply shock. And natural gas prices are sinking under the weight of oversupply, even as global LNG markets tighten.

While economists forecast that oil prices will dip later this year, they are likely to remain above pre-war levels throughout 2026, with Lydia Boussour, a senior economist at EY-Parthenon, noting the "lingering impacts" of the war and saying "Our view is that full normalization will still take time, especially when it comes to supply chains, when it comes to energy capacity" , CBS News reported.

For companies navigating this environment, the message is clear: energy costs are no longer just an input to manage—they're a strategic variable that can swing profits by billions of dollars and reshape entire supply chains in a matter of weeks.