U.S. refiners are reassessing Latin American crude sourcing strategies after President Donald Trump’s administration granted Chevron the authority to resume and expand operations in Venezuela, signaling a shift in sanctions enforcement that could revive heavy crude flows to Gulf Coast plants. The change follows more than a year of tightened restrictions, during which Gulf refiners diversified rapidly to alternative suppliers including Brazil, Colombia, and Guyana crude. U.S., importing an average of 95,000 barrels per day from Guyana in the…

U.S. refiners are reassessing Latin American crude sourcing strategies after President Donald Trump’s administration granted Chevron the authority to resume and expand operations in Venezuela, signaling a shift in sanctions enforcement that could revive heavy crude flows to Gulf Coast plants. The change follows more than a year of tightened restrictions, during which Gulf refiners diversified rapidly to alternative suppliers including Brazil, Colombia, and Guyana crude. U.S., importing an average of 95,000 barrels per day from Guyana in the…

U.S. refiners are reassessing Latin American crude sourcing strategies after President Donald Trump’s administration granted Chevron the authority to resume and expand operations in Venezuela, signaling a shift in sanctions enforcement that could revive heavy crude flows to Gulf Coast plants. The change follows more than a year of tightened restrictions, during which Gulf refiners diversified rapidly to alternative suppliers including Brazil, Colombia, and Guyana crude. U.S., importing an average of 95,000 barrels per day from Guyana in the…

U.S. refiners are reassessing Latin American crude sourcing strategies after President Donald Trump’s administration granted Chevron the authority to resume and expand operations in Venezuela, signaling a shift in sanctions enforcement that could revive heavy crude flows to Gulf Coast plants. The change follows more than a year of tightened restrictions, during which Gulf refiners diversified rapidly to alternative suppliers including Brazil, Colombia, and Guyana crude. U.S., importing an average of 95,000 barrels per day from Guyana in the…

Russia is “now producing three times as much ammunition in three months as the whole of NATO is doing in a year,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte recently told the New York Times. RFE/RL and the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), an open-source intelligence group, analyzed Russian and Western weapons production to assess whether Russia really has such a large production advantage over the US and its allies and in which categories of weapons -- artillery, ammunition, tanks, aircraft, missiles, and drones, and air defense -- each side…

Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict Multiple sources have confirmed to mainstream media that Washington has quietly reauthorized Chevron to resume limited operations in Venezuela, reversing its earlier stance. Reports this week claimed that Chevron will regain access to joint venture oil flows under a tightly controlled framework allegedly designed to prevent direct financial benefit to Maduro’s regime. The license is time-bound, likely capped at six months, and excludes any royalty payments or new investments. While hardliners like Secretary…

Some of the numbers coming out of Moscow this quarter are setting off alarms in various corridors. There is some fundamental basis to this theory, but it’s also very ‘Western’ driven.  The Western theory is that we’re now seeing what happens when a military budget expands faster than the fiscal engine powering it. For the first time since the full-scale invasion began, Russia’s oil and gas revenues are not just underperforming, they’re actively undermining the Kremlin’s war strategy. Year-to-date,…

Shell has taken a final investment decision (FID) on the development of the Mina West offshore gas field in Egypt’s Mediterranean waters, a move aimed at alleviating the country’s widening domestic supply gap and reinforcing its integrated gas strategy. The announcement, made jointly with Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC), comes as Egypt struggles with LNG import dependence and declining output from legacy fields. The project, first disclosed on July 23, was further detailed Friday by Shell and industry sources.…

The chief executive of Nayara Energy, Alessandro des Dorides, has resigned abruptly amid mounting fallout from newly imposed European Union sanctions targeting the Rosneft-linked Indian refiner, according to an exclusive Reuters report. His departure comes just days after shipowners and fuel traders began withdrawing from deals with Nayara, citing compliance concerns. Sergey Denisov, a longtime Nayara executive, has been appointed CEO with immediate effect, sources confirmed to Reuters. The leadership shake-up adds more uncertainty to Nayara’s…

Oil prices continued to move higher on Friday morning in Asia, supported by renewed optimism surrounding U.S.-EU trade negotiations and expectations that Russia will restrict gasoline exports. Even reports of Chevron's return to Venezuela, which analysts estimate could add around 200,000 barrels per day to global supply, have been unable to pull prices lower. At the time of writing, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up 0.51% to $66.38 per barrel, while Brent crude gained 0.48% to $69.51 per barrel. According to diplomatic sources, trade negotiations…

As Oilprice.com reported on Thursday, the Trump administration is preparing to grant limited new authorizations to oil companies operating in Venezuela, starting with Chevron. This development marks a significant shift from the “maximum pressure” campaign that had all but paralyzed the sanctioned nation’s energy sector. The move follows months of lobbying, geopolitical developments, and a recent high-stakes prisoner exchange that helped to thaw tensions between Washington and Caracas. According to multiple sources familiar with…

Three weeks ago, U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (OBBBA)” that pretty much sounded the death knell for the nascent green hydrogen sector. Whereas OBBBA did not outright cancel the Section 45V clean hydrogen production tax credits as earlier feared, it did accelerate the deadline for projects to begin construction to be eligible for the credit, bringing the deadline forward to December 31, 2027 from January 1, 2033 as originally envisioned in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of…

Lower demand for crude oil from refiners at home gave a boost to U.S. exports of the commodity, turning it into a net exporter to OPEC member Nigeria in two of the seven months since the start of this year. The news comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which said this week that the United States exported more crude oil to Nigeria in February and March than it imported from it. The specific focus on Nigeria is because of the new Dangote refinery that went into operation recently. A much-needed processing facility in the West African…

For decades, China has dominated critical minerals, with Canada and the US, among other nations, all too willing to let Beijing do the mining and/ or processing and sell the end-products, such as rare earth magnets, back to the West. Thanks to its technological prowess in refining, and its willingness to forgo environmental safeguards, China has established itself as the leader in the critical mineral processing business. But Washington has finally begun to recognize its critical minerals vulnerability. An executive order signed on March 20 by…

Donald Trump’s tariffs are (as of now) set to go into effect on August 1. One of the primary targets of these tariffs is China, Trump’s primary political and economic rival. But not only will the tariffs – which have been negotiated down to 30 percent  from Trump’s April threat of 145 percent – not have much of an adverse impact on China’s economy or trade volumes, it will likely provide a significant boost to both as countries around the world are incentivized to trade with Beijing rather than Washington. …

After nearly three years of lurching between panic and euphoria, U.S. natural gas markets are finally catching their breath. Volatility in the Henry Hub front-month futures contract—a key benchmark for U.S. gas prices—has fallen sharply in the first half of 2025, signaling a return to something resembling stability. According to newly released data from Bloomberg and highlighted by the EIA, annualized volatility dropped from a frothy 81% in Q4 2024 to 69% by mid-2025. While that’s still elevated compared to pre-2022 norms, it’s…

After nearly three years of lurching between panic and euphoria, U.S. natural gas markets are finally catching their breath. Volatility in the Henry Hub front-month futures contract—a key benchmark for U.S. gas prices—has fallen sharply in the first half of 2025, signaling a return to something resembling stability. According to newly released data from Bloomberg and highlighted by the EIA, annualized volatility dropped from a frothy 81% in Q4 2024 to 69% by mid-2025. While that’s still elevated compared to pre-2022 norms, it’s…

After nearly three years of lurching between panic and euphoria, U.S. natural gas markets are finally catching their breath. Volatility in the Henry Hub front-month futures contract—a key benchmark for U.S. gas prices—has fallen sharply in the first half of 2025, signaling a return to something resembling stability. According to newly released data from Bloomberg and highlighted by the EIA, annualized volatility dropped from a frothy 81% in Q4 2024 to 69% by mid-2025. While that’s still elevated compared to pre-2022 norms, it’s…

A poster held by a protester in Kyiv captured the anger and disbelief many Ukrainians are feeling after parliament passed a bill -– swiftly signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy -– that critics say will curb the independence of two key anti-corruption agencies and badly set back the country’s hard-won progress toward democracy and the rule of law. "This is not the future my brother died for,” it read. In just a few words, that message touched on at least a dozen years of Ukraine’s tumultuous recent history, from…

Electricity generation in the United States hit a record high in the first half of the year, as power demand is growing with data center expansion. Electricity provided by utilities in the U.S. rose by 4% in January to June, to an all-time high of 2,188 terawatt hours (TWh) for the period, according to data from clean energy think tank Ember cited by Reuters columnist Gavin Maguire. Fossil fuels continued to supply more than half—or 54.8%—of all electricity. Clean sources held a record-high 45.2% share of electricity generation, up…