State-owned firm QatarEnergy has extended the force majeure on LNG deliveries to the end of the year, leaving Europe and Asia without certain term supply heading into the winter, in a move that drove European natural gas prices to the highest level since the autumn of 2022.  Italy’s gas importer and energy provider Edison said it had received a notice from QatarEnergy confirming the extension of the force majeure on deliveries – in force since April 2026 – until the end of the year.  QatarEnergy has informed Edison that…

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers has warned American banks, port authorities, and fuel-industry groups against facilitating imports of Russian diesel, raising the prospect of congressional investigations and legal action over President Donald Trump’s decision to ease restrictions on Russian fuel. In letters sent to the chief executives of major US banks and the heads of several port authorities, the lawmakers warned that importing Russian diesel could violate federal law and expose companies to civil and criminal liability. They also said…

Surging tanker rates amid the oil and shipping crisis helped Saudi Arabia’s shipping giant Bahri post a tenfold jump in net profit for the third quarter from a year earlier. Bahri booked a net profit of $1.36 billion (5.1 billion Saudi riyals) for the third quarter, ten times higher than the profit of $137 million (513 million riyals) for the same period in 2025, driven in particular by the Bahri Oil business unit, the Saudi shipping firm said on Wednesday. Compared to the second quarter, Bahri’s profit surged by 85%, the results showed,…

Surging tanker rates amid the oil and shipping crisis helped Saudi Arabia’s shipping giant Bahri post a tenfold jump in net profit for the third quarter from a year earlier. Bahri booked a net profit of $1.36 billion (5.1 billion Saudi riyals) for the third quarter, ten times higher than the profit of $137 million (513 million riyals) for the same period in 2025, driven in particular by the Bahri Oil business unit, the Saudi shipping firm said on Wednesday. Compared to the second quarter, Bahri’s profit surged by 85%, the results showed,…

China’s ongoing weaponization of rare earths, which has now been bolstered to include measures to keep individuals with sensitive technological knowledge from leaving the country, gives it leverage over a $1.5 trillion U.S. civilian economy that depends on permanent magnets. The Pentagon has spent years preparing for life without Chinese rare earths, but the civilian economy hasn't. IMF researchers identified 34 sectors of the U.S. economy with direct exposure to rare earth supply disruptions, while the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates…

Americans are paying the biggest portion of global energy price inflation resulting from the war in the Middle East, a Finnish energy and climate outlet has reported. Estimating the global total in fuel inflation at $468 billion, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air said the U.S. portion of this total stood at $160 billion. On a per-capita basis, Americans are also paying the most, CREA also said, estimating their additional costs at $471 per person, while the global total has been estimated at an average of $60. The fact that this is…

The announcement by India’s largest private refiner Reliance Industries Ltd that it is open to collaborating with U.S. companies across oil, gas and clean energy, including in Venezuela, is a welcome signal to Washington that all is not lost in its ongoing attempts to utilise the Asian subcontinent as a key economic, political and military counterpoint to China’s dominance across the Asia-Pacific region. It also comes at a time when New Delhi has become an increasingly important support mechanism for Russia, both economically and geopolitically.…

Turkey has finally gotten both sides of a divided Libya to sign the maritime map it has pushed for seven years. Ankara signed the boundary deal with Libya’s Tripoli government in 2019, and the rival parliament in the east rejected it in 2020. On October 20, that same parliament, the Haftar-aligned House of Representatives in Benghazi, ratified the deal unanimously. Both of Libya’s governments now recognize a boundary that runs between Crete and Cyprus, leaving Greek islands in the area with no sea beyond their territorial waters. Ankara…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 2.031 million barrels in the week ending October 23. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories fell by a staggering 4.93 million barrels. Commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR have lost more than 58 million barrels over the last 28 weeks, but US crude inventories are still only 7 million below where they were at the beginning of the year, according to API data, kept in check in part thanks to draws from the SPR. For the week ending…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 2.031 million barrels in the week ending October 23. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories fell by a staggering 4.93 million barrels. Commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR have lost more than 58 million barrels over the last 28 weeks, but US crude inventories are still only 7 million below where they were at the beginning of the year, according to API data, kept in check in part thanks to draws from the SPR. For the week ending…

Wall Street has spent the last three weeks punishing the companies that build and equip AI data centers, which would make more sense if anyone could point to the orders drying up. As of Friday, that group was down a median 23% since the S&P 500’s record close on Oct. 6, while the Big Tech companies actually writing the checks were down only 5%. A dozen of the biggest builders and power suppliers lost more than $300 billion in market value over the stretch, including $54 billion at GE Vernova, $30 billion at Eaton and $25 billion at Quanta…

The diesel crunch is set to persist well into 2027 as supply remains limited by the Middle East conflict and the damaged Russian refineries, analysts say. Attempts at transient small supply-side solutions like the Trump-Putin diesel deal are not expected to move the needle in the very tight global market. Until refineries in the Middle East, damaged by Iranian strikes, return to full operations, oil product flows through the Strait of Hormuz recover, and Russia’s diesel exports rebound, the world’s supply of diesel will remain below…

Russia's crude exports from its western ports could fall by as much as 200,000 barrels per day in November as refiners increase diesel production under Moscow's new agreement with Washington, according to preliminary loading schedules cited by Reuters on Tuesday. Two traders expect shipments from Russia's Baltic and Black Sea ports to decline by 100,000 to 200,000 bpd from October. The estimates include Kazakh crude transported through Russian pipelines. Russian refineries have increased processing since the October 9 diesel agreement between Presidents…

Russia's crude exports from its western ports could fall by as much as 200,000 barrels per day in November as refiners increase diesel production under Moscow's new agreement with Washington, according to preliminary loading schedules cited by Reuters on Tuesday. Two traders expect shipments from Russia's Baltic and Black Sea ports to decline by 100,000 to 200,000 bpd from October. The estimates include Kazakh crude transported through Russian pipelines. Russian refineries have increased processing since the October 9 diesel agreement between Presidents…

Russia's crude exports from its western ports could fall by as much as 200,000 barrels per day in November as refiners increase diesel production under Moscow's new agreement with Washington, according to preliminary loading schedules cited by Reuters on Tuesday. Two traders expect shipments from Russia's Baltic and Black Sea ports to decline by 100,000 to 200,000 bpd from October. The estimates include Kazakh crude transported through Russian pipelines. Russian refineries have increased processing since the October 9 diesel agreement between Presidents…

Good news.  Electric grid reliability was a lot better in 2025 than in 2024. But one swallow does not make a spring, as Aristotle noted, a number of years ago. Grid reliability, we believe, has been trending downward since the turn of the century, that is, since deregulation really got rolling. Okay, you could argue, as a good logician, that this is an example of a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, that is, because event B took place after event A must mean that A caused B.  We admit that. We’re just pointing out the chronology,…

Saudi Aramco is offering additional crude to European refiners for October and November loading, just weeks after telling customers they would receive no oil under their October contracts following an attack on the kingdom's East-West pipeline. The Saudi oil giant offered late-October spot cargoes at a discount to its official selling price, according to Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter. The shipments were available from either the Red Sea port of Yanbu or Sidi Kerir on Egypt's Mediterranean coast. Aramco followed those offers…

Saudi Aramco is offering additional crude to European refiners for October and November loading, just weeks after telling customers they would receive no oil under their October contracts following an attack on the kingdom's East-West pipeline. The Saudi oil giant offered late-October spot cargoes at a discount to its official selling price, according to Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter. The shipments were available from either the Red Sea port of Yanbu or Sidi Kerir on Egypt's Mediterranean coast. Aramco followed those offers…

Kazakhstan marked perhaps the high point of its presidentially proclaimed “year of artificial intelligence” with a visit by technology titan, Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, who said the Central Asian state has the potential to become “a global hub for Physical AI.” Huang and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev met on October 23 for talks aimed at bolstering collaboration between the chipmaking giant and Kazakh companies. Huang praised the Kazakh tech ecosystem as possessing all the prerequisites to become an AI…

Brent holds near $115 as Iran war tensions and escalating Saudi-Houthi hostilities keep oil markets on edge ahead of U.S. midterms. Hormuz Becomes Even More Dangerous — and More Expensive - October has seen the most acute escalation in maritime attacks since the US-Iran war started eight months ago, with already more than 30 incidents recorded in the Strait of Hormuz and surrounding waterways, up from 14 in September.    - The most recent addition to the list of maritime targets is a crude tanker in Iraq’s exclusive economic…