US and Turkmen diplomats focused on expanding trans-Caspian connectivity and promoting energy export diversification during annual consultations in Ashgabat. Turkmen officials are signaling a strong desire to improve trade ties with both South Asia and the West, while maintaining the country’s long-standing status as a neutral state. Visiting US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia S. Paul Kapur met November 3 with Turkmenistan’s paramount leader, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, before holding comprehensive discussions…

U.S. refineries are producing a smaller share of gasoline from every barrel of crude oil they process and shifting production efforts toward diesel and jet fuel as soaring margins on those products reshape the economics of American refining. Gasoline yields averaged below 45% during the first eight months of 2026, falling below the previous five-year low in every month, according to data published Thursday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). That's a significant departure for a refining industry that typically produces 45 to 50…

Tight global oil supplies, compounded by fears of further U.S. strikes against Iran, are stoking concerns over a potential oil price super-spike. Global petroleum inventories are shrinking, while U.S. fuel prices surge to historic highs, fueling inflation and intensifying pressure on the economy. As Middle East tensions disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for one-fifth of global oil supplies, Guyana’s petroleum output continues to expand, helping to mitigate supply constraints and the risk of significantly higher prices.…

Turkey targets total investments of $500 billion in energy infrastructure in its new energy plan to 2040, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Alparslan Bayraktar, said on Thursday, as the country looks to boost its energy independence and eventually become energy independent. In recent years, Turkey has been paying up to $70 billion to import energy, including coal, oil, and gas. The new energy plan looks to slash the import bill while strengthening the homegrown resources, including gas in the Black Sea and a fourfold jump in installed solar…

Turkey targets total investments of $500 billion in energy infrastructure in its new energy plan to 2040, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Alparslan Bayraktar, said on Thursday, as the country looks to boost its energy independence and eventually become energy independent. In recent years, Turkey has been paying up to $70 billion to import energy, including coal, oil, and gas. The new energy plan looks to slash the import bill while strengthening the homegrown resources, including gas in the Black Sea and a fourfold jump in installed solar…

Turkey targets total investments of $500 billion in energy infrastructure in its new energy plan to 2040, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Alparslan Bayraktar, said on Thursday, as the country looks to boost its energy independence and eventually become energy independent. In recent years, Turkey has been paying up to $70 billion to import energy, including coal, oil, and gas. The new energy plan looks to slash the import bill while strengthening the homegrown resources, including gas in the Black Sea and a fourfold jump in installed solar…

In a significant, albeit underreported development for global energy, and for the US-Iran standoff in the Persian Gulf, the Iranian parliament has this week announced it is exempting several key trading partners from its oil transit restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz. The move was first unveiled Tuesday by Ahmad Hayat-Moghaddam, Vice Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, at a moment when Iranian export flows are struggling under the many months-long US naval blockade of the country's ports.…

The European Union neither wants nor has any plans to resume purchases of Russian gas, EU diplomats told EUobserver as European, U.S., and Ukrainian officials are meeting in Brussels to discuss post-war recovery in Ukraine ahead of next week’s US-Ukraine-Russia negotiations in Abu Dhabi.  “We don’t see any rationale at the moment to ease sanctions or restrictions on Russia, in any sector,” an EU diplomat told EUobserver. “On the contrary, in light of the barbaric and cynical attacks on Ukrainian civilians and…

The European Union neither wants nor has any plans to resume purchases of Russian gas, EU diplomats told EUobserver as European, U.S., and Ukrainian officials are meeting in Brussels to discuss post-war recovery in Ukraine ahead of next week’s US-Ukraine-Russia negotiations in Abu Dhabi.  “We don’t see any rationale at the moment to ease sanctions or restrictions on Russia, in any sector,” an EU diplomat told EUobserver. “On the contrary, in light of the barbaric and cynical attacks on Ukrainian civilians and…

The landslide victory by Democrats in US midterm elections is expected to bring change to Congress and foreign policy in Washington. But inside Iran, many officials said they expect the country will remain in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump, even if the vote has left him weaker. As the results poured in late on November 3, showing Democrats had taken control of both the House of Representatives and Senate from their Republican rivals, Trump admitted the war he launched on Iran on the last day of February had taken a toll on his party.…

The benchmark European natural gas prices fell by 2% in the early morning in Amsterdam on Thursday, extending Wednesday’s decline, after the resounding Democratic victory in the U.S. midterm elections raised hopes of a resolution to the Iran war and a return of LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz.  The front-month price at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF), the benchmark for Europe’s gas trading, fell by 2.2% as of 9 a.m. in Amsterdam on Thursday, as energy markets hope the path forward to the Iran war could be pursuit…

Energy buyers burned by the Strait of Hormuz are turning to Africa, and the money is following. The African Energy Chamber projects that Africa’s upstream sector will attract ~$40 billion a year through 2030, lifting the continent’s hydrocarbon output to 12.5 MMboe/d. Mozambique, Nigeria, Angola, Libya and Ivory Coast will take the largest shares of that capital, while new projects in Uganda, Kenya and Namibia expand the production base. Major offshore discoveries and a wave of upstream deals are turning Africa into the world’s…

Butane prices are surging across the world. Northwest European November butane prices have reached $1,125/t by early November, their highest level in 30 years, having exceeded even the peaks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In Asia, the AFEI butane index stood at $1,180/t on November 3. US butane Belvieu prices have climbed to a 14-year high $920/t. This surge in prices reflects several overlapping trends, with the most significant being a reorientation of global propane/butane trade flows since the US-Iran war kicked off in March.…

In an extraordinary turn of events, Qatar, the world’s second-largest LNG exporter before the Iran war, will become the biggest buyer of liquefied natural gas from the United States, the producer that overtook the Gulf nation as top LNG exporter earlier this decade. This extraordinary turn of events is, of course, the result of the extraordinary disruption that the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz inflicted on Qatar, the LNG producer whose expansion plans for the rest of this decade were rivaled only by the U.S. The war and…

Electrification will be the major focus of the upcoming COP31 United Nations climate conference, to be held in Antalya, Türkiye, from November 9 to 20, 2026. The host country will invite the attending nations to sign onto a voluntary pledge to reach 35 percent electrification on a global level by 2035. Just a year ago, this target may have seemed overly ambitious, but now, experts say that a number of factors, including volatile oil and gas markets stemming from the war in Iran, paired with enormous advances in clean energy technologies, have…

LNG spot market prices in Asia have tripled since the start of the year. Asia and Europe are locked in a race for a limited number of cargoes. The U.S. is exporting record volumes of the fuel. And QatarEnergy just extended a force majeure on its own LNG exports. The world is short on gas—and will remain so for a while. The Japan-Korea Marker, the Asian LNG benchmark, topped $31 per million British thermal units this month. In fact, the benchmark briefly rose above $33 per mmBtu, compared with a little over $9 per mmBtu in January this year.…

The United Arab Emirates currently operates one crude export pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz and announced earlier this year that it was building a second. A third pipeline is reportedly being planned to further expand crude capacity and reroute energy flows around Hormuz, reducing exposure to Iranian disruption and weakening Tehran's leverage over the critical maritime chokepoint. Bloomberg reported Wednesday morning that Abu Dhabi’s state-owned energy giant, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., is weighing plans for a third pipeline…

The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts shows signs of an early disruption of the Arctic polar vortex that could send cold air into Northwest Europe as the energy-stricken continent faces a very thin supply buffer before the Northern Hemisphere winter gathers pace. We are officially in uncharted territory. The Polar Vortex is currently the weakest it’s ever been for the date and is headed for the crucial 0 line over the next day or so. If it gets to a value of 0 or lower, it will officially be the earliest Sudden Stratospheric…

Brent fell $8.94, or 8.6%, to $94.66 per barrel at 1:06 p.m. ET on Wednesday, after touching its lowest level since September 4, with traders pricing an end to the Iran war after the White House tied Tuesday’s midterm losses to the conflict. WTI dropped $8.01, or 8.3%, to $88.08. Brent traded near $118 on Friday. Trump told Fox News on Tuesday night that “I think it’s the gasoline price” when explaining the Republican defeat. Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that the war was the reason for the losses, and that “any…

Brent fell $8.94, or 8.6%, to $94.66 per barrel at 1:06 p.m. ET on Wednesday, after touching its lowest level since September 4, with traders pricing an end to the Iran war after the White House tied Tuesday’s midterm losses to the conflict. WTI dropped $8.01, or 8.3%, to $88.08. Brent traded near $118 on Friday. Trump told Fox News on Tuesday night that “I think it’s the gasoline price” when explaining the Republican defeat. Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that the war was the reason for the losses, and that “any…