The most powerful leaders inside Iran today arose from the ashes of the Iran-Iraq War, which locked in and solidified the Islamic Republic, whose leadership was built through war, security structures, and internal control. Right now, in the chaos, multiple centers of power are acting at once, and that is necessarily affecting negotiations. Those at the table do not fully control what they are allowed to negotiate, and positions are being set and reset in real time (much like they are in Washington).The key figures to watch: Mojtaba Khamenei, the…

Oil markets didn’t just rally this week; they repriced risk in a way that forced traders to adjust positioning quickly. What began as a recovery from prior weakness turned into a sharp geopolitical premium build, with supply disruption fears taking control of both WTI and Brent. By Thursday night, Weekly June WTI crude is trading $96.91, up $14.32 (+17.34%), a move that reflects more than momentum and signals a structural shift in how the market is pricing near-term supply risk. Geopolitical Premium Drives Breakout in WTI and Brent The early…

India's government has urged local refiners to increase production of liquefied petroleum gas—the country's main cooking fuel, amid the supply crunch resulting from the war in the Middle East. Bloomberg reported today that India's production of LPG since February 28th had gone up by 25% to 46,000 tons per day. Local output is on course to rise further to 50,000 tons daily after Nayara Energy's refinery restarts after seasonal maintenance next month. A separate report, meanwhile, suggested refiners will be losing money on the crank-up of LPG…

India's government has urged local refiners to increase production of liquefied petroleum gas—the country's main cooking fuel, amid the supply crunch resulting from the war in the Middle East. Bloomberg reported today that India's production of LPG since February 28th had gone up by 25% to 46,000 tons per day. Local output is on course to rise further to 50,000 tons daily after Nayara Energy's refinery restarts after seasonal maintenance next month. A separate report, meanwhile, suggested refiners will be losing money on the crank-up of LPG…

Pakistan’s government is looking to buy crude oil from Russia, Venezuela, and Nigeria to replace lost supply from the Middle East, Pakistan Today reports, adding that the government is also seeking LNG cargoes. Pakistan has suffered a substantial hit from the energy price surge following the start of the war between the United States and Israel, and Iran, seeing record-high fuel import price premiums and a gas crunch that has led to blackouts. To address the problem, the government in Islamabad is turning to alternative suppliers of both…

Crude oil prices extended their gaining streak to five days today, with Brent crude trading at $106.30 per barrel at the time of writing and West Texas Intermediate at $96.68 per barrel. Bloomberg attributed the continued price rise to President Trump’s latest social media posts, which suggest the prospect of peace with Iran remains distant. The publication cited two unnamed U.S. government officials as saying that the U.S. president’s recent social media activity and the continuing blockade of Iranian ports have not been conducive…

Investment in new lithium supply is threatening to tip the global market for the battery metal into a deficit, beginning as early as this year. The warning comes from Canaccord, which noted that the supply of lithium has tightened considerably, even as demand for electric vehicles has weakened. What’s more, the deficit may last for quite a while, until 2035. Lithium is a rather abundant element, but deposits are concentrated in a handful of locations, commonly referred to as the Lithium Triangle locked between Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile.…

Last year, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) approved its 2023 Net-Zero Framework that set a target to eliminate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the global shipping industry by 2050. The framework consists of a Global Fuel Standard that requires ships to gradually reduce the GHG Fuel Intensity (GFI) of the energy they use as well as a Pricing Mechanism whereby ships exceeding GFI thresholds are required to pay for remedial units while ships that use zero or near-zero (ZNZ) fuels can earn surplus units to trade or bank in the future.…

Faced with the second energy crisis this decade, the European Union aims to reduce dependence on natural gas, coordinate gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel supplies, and accelerate renewable energy capacity installations. The European Commission on Wednesday unveiled proposals aimed at protecting Europeans from the fossil energy crisis and accelerating the shift to clean, homegrown energy. “For the second time in less than five years, Europeans are paying the price of Europe's dependency on imported fossil fuels,” the Commission says. The…

The global energy crisis could be fomenting a massive surge of clean energy tech adoption and innovation as countries around the world scramble to replace the fossil fuel imports they typically depend on. Thanks to the lengthy closure of the Strait of Hormuz – Tehran's response to the United States' and Israel's attack on Iran – the cost of oil and gas has skyrocketed in global markets as competition heats up over increasingly scarce supplies. This market shock is providing fresh incentive for a rapid clean energy transition, as home-grown…

Green energy equities are continuing their growth phase, supported by geopolitical disruption and structural demand shifts, although the recovery remains incomplete and uneven across segments and companies. After losing nearly 60% of its value between its 2021 peak and the November 2023 trough, the Rystad Energy Green Energy Index has rebounded, returning almost 40% over the prior year and 9% in the first quarter this year. The index stands at around 88 (versus a January 2021 baseline of 100), still roughly 38% below its 2021 peak, but over a year…

Back in the last century, smart alecks said that commercial fusion would always be 50 years in the future. Now, energy consultant Wood Mackenzie has taken to discussing developments in nuclear fusion as if they might not be far off. A big change in view, considering that even recently, experts figured that harnessing nuclear fusion for commercial purposes was at least fifteen years away. In fact, the best-known international fusion effort, the ITER project based in France, projects an in-service date for its fusion reactor in the early 2040s (fifteen…

The voluntary carbon market (VCM) covers less than one-half percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It remains very small after many years of development and reform. It is recovering from a downturn after press revelations of overproduction of credits in Indonesia and elsewhere. The quality of credits, their actual accounting for removal or avoidance of 1 metric ton per credit, is a constant concern. Yet this small market plays an important niche role in testing methods and technologies. And it might become increasingly important as it…

Canada’s pledge to contribute 23.6 million barrels of oil to the International Energy Agency’s coordinated release will add little new supply to an already tight market because the volumes are not incremental, BMO Capital Markets said in an interview with Bloomberg, adding that the barrels in question were coming from production growth that was already in motion before the Iran-driven disruption. “It’s not really a function of what’s happening in Iran or any request from the federal government to say, what can we contribute…

Phillips 66 has shipped crude oil from Texas to the U.S. East Coast on a foreign-flagged tanker, the first such cargo since Washington waived the Jones Act last month, Kpler ship-tracking data shows. The Bakken crude was loaded in early April at a Phillips 66 terminal in Beaumont, Texas, onto the Malta-flagged Htm Warrior. The vessel is destined to carry the cargo to the Trainer oil refinery in Pennsylvania, owned by Delta Air Lines subsidiary Monroe Energy. The long-standing Jones Act requires that cargo moving between U.S. ports travel on vessels…

Canada’s pledge to contribute 23.6 million barrels of oil to the International Energy Agency’s coordinated release will add little new supply to an already tight market because the volumes are not incremental, BMO Capital Markets said in an interview with Bloomberg, adding that the barrels in question were coming from production growth that was already in motion before the Iran-driven disruption. “It’s not really a function of what’s happening in Iran or any request from the federal government to say, what can we contribute…

Phillips 66 has shipped crude oil from Texas to the U.S. East Coast on a foreign-flagged tanker, the first such cargo since Washington waived the Jones Act last month, Kpler ship-tracking data shows. The Bakken crude was loaded in early April at a Phillips 66 terminal in Beaumont, Texas, onto the Malta-flagged Htm Warrior. The vessel is destined to carry the cargo to the Trainer oil refinery in Pennsylvania, owned by Delta Air Lines subsidiary Monroe Energy. The long-standing Jones Act requires that cargo moving between U.S. ports travel on vessels…

Canada’s pledge to contribute 23.6 million barrels of oil to the International Energy Agency’s coordinated release will add little new supply to an already tight market because the volumes are not incremental, BMO Capital Markets said in an interview with Bloomberg, adding that the barrels in question were coming from production growth that was already in motion before the Iran-driven disruption. “It’s not really a function of what’s happening in Iran or any request from the federal government to say, what can we contribute…

Every time oil prices rise, Europe falls into the same familiar cycle. Politicians promise relief, analysts debate OPEC strategy, governments consider subsidies, and consumers prepare for higher transport and heating costs. It is a ritual of crisis management that assumes one thing above all else: oil will remain central, and Europe’s role is simply to cope with the consequences. China is taking a different approach. Rather than endlessly managing fossil-fuel volatility, it is steadily reducing how much oil matters to its economy. That is…

The war in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have created the largest energy security threat the world has ever faced, Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told CNBC on Thursday. “We are facing the biggest energy security threat in history,” Birol told CNBC, building on the IEA’s assessment at the start of the war that the Middle East war is creating the biggest supply disruption in the history of the oil market. “As of today, we’ve lost 13 million barrels…