The UK government has decided against bailing out the country’s bioethanol plants, which have warned they would be forced to close without a rescue package as the U.S.-UK trade deal has made them unviable.  The trade deal from May removed a previous 19% tariff, which the UK imposed on imports of U.S. bioethanol. As a result, the UK-produced bioethanol has been unable to compete with the zero-tariff imported U.S. bioethanol.    Vivergo Fuels, the UK’s largest bioethanol plant, warned at the end of May that “if…

Oil markets have seen thin liquidity and rangebound prices this week, with ICE Brent hovering near $66 a barrel as traders focus almost entirely on the upcoming Trump–Putin meeting in Alaska. Friday, August 15, 2025Thin trading liquidity, rangebound price movements, and almost zero interest in any other topic than the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska have marked this week, with ICE Brent still trading around the $66 per barrel mark. LNG prices have already shed some $0.50/MMBtu this week as gas traders seem to expect some semblance of a deal…

As Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump prepare to meet in Alaska for a high-stakes summit to discuss ending the 43-month-old war in Ukraine, a deep feeling of unease is gripping European capitals, especially Kyiv. The August 15 meeting between the two leaders, their first since Trump returned to the presidency in January, could reshape not only Ukraine's future borders but also European security without either Kyiv or Brussels having a say. Trump has made ending the conflict -- Europe's largest since World War II -- a…

Algeria nears the finalization of agreements with U.S. supermajors Exxon and Chevron to explore and invest in its shale gas resources as the North African country bets big on boosting its gas pipeline and LNG exports, the head of the Algerian energy regulator told Bloomberg.  “The technical aspects have more or less been agreed upon, but the commercial alignment is still under negotiation and will soon be finalized,” Samir Bekhti, chairman of energy regulator Alnaft, told the newswire in an interview published on Friday. …

Numbers Report – August 15, 2025 In the latest edition of the Numbers Report, we will take a look at some of the most interesting figures put out this week in the energy and metals sectors. Each week we’ll dig into some data and provide a bit of explanation on what drives the numbers.  Let’s take a look.  ‘Bloated’ Markets Are Finally Coming, Warns the IEA  The International Energy Agency has sought to squash hopes for an oil market recovery with a scathingly bearish monthly report, cutting 2025-2026…

It Is Not Too Late To Benefit From A Potential Short Squeeze In Uranium I don’t claim to be a Roaring Kitty or anything, but short squeezes, having been profitable for me in the past, always interest me. So, when I was sent a link to this article by one of the editors here at Oilprice.com, I was intrigued. The piece, from Goehring and Rozencwajg Natural Resource Investors, is headlined “A Uranium Short Squeeze?”, and goes into some detail about why that might have been coming earlier this year. The gist of the story is that, in…

Oil prices fell by more than 1% early on Friday as the market awaits the outcome of the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, who will discuss a potential ceasefire in Ukraine.  As of 9:37 a.m. EST on Friday, the U.S. benchmark oil price, WTI Crude, was down by 1.38% at $63.10, as President Trump departed for Anchorage, Alaska, to meet with Putin.  The international benchmark, Brent Crude, traded 1.18% lower at $66.07 per barrel.    The face-to-face meeting between President…

Light Crude Oil Futures settled at $63.96 as of Thursday’s close, marking a mild rebound but still reflecting broader weakness in market structure. The week was shaped by several high-impact fundamental events—none of which proved decisive enough to shift the balance away from oversupply and tepid demand. Traders were focused on Friday’s Trump-Putin meeting, but until concrete action disrupts physical flows, the dominant pressure remains rooted in inventories and production. Trump-Putin Meeting Raises Risk, But Market Demands…

Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict Now that Trump has gotten himself involved in numerous conflict venues, Venezuela’s Maduro is testing to see if he’ll have the bandwidth for another: Guyana, which is gearing up for its general elections on September 1. President Irfaan Ali’s PPP/C government is seeking a second term, with opposition alliances trying to consolidate ground. But overshadowing it all is Maduro’s escalating rhetoric over a Russian-style annexation of the Essequibo region, Guyana’s oil-rich western territory…

Today’s sit-down in Anchorage will be the first U.S.-Russia summit on American soil since Reagan met Gorbachev in ’88. Trump’s billing it as a shot at ending the Ukraine war, but let’s keep some perspective: he’s been saying “two weeks” since the campaign trail and has repeated it in office like a mantra. Nothing on the battlefield or in politics has shifted in his favor, yet markets are trading this as if an outcome is baked in–and the outcome is expected to be more Russian barrels on the market.…

Hours before the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska, Ukraine said it had struck an oil refinery in Russia and a Caspian port that Moscow uses to ship weapons from Iran for the war in Ukraine.    Ukraine said it attacked overnight the Syzran refinery, owned by oil giant Rosneft and located in Russia’s Samara region, about 500 miles from the Ukrainian border with Russia.    “The target was hit, with fire and explosions recorded,” after the strike in the early hours on Friday, the General Staff of Ukraine’s…

Hours before the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska, Ukraine said it had struck an oil refinery in Russia and a Caspian port that Moscow uses to ship weapons from Iran for the war in Ukraine.    Ukraine said it attacked overnight the Syzran refinery, owned by oil giant Rosneft and located in Russia’s Samara region, about 500 miles from the Ukrainian border with Russia.    “The target was hit, with fire and explosions recorded,” after the strike in the early hours on Friday, the General Staff of Ukraine’s…

Russian and U.S. Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are meeting for the first time in six years to discuss the Ukraine conflict, with Trump aiming to set the table for a future trilateral meeting including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy has been excluded from the current talks and has voiced concerns about decisions made in his absence, particularly regarding territorial concessions. Despite calls for a quick resolution, conflicting aims and ongoing battlefield gains by Russia make a swift end to the conflict unlikely.…

U.S. Devon Energy Corporation has signed a 10-year natural gas agreement to supply LNG to UK’s Centrica, the owner of British Gas.  Under the deal announced on Friday, Devon Energy will supply 50,000?(MMBtu) per day of natural gas over a 10?year term starting in 2028. This is equivalent to five LNG cargoes per year.   The LNG volumes will be indexed to the European gas hub price, TTF.  The agreement supports Centrica’s objective of managing market price risk in its LNG portfolio by aligning feed gas pricing with…

Chinese oil refining throughput jumped by 9% in July from a year earlier amid higher utilization capacity at state-owned refiners, according to official data released on Friday.  Chinese refiners processed 14.85 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil last month, per the data from the National Bureau of Statistics cited by Reuters.   The crude processing throughput was slightly lower compared to June this year, down by 1.95%.  June, however, saw the strongest oil refining levels in China in nearly two years. Improved fuel…

India is launching a national deepwater exploration mission to tap more of its energy resources, boost domestic energy supply, and reduce dependence on imports, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday. “India will harness its deepwater energy resources, strengthening energy self-reliance and reducing dependence on foreign fuel imports,” Modi said in his address on the country’s Independence Day.  India is also boosting its renewable energy capacity, with advances in solar, nuclear, hydro, and hydrogen energy, according…

Coal production in China fell by 3.8% on the year last month, to the lowest level since April 2024 in the first annual decline for this year, Reuters reported today, citing figures from China’s statistics bureau. Coal production over the first seven months of the year, however, was higher by 3.8% from last year, the data showed, with the total at 2.78 billion tons. Per Bloomberg, the reason for the dip in July was, on the one hand, government efforts to curb oversupply, which is already sizable, and, on the other hand, bad weather consisting…

U.S. President Donald Trump has, over the past couple of weeks, renewed efforts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, going as far as proposing the swapping of territories between the two countries. Unlike the situation during the first meeting between Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin earlier in the year, Trump has adopted a far less conciliatory tone ahead of their second meeting in Alaska on August 15th, warning that Russia will face “very severe consequences” unless Putin agrees to end the war in Ukraine.…

In 2024, total battery storage installations in Europe went up by 11.9 GW to a total of 89 GW. Yet periods of negative prices in the wholesale electricity market became more frequent, despite this increase. For some in commodity trade, the solution is building even more battery storage—and making good money from it. “It is the ultimate fast and scalable way to pick those instances of extreme volatility and address that volatility,” the head of principal investments at trading firm Castleton Commodities International told Bloomberg…

By Peter Tchir of Academy SecuritiesA few months ago, we started to regularly check in on the Tariff Revenue chart. We look forward to getting the next “large” number in a little less than 2 weeks. In the meantime, this chart has attracted our attention. Full credit to zerohedge for pounding the table on it, but it fits a few of our themes quite well: Energy = Electricity. We have started trying to disassociate energy with oil and make sure we highlight that energy, in this day and age, means electricity even more than…