The Trump administration’s drive toward expanded military operations in the southern Caribbean Sea - ostensibly aimed at Venezuelan drug networks - suffered a severe blow in last week’s Senate vote. The resolution, rejected in a close 51-49 vote, exposed just how brittle Republican support for military expansion has become. The Senate vote follows weeks of rising unease about Trump’s opaque strategy in the Caribbean. Despite attempts to frame the operation as part of a renewed counter-narcotics effort, the absence of clear objectives…

China is encouraging private investment in state-led major energy and infrastructure projects and could allow private investors to have more than 10% in certain projects, the government said in a landmark directive aimed at boosting investment and reinvigorating the economy. The projects open to minority private shareholding will need state approval and can be in railways infrastructure, nuclear power, hydropower, inter-provincial and inter-regional transmission lines, oil and gas pipelines, LNG import and storage facilities, and water supply projects,…

All but two Indian refiners have skipped placing orders for Russian crude for December after the U.S. sanctioned Russia’s top oil producers, Rosneft and Lukoil, sources with knowledge of the purchases told Bloomberg on Tuesday.  India’s refiners, which have come to rely on cheap Russian crude in the past three years, have withdrawn from the December purchasing window which typically closes by November 10.    Five large refiners, including state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum…

All but two Indian refiners have skipped placing orders for Russian crude for December after the U.S. sanctioned Russia’s top oil producers, Rosneft and Lukoil, sources with knowledge of the purchases told Bloomberg on Tuesday.  India’s refiners, which have come to rely on cheap Russian crude in the past three years, have withdrawn from the December purchasing window which typically closes by November 10.    Five large refiners, including state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), Hindustan Petroleum…

Oil prices gained on Tuesday as fresh U.S. sanctions on Russian oil disrupted exports. OPEC+ Plays the Waiting Game as Stock Builds Loom Large - This winter’s LNG markets are unlikely to replicate last year’s tightness as key Asian buyers have built up sufficient inventories ahead of Q4 2025 and have minimized spot purchases in October. - South Korea, having imported a whopping 5 million tonnes LNG in August, has been winding up imports in recent months amidst ample stocks, whilst Chinese LNG imports were 15% lower year-over-year in…

Ukraine's anti-corruption watchdog has announced a "large-scale operation" exposing tens of millions of dollars of graft in the energy sector in the midst of Russia's full-scale invasion. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) said the joint operation with the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has found the scheme involves "a high-level criminal organization" aimed to "influence strategic enterprises in the public sector, in particular JSC 'Energoatom.'" The home of businessman and co-owner of the Kvartal 95 studio,…

Iran will not compromise its national security but is open to talks aimed at reaching a “peaceful” nuclear deal with the United States, Iranian deputy foreign minister, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said on Tuesday.  The U.S. and Iran held several rounds of negotiations early this year, before the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites in June.  Throughout the talks prior to the bombings, Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts were a major sticking point, with the U.S. insisting that enrichment is a “very, very clear red line.” …

A month ago, Chinese oil heavyweight CNOOC boasted its pipeline network had hit 10,000 kilometers. That network was going to further grow to 13,000 km, the company said soon after it announced a fresh offshore discovery in the South China Sea. What CNOOC is doing is what all Chinese oil majors are doing: ramping up domestic supply of oil and gas. It is the safest kind of supply. Chinese state energy companies have spent some $468 billion on exploration and production since 2019, Bloomberg reported earlier this month, noting that the amount was…

Venezuela’s economy is in tatters, putting additional pressure on the country’s embattled leader, Nicolas Maduro, at a time when the U.S. Administration is increasing its military presence in the Caribbean region and striking alleged drug boats offshore the world’s largest crude oil reserves holder.    The economic collapse of Venezuela, exacerbated by the U.S. sanctions on its oil industry and exports, has left many Venezuelans increasingly disillusioned with the regime and supporting an ousting of Maduro. …

Lately, big tech cheerleaders, including Meta Platforms’ (NASDAQ:META) Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Jeff Bezos and OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, have warned we are in an AI bubble, with stock market valuations, heavy speculation and market exuberance beginning to mirror those of the dot-com era that eventually led to the famous stock market crash 25 years ago. Meta has announced plans to spend over $100 billion on AI and infrastructure in the coming three years; Apple plans to invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. over…

Russia’s second-largest oil producer Lukoil is withdrawing from its core energy interests in Iraq following the recent tightening of the sanctions noose around the country by the West. The latest prohibitions introduced by the U.S. on 22 October included measures directly aimed at Lukoil, and Russia’s top oil producer Rosneft. Between them, the two companies export approximately 3.1 million barrels of oil per day, which the West sees as vital to Russia’s ability to keep funding its war in Ukraine. Lukoil’s almost immediate…

The global precious metals market is projected to grow by over USD 95 billion in the next five years, driven primarily by sustained investor demand for safe-haven assets and increasing industrial use in rapidly expanding technologies, according to a new report from Mordor Intelligence. The market size, which was valued at $290.34 billion in 2025, is forecast to reach $386.16 billion by 2030. This expansion reflects a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.87%, the research firm stated. Growth is being supported by a combination of investors seeking…

Oil prices steadied on Monday as Washington moved toward ending a 40-day government shutdown, offering a modest boost to demand expectations but leaving markets weighed by oversupply signals and still plenty of uncertainty.  On Monday at 1:42p.m. ET, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) traded at $59.99 a barrel, up 0.40%, while Brent crude was up 0.56% to $63.92. Murban crude stood at $66.25, and U.S. natural gas slipped 0.35% to $4.330 per million Btu. The U.S. Senate advanced a funding bill late Sunday expected to reopen federal agencies and restore…

Contrary to popular belief, oil prices aren’t determined by any one country, company, or cartel. Instead, they’re the product of a global tug-of-war among producers, traders, and policymakers. It’s a market defined not just by physics, but by psychology, where the actions of a few key players can ripple across the world in a matter of hours. On November 2nd, OPEC+ announced a modest 137,000 barrel-per-day production increase for December, followed by a pause on further increases in the first quarter of 2026. The move surprised…

Renault is in talks with a Chinese supplier to develop electric-vehicle motors that do not rely on rare earth elements, Reuters reported on Monday, in a move that comes as China lifts a nearly year-long ban on exports of gallium, germanium, and antimony to the United States and a day after Beijing said it would suspend new restrictions on rare-earth and battery-metal exports for one year. Sources told Reuters the French carmaker seeks a long-term technology partnership to replace permanent-magnet motors with copper-based designs already in pilot…

Renault is in talks with a Chinese supplier to develop electric-vehicle motors that do not rely on rare earth elements, Reuters reported on Monday, in a move that comes as China lifts a nearly year-long ban on exports of gallium, germanium, and antimony to the United States and a day after Beijing said it would suspend new restrictions on rare-earth and battery-metal exports for one year. Sources told Reuters the French carmaker seeks a long-term technology partnership to replace permanent-magnet motors with copper-based designs already in pilot…

Renault is in talks with a Chinese supplier to develop electric-vehicle motors that do not rely on rare earth elements, Reuters reported on Monday, in a move that comes as China lifts a nearly year-long ban on exports of gallium, germanium, and antimony to the United States and a day after Beijing said it would suspend new restrictions on rare-earth and battery-metal exports for one year. Sources told Reuters the French carmaker seeks a long-term technology partnership to replace permanent-magnet motors with copper-based designs already in pilot…

The Trump administration has released full financial terms for its first “Big Beautiful Gulf” offshore oil and gas auction, setting a 12.5% royalty rate and offering nearly 80 million acres across the Gulf of Mexico, according to a new release from the U.S. Department of the Interior on Monday. The details mark the first concrete pricing framework under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, following the August announcement of a decades-long offshore leasing calendar that included at least 30 Gulf sales and six in Alaska’s Cook Inlet. …

Norway’s $2.1-trillion oil fund is looking to invest in renewable energy assets in the U.S. and expand its clean energy portfolio in Europe, a senior executive at the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund told Bloomberg in an interview published on Monday. The fund has recently hired three people in New York, Harald von Heyden, global head of energy and infrastructure at the Norwegian fund, told Bloomberg.   The Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), which is commonly referred to as ‘Norway’s oil fund’ because…

There's an old adage in Washington: Don't believe anything until it is officially denied. Now that the Trump administration's so-called artificial intelligence (AI) czar, David Sacks, has gone on record stating that "[t]here will be no federal bailout for AI," we can begin speculating about what form that bailout might take. It turns out that the chief financial officer of AI behemoth OpenAI has already put forth an idea regarding the form of such a bailout. Sarah Friar told The Wall Street Journal in a recorded interview that…