Heightened shipping threats from Ukrainian attacks and a shortage of tankers have pushed the freight costs for Russia’s crude oil exports from the Black Sea to record highs. In the week to September 6, the key tanker rate for shipping crude oil on an Aframax from the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk to West India and North China rose for the seventh straight week, by 2.7% and 3.1% from the week prior, respectively, Russian daily Kommersant reported on Monday, citing local pricing indexes. The cost to ship crude to India is now $23.20 per barrel…

Syria raised diesel prices 40% and gasoline prices by as much as 28% on Saturday, and protesters blocked the highway linking Damascus to Aleppo and burned tires along the road to Turkey within 24 hours, the widest unrest since Bashar al-Assad's fall in December 2024. Diesel now costs 175 Syrian pounds a liter and household and industrial gas prices climbed roughly 9%. Protests also broke out in Hama, Khan Sheikhoun and Maarat al-Numan, and crude tanker convoys bound for refineries were halted en route. Syria's Energy Ministry called the increase…

Syria raised diesel prices 40% and gasoline prices by as much as 28% on Saturday, and protesters blocked the highway linking Damascus to Aleppo and burned tires along the road to Turkey within 24 hours, the widest unrest since Bashar al-Assad's fall in December 2024. Diesel now costs 175 Syrian pounds a liter and household and industrial gas prices climbed roughly 9%. Protests also broke out in Hama, Khan Sheikhoun and Maarat al-Numan, and crude tanker convoys bound for refineries were halted en route. Syria's Energy Ministry called the increase…

Syria raised diesel prices 40% and gasoline prices by as much as 28% on Saturday, and protesters blocked the highway linking Damascus to Aleppo and burned tires along the road to Turkey within 24 hours, the widest unrest since Bashar al-Assad's fall in December 2024. Diesel now costs 175 Syrian pounds a liter and household and industrial gas prices climbed roughly 9%. Protests also broke out in Hama, Khan Sheikhoun and Maarat al-Numan, and crude tanker convoys bound for refineries were halted en route. Syria's Energy Ministry called the increase…

The East-West Pipeline in Saudi Arabia, which delivers oil to the shores of the Red Sea, has been an important workaround to the choking of tanker traffic by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, the only exit for tankers from the Persian Gulf to the open sea. The Saudi government claims that 7 million barrels per day (mbpd) of crude oil can flow westward through the pipeline to the port of Yanbu, though the current exports are thought to be lower (perhaps 5 mbpd) than that given infrastructure restraints. But now that pipeline has been bombed and put…

Gulf states called off Monday's planned meeting with Iran on reopening the Strait of Hormuz the same day Yemen's Houthis fired dozens of missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia's King Khalid airbase in Khamis Mushait, calling it retaliation for more than 300 Saudi airstrikes on Yemen in five days. A Friday drone attack Riyadh blamed on Iran-backed fighters in Iraq knocked out Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, the kingdom's only route around the blockaded strait. The 7-million-barrel-a-day line feeds the Red Sea port of Yanbu, with traders telling…

Gulf states called off Monday's planned meeting with Iran on reopening the Strait of Hormuz the same day Yemen's Houthis fired dozens of missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia's King Khalid airbase in Khamis Mushait, calling it retaliation for more than 300 Saudi airstrikes on Yemen in five days. A Friday drone attack Riyadh blamed on Iran-backed fighters in Iraq knocked out Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, the kingdom's only route around the blockaded strait. The 7-million-barrel-a-day line feeds the Red Sea port of Yanbu, with traders telling…

The Middle East needs alternative export routes for liquefied natural gas that bypass the Strait of Hormuz, Oman’s Minister of Energy and Minerals said at Gastech today. LNG exports from the Persian Gulf have collapsed since the start of the war between the United States and Israel and Iran. “Let’s identify alternative export options,” Salim Al-Aufi said at the Gastech conference in Thailand, as quoted by Bloomberg. “Be it north or through Oman or through Yemen. Diversify your options to get the resources out of the…

The Middle East needs alternative export routes for liquefied natural gas that bypass the Strait of Hormuz, Oman’s Minister of Energy and Minerals said at Gastech today. LNG exports from the Persian Gulf have collapsed since the start of the war between the United States and Israel and Iran. “Let’s identify alternative export options,” Salim Al-Aufi said at the Gastech conference in Thailand, as quoted by Bloomberg. “Be it north or through Oman or through Yemen. Diversify your options to get the resources out of the…

Oil prices initially jumped by over 3% in early Asian trade on Monday as fears of a major and extended supply disruption were stoked by continued attacks in the Middle East and the postponement of a crunch meeting between Gulf states and Iran.  At the time of writing, both benchmarks had fallen back slightly, with WTI futures trading at $102.2 per barrel, 2.16% higher on the day, and Brent futures up 2.14% at $106.8 per barrel.  Over the weekend, the Houthis claimed to have launched a large-scale missile and drone attack against Saudi…

Oil prices hit nearly $110 per barrel on Thursday for the first time since July, with no end in sight for the Middle East conflict. The IRGC announced on Wednesday that it had attacked and heavily damaged eight oil tankers and two U.S. Navy destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz, in retaliation after the U.S. military destroyed five IRGC-linked oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Tuesday night. CENTCOM has, however, denied the IRGC claims. Hopes for a quick resolution to the war have also faded after U.S. President Donald Trump said that the war is…

This week’s oil price surge sharply raised the odds of a Fed interest rate hike next week and re-launched the recession conversation, for the first time since the early weeks of the Iran war. The price spike this week saw Brent Crude prices topping $100 per barrel for the first time since July and the U.S. benchmark, WTI Crude, exceeding $100 a barrel as well, after the U.S.-Iran tensions escalated again with no talks of a deal in sight. For six months during the Iran war, the global and U.S. economies have remained resilient in the face…

The United States’ existing dams could produce an additional 15.2 terawatt-hours of electricity per year, enough to power more than  1.4 million homes across the country. A new study from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory found that by retrofitting select dams that are not already outfitted for hydropower production could prove to be a critical and efficient source of clean energy at a much lower cost than traditional hydropower projects. These findings are based on modelling through a new software called HydroGenerate,…

Construction on a trade corridor seen as the lynchpin of the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal is facing a delay, according to a top Azerbaijani official. The provisional peace agreement was signed in Washington in August 2025. At that time, the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) had been expected to begin construction by the end of 2026. But in comments published by the Russian news agency Interfax, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov acknowledged what was becoming increasingly obvious: work will not start on TRIPP…

The United Kingdom has dramatically increased its wind energy capacity over the last decade, producing record levels of wind power in 2025. With several more projects in the pipeline, wind power is expected to contribute a significant share of the U.K. energy mix by the end of the decade, supporting diversification aims and boosting energy security. In the U.K., in 2025, wind was the largest single renewable electricity source, according to data from the National Energy System Operator (Neso). Together, wind, solar, hydro, and biomass generated…