The Ukrainian forces have reportedly suspended drone attacks on oil tankers at the port of Novorossiysk following a request by U.S. Vice-President JD Vance, the Financial Times wrote today, citing unnamed Ukrainian officials. The request was prompted by concern that the drone attacks that shut down the Caspian Pipeline Consortium twice over the last two months were additionally destabilizing an already destabilized global oil market. The Ukraine has also targeted tankers docked at the port of Novorossiysk with drones. CPC operates the pipeline…

Norwegian aluminum producer Norsk Hydro's Alunorte plant in Brazil, one of the world's largest alumina refineries, reduced output by 50% following disruptions to natural gas availability. Bloomberg reports that disruptions to NatGas availability at Alunorte forced a 50% reduction in output and sent aluminum prices in London to a seven-week high. Hydro said production would return to full capacity once gas supplies normalize. Aluminum rose nearly 2% in London and traded at $3,373 a metric ton. Alumina futures gained 1% in Shanghai. NatGas is critical…

Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei's decision to formalize six senior military and security postings within 48 hours is less a personnel story than the closing chapter of a five-month improvisation. Read together, the appointments announced on August 10 show a new supreme leader moving to convert an emergency wartime chain of command, cobbled together after Israeli and US strikes killed much of Iran's senior military leadership, into a permanent structure built around his own circle of trust. Rebuilding From The Top Down, Twice The scale of…

Indian state-controlled oil refiners continue to search the market for spot crude supply as term deliveries are constrained by the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and its key oil chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz. Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) are looking to buy a combined 6 million barrels of crude oil via spot tenders, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing tender documents it has seen. HPCL is seeking up to 4 million barrels of crude for delivery in September and October.…

Indian state-controlled oil refiners continue to search the market for spot crude supply as term deliveries are constrained by the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and its key oil chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz. Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) are looking to buy a combined 6 million barrels of crude oil via spot tenders, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing tender documents it has seen. HPCL is seeking up to 4 million barrels of crude for delivery in September and October.…

Indian state-controlled oil refiners continue to search the market for spot crude supply as term deliveries are constrained by the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and its key oil chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz. Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) are looking to buy a combined 6 million barrels of crude oil via spot tenders, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing tender documents it has seen. HPCL is seeking up to 4 million barrels of crude for delivery in September and October.…

The IEA has slashed its 2026 global oil supply forecast, with output now expected to plunge 4.3 million barrels per day this year as the failure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz pushes the market deeper into deficit. The latest forecast is considerably worse than the 3.7-million-bpd decline the agency projected just last month and would leave global supply at 102.02 million bpd, its lowest forecast for 2026 yet. Supply is now expected to fall 1.27 million bpd short of demand for the year, compared with an 860,000-bpd deficit implied by the IEA’s…

Brent Crude oil prices rose above $89 per barrel in early trade in Europe on Wednesday as Iran and the United States offered contrasting claims about who controls the Strait of Hormuz. Brent Crude prices were up by 0.64% at $89.60 in the morning in Europe, and WTI Crude was rising by 0.94% at $83.90, amid persistent supply concerns and risks despite claims from the U.S. that traffic at Hormuz had normalized. Iran, for its part, said on Tuesday that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed unless the United States ends the war and meets Tehran’s…

Oil flows from the Middle East have normalized, with Sunday traffic alone above pre-conflict averages, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said on Tuesday in a claim that appears not to be backed by ship-tracking data. On Tuesday, Secretary Wright posted on X that “Thanks to the coordinated efforts of the U.S. military and our gulf allies, the seven-day average for oil leaving the Strait of Hormuz is currently up to almost 9 million barrels per day.” He went on to add that “When combined with the additional 5-7 million barrels…

Whatever officially occurs next in the on-again/off-again negotiations towards a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran, unofficially Tehran knows that it has established de facto control over both the world’s two key maritime energy transit routes -- the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait -- for at least as long as the Islamic regime remains in place in Iran. Washington, London, Brussels, Beijing, and Moscow know it too. The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively controlled by vast Iranian forces down its full eastern stretch, precluding…

Two years ago, Alaska LNG was struggling to secure the private financing needed to move forward, with high Arctic construction costs, logistical complexities and massive upfront property tax burdens making lenders and potential Asian buyers hesitant to commit. But since then, the outlook for the $55-billion megaproject has improved considerably. The proposed 800-mile pipeline and LNG export project has gained strong backing from the Trump administration, with President Trump pushing Japan and South Korea in particular to invest in the project and…

Batteries have been a hot topic for years amid the energy transition rush of many governments, but now, it has become even hotter as the search for alternatives to traditional energy becomes frantic. While lithium continues to dominate in both EVs and storage, rivals are emerging, and one of these is, essentially table salt. Earlier this month, Chinese media reported that the first truck with a sodium-ion battery had been delivered to the mine where it will be used. The battery has a capacity of 676 kWh, a report by Car News China said, and an…

The Middle East conflict and the heightened threats to shipping in the Red Sea have prompted China to boost the use of the Arctic to move containers from the Chinese east coast to Europe. The fast-melting Arctic ice offers an alternative shipping route in the summer as the Houthi threats to shipping in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait make cargo operators more cautious in transiting the key chokepoints in the Middle East. Shipping through the Arctic is not something new, but this time around – driven by melting ice caps and more dangerous…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States rose by 9.072 million barrels in the week ending August 7, compared to analyst expectations for a 500,000-barrel draw. In the week prior, U.S. crude oil inventories rose by 2.69 million barrels. The larger-than-expected build was driven in part by higher crude imports relative to exports during the week. Commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR have lost just over 49 million barrels over the last seventeen weeks, with US crude inventories…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States rose by 9.072 million barrels in the week ending August 7, compared to analyst expectations for a 500,000-barrel draw. In the week prior, U.S. crude oil inventories rose by 2.69 million barrels. The larger-than-expected build was driven in part by higher crude imports relative to exports during the week. Commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR have lost just over 49 million barrels over the last seventeen weeks, with US crude inventories…

Vessel traffic at the Strait of Hormuz continues to decline as last week’s hopes of negotiations of a U.S.-Iran deal began to fade, yet again. As OilPrice notes, on Monday, only six commodity vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz in either direction, down from 11 ships in the latest 10-day average, according to shipping data from Kpler cited by Reuters on Tuesday. Four commodity vessels moved inbound into the Persian Gulf via the Strait and two others exited outbound, the data showed. Bloomberg data reveal a similar picture,…

One year after the signing of a provisional peace deal in Washington, DC, American, Armenian, and Azerbaijani officials continue to exude optimism about the potential for stability and prosperity in the South Caucasus. But movement toward implementing the joint declaration has been halting.  On August 8, the one-year anniversary of the declaration’s signing by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement reaffirming Washington’s commitment…

Iran said Tuesday that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed unless the United States ends the war and meets Tehran’s conditions, raising the bar for a deal that would restore more oil traffic through the key waterway. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Washington must end the conflict and unfreeze Iranian funds held overseas before Tehran will agree to reopen the strait. Iran has also delivered additional conditions to the United States through mediators, Rezaei said in comments carried by…

Iran said Tuesday that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed unless the United States ends the war and meets Tehran’s conditions, raising the bar for a deal that would restore more oil traffic through the key waterway. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Washington must end the conflict and unfreeze Iranian funds held overseas before Tehran will agree to reopen the strait. Iran has also delivered additional conditions to the United States through mediators, Rezaei said in comments carried by…

As nations race to cut import exposure to geopolitical tensions, China is building the world’s only large-scale coal-to-gas (CTG) industry as a strategic buffer against supply shocks. No other country has developed synthetic gas from coal at any meaningful scale. China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, covering 2026 to 2030, strengthens CTG’s role in its domestic supply architecture, signaling a move from consideration to active execution. Rystad Energy estimates China’s CTG capacity is on track to reach 9.4 billion cubic meters (Bcm)…