Oil prices were spiking again in early Asian trade on Tuesday, reversing part of the previous session’s steep losses as Iran denied claims that it had engaged in negotiations with the U.S. At the time of writing, West Texas Intermediate had climbed to $91.54, up 3.87%, while Brent crude had risen 3.43% to $103.40. The rebound follows a dramatic selloff on Monday, when Brent briefly fell below $100 per barrel for the first time since March 11 after President Trump claimed Washington had held “very good and productive” conversations…

The U.S. has already launched hundreds of missiles and precision-guided weapons in the escalating conflict with Iran, an air campaign that has consumed billions of dollars in advanced military hardware in just weeks. But a new warning circulating in Chinese and Western media suggests the materials needed to keep producing those weapons may be running dangerously low. Reports from the South China Morning Post and Reuters indicate Washington could have only weeks or months of certain rare-earth inventories available for defense manufacturing if supply…

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday the White House is in contact with what he described as a “respected” IranianGold Breaks, Bitcoin Rallies as Iran War Scrambles Safe Havens figure and claimed Tehran is now pushing for a deal to end the war as it enters its fourth week. He also extended a deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, giving it five more days before the U.S. moves ahead with strikes on Iranian power infrastructure. The shift marked a sharp reversal from the weekend, when Washington and Tehran traded threats…

At the end of February, the Alberta government released its draft budget for the year, forecasting a deficit resulting from low oil prices, set to extend over the next three years. Now, Canada—and Alberta specifically—are about to become some of the big winners from the oil price rally resulting from the Middle East supply crunch. Canadian oil producers are set to get an additional revenue of some C$90 billion ($65.6 billion) from the rally, Enverus recently predicted, using modelling that showed for every $10 gain in oil prices, Canadian…

There is a persistent belief in energy debates that refuses to die: renewables and electrification are necessary, but expensive. It is often framed as an unavoidable trade?off — clean energy comes at a premium, while fossil fuels remain the cheaper, more reliable baseline. That assumption is now being tested against reality. And reality is not being kind to it. As gas prices climb again amid tensions around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, Europe is seeing a familiar pattern: electricity prices surge in regions heavily exposed to gas, while…

The once peaceful South American nation of Ecuador is being rocked by cocaine related violence. Since the 2020 pandemic, the tiny country’s murder rate has spiraled higher, hitting an all-time high of nearly 51 murders per 100,000 people during 2025. The tiny impoverished country of less than 20 million is regularly affected by extreme bloodshed, conflict, and lawlessness despite frequent security crackdowns. The rapid rise of cocaine trafficking and related brutality is sharply impacting government finances and Ecuador’s broken oil…

Shortly before the war with Iran began, I wrote that the seeming complacency among government officials and financial market participants was based on two assumptions which I argued were unlikely to turn out to be true: 1) President Donald Trump would make a last-minute deal with the Iranians and declare victory and 2) even if Trump didn't make such a deal, the Iranians would not do all the things which they threatened to do if attacked. Here we are, three weeks into the conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran. There was, of course,…

The United States is the world’s biggest crude oil producer—it has been for years, and it has been pumping more than 13.6 million barrels per day of oil for the past few months. Then why, some would ask, are U.S. gasoline prices surging because of a conflict half a world away? First and foremost, the price of crude oil carries the biggest weight in the formation of gasoline prices in America. And the price of crude oil has soared in the past three weeks since the war in the Middle East began. Second, the U.S. – even with the highest…

Richard Walker has urged the government to consider imposing a temporary cap on energy company profits, warning that households risk bearing the brunt of another price shock linked to the Middle East conflict. The Iceland boss, recently appointed as a Labour peer and cost-of-living adviser, said ministers should examine limiting earnings for producers and retailers during periods of extreme volatility. “I have asked the government to consider a temporary profit cap … to stop producers and retailers exploiting the crisis to make windfall…

Chinese state oil giant Sinopec, Asia’s biggest refiner by capacity, will not buy Iranian oil even after the U.S. waiver on purchases of crude from Iran loaded on tankers as of March 20, a senior Sinopec executive said on Monday.      Sinopec, officially known as China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, is weighing the potential risks of Iranian oil trade and “basically won't buy” Iranian crude, the company’s president Zhao Dong said, as carried by Reuters.   The U.S. Treasury Department’s…

Chinese state oil giant Sinopec, Asia’s biggest refiner by capacity, will not buy Iranian oil even after the U.S. waiver on purchases of crude from Iran loaded on tankers as of March 20, a senior Sinopec executive said on Monday.      Sinopec, officially known as China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, is weighing the potential risks of Iranian oil trade and “basically won't buy” Iranian crude, the company’s president Zhao Dong said, as carried by Reuters.   The U.S. Treasury Department’s…

Chinese state oil giant Sinopec, Asia’s biggest refiner by capacity, will not buy Iranian oil even after the U.S. waiver on purchases of crude from Iran loaded on tankers as of March 20, a senior Sinopec executive said on Monday.      Sinopec, officially known as China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, is weighing the potential risks of Iranian oil trade and “basically won't buy” Iranian crude, the company’s president Zhao Dong said, as carried by Reuters.   The U.S. Treasury Department’s…

With events in the Middle East once again disrupting global energy markets, we need to revisit one of our favorite energy policy concepts, the energy trilemma, a simple variant of the trolley problem with an added variable. The three variables are 1) affordability, 2) security of energy supply (can a hostile government cut off your supply?), and sustainability (are your energy sources heavy polluters or consumers of finite resources?).  The trilemma says that policymakers can only enjoy two out of three of these variables, with the third one…

Europe’s gasoline exports have started to increasingly shift to Asia in recent weeks as the crude supply shock in the Middle East is tightening Asian fuel supply.  Europe usually ships most of its exported gasoline to the United States, West Africa, and South America. But in these unusual times of the biggest disruption in the oil market ever, more European gasoline cargoes are bound for Asia.   Over the past week, at least 1.6 million barrels of gasoline, carried by three tankers, have loaded from Europe and are en route to…

Europe’s gasoline exports have started to increasingly shift to Asia in recent weeks as the crude supply shock in the Middle East is tightening Asian fuel supply.  Europe usually ships most of its exported gasoline to the United States, West Africa, and South America. But in these unusual times of the biggest disruption in the oil market ever, more European gasoline cargoes are bound for Asia.   Over the past week, at least 1.6 million barrels of gasoline, carried by three tankers, have loaded from Europe and are en route to…

Europe’s gasoline exports have started to increasingly shift to Asia in recent weeks as the crude supply shock in the Middle East is tightening Asian fuel supply.  Europe usually ships most of its exported gasoline to the United States, West Africa, and South America. But in these unusual times of the biggest disruption in the oil market ever, more European gasoline cargoes are bound for Asia.   Over the past week, at least 1.6 million barrels of gasoline, carried by three tankers, have loaded from Europe and are en route to…

Whilst most people will have seen the virtue of stopping Iran from ever developing nuclear weapons, many may now regard U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to achieve this as being in the same vein as the famous business plan of the South Park gnomes to ‘make profit by stealing underpants’. This ran as follows -- ‘Phase 1: Collect underpants, Phase 2: ?, Phase 3: Profit’. Trump’s variation seems to have been -- ‘Phase 1: Kill Supreme Leader, Phase 2: ?, Phase 3: Iran never develops nuclear weapons’.…

Colombia’s economically vital oil industry is caught in a death spiral. Production recently collapsed to multi-year lows as foreign energy investment dries up. Once South America’s third-largest oil producer, Colombia slipped to fifth place after being overtaken by Argentina and Guyana. The reforms implemented by Colombia’s first leftist President, Gustavo Petro, including tax hikes, a ban on hydraulic fracturing, and the cessation of issuing exploration contracts, are deterring foreign investors. This is sharply impacting the…

Worldwide LNG exports have plunged in the past week to a six-month low as Middle Eastern supply collapsed with the de facto closed Strait of Hormuz and the outage at the world’s biggest LNG complex in Qatar.  Global LNG shipments have plunged to about 1.1 million tons over the 10-day moving average, down by 20% since the war began, a Bloomberg analysis of Kpler vessel-tracking data showed.  Qatar is the primary driver of the lost LNG supply following the halt of production and exports. Supply is also lost from the United Arab Emirates…

Worldwide LNG exports have plunged in the past week to a six-month low as Middle Eastern supply collapsed with the de facto closed Strait of Hormuz and the outage at the world’s biggest LNG complex in Qatar.  Global LNG shipments have plunged to about 1.1 million tons over the 10-day moving average, down by 20% since the war began, a Bloomberg analysis of Kpler vessel-tracking data showed.  Qatar is the primary driver of the lost LNG supply following the halt of production and exports. Supply is also lost from the United Arab Emirates…