Russia is heading into 2026 with a familiar problem wearing a sharper edge: the oil revenues that bankroll its budget — and its war — are shrinking fast. According to Reuters calculations released Friday, Russia’s tax proceeds from crude oil production in January could fall to about 380 billion roubles ($4.7 billion), the lowest monthly take since late 2022. That would mark a 16% drop from December and a collapse of more than 50% compared with January last year. For a government that still leans heavily on oil income to fund military…

The total number of active drilling rigs for oil and gas in the United States fell by 6 this week, according to new data that Baker Hughes published on Friday, bringing the total rig count in the US  to 542 this week, down 47 from this same time last year. The number of active oil rigs fell by 8 in the reporting period, according to the data, after US drillers added 1 rig in the week prior. Oil rigs are now at 406, which is 77 below this same time last year. The number of gas rigs stayed the same at 127, which is 25 more than this time last…

And Japan makes it five for the C5 in 2025. The heads of state of the five Central Asian countries are traveling to Japan for a December 19-20 summit hosted by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takachi under a format dubbed C5+1. It marks the fifth such “C5+1” summit for Central Asian leaders this year, following similar gatherings each involving a different major global power — China, the European Union, Russia, and the United States. Each C5+1 meeting has followed roughly the same script with bilateral meetings, a plenary session,…

The economics of shipping additional volumes of heavy crude from Iraq to compensate for a potential loss of Venezuela’s supply are just not there at present, Shafaq News reported on Friday, quoting Iraqi economist Nabil Al-Marsoumi. Concerns in the heavy crude market are that the U.S. blockade of tankers carrying Venezuelan oil and heightened tensions in the Caribbean would reduce supply of the extra heavy crude.   In theory, the sour and heavy grades from the top producers in the Middle East could be substitutes for Venezuela’s…

Brent is clinging to $60 per barrel, but markets have become even less sensitive to geopolitical risk. Friday, December 19, 2025 Things are not looking good for oil, with Trump’s belligerent rhetoric vis-à-vis Venezuela only pushing ICE Brent futures to $60 per barrel after a slide below that psychological threshold earlier in the week. Sanctions against Russia or threats thereof have by now desensitized the market towards Russian supply risks, once again demonstrated by the lack of price movements after Ukraine targeted another shadow…

The international gold and foreign exchange reserves held by the world’s biggest oil-producing nations in the EU could be at risk, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, after EU leaders discussed using frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine.  “This is not just a blow to its image; it is an undermining of trust in the euro zone,” Putin said in year-end remarks to the Russian press, as carried by Reuters.  “The fact is that many countries keep their gold and foreign exchange reserves in the euro zone, not…

The European Union will provide a 90 billion-euro ($106 billion) interest-free loan to Kyiv to help fund the war-torn country after failing to agree on a proposal to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine's economic and military needs in the coming years. European Council President Antonio Costa said in a post on X on December 19 that the funds will be for 2026 and 2027. "We committed, we delivered," he said. EU officials began meeting on December 18 to agree on a solution for funding. The talks focused on a proposal to use tens of billions…

WTI crude futures are trading around $55.81 through Thursday’s close, down 2.60% for the week with one session left. Prices have held within a $54.84–$56.85 range so far, reaching fresh five-year lows before geopolitical headlines generated brief recoveries. The setup continues to reflect a market dominated by oversupply concerns, with traders using geopolitical rallies to sell into strength rather than reprice the broader fundamental picture. Across the week, geopolitical risks, refinery outages, U.S. inventory data, OPEC+ policy decisions,…

Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict New drone attacks on oil-related infrastructure in Sudan have reinforced the risks surrounding South Sudan’s export route to Port Sudan. The attacks did not halt flows, but did further expose the GNPOC pipeline corridor to Sudan’s raging civil war. That corridor runs through West Kordofan, where the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) controls territory around Balila and can restrict movement or interrupt operations without operating the fields themselves. Operators have responded by limiting…

It’s that time of year again, when those who follow or opine on financial markets take stock of the year just gone and look forward to the year to come. In many ways, it might seem like a pointless exercise. I mean, if a year is a long time in politics, it is an eternity in trading, and there is no way of knowing even what will be driving commodity prices twelve months from now, or in which direction. Despite that, though, sober year-end reflection does have a purpose for traders and investors. It enables you to look back at what you got…

The current U.S. approach to Venezuela is a deliberate financial strangulation strategy, as we have previously noted, with the objective of degrading Maduro’s ability to fund his patronage network and parallel economic networks. This week’s escalation in the form of asset seizures and tanker interdictions is designed to raise transaction costs prohibitively, if it doesn’t backfire first. This is classic soft regime change logic that assumes–perhaps erroneously–that this economic pain will fragment the elite faster…

Adani Group, the conglomerate of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, is in talks with the state government of India’s northern Uttar Pradesh state on a public-private partnership to build small modular reactors (SMRs) as India opens its nuclear energy sector to private investment.  Adani Group is in discussions with Uttar Pradesh officials to build eight SMRs with capacity of 200 megawatts (MW) each at yet-to-be-identified sites in the state, anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg on Friday.  A potential deal…

Shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk completed on Friday the first transit of a container ship via the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait in almost two years, after having stopped voyages through the Suez Canal following Houthi attacks on vessels in the region.    Since December 2023, global shipping traffic has been upended by intensified attacks from the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen on commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea before and after entering or exiting the Suez Canal. The Houthi attacks forced many tanker and container…

Russia and China aren’t even attempting to hide anymore the rise of sanctioned LNG trade as they continue to defy U.S. and other Western sanctions on Russian energy exports and vessels of the shadow fleet.  The China-linked Kunpeng LNG carrier has docked at Portovaya, a small export plant on the Baltic Sea run by Russia’s gas giant Gazprom, marking the first time a Chinese tanker has been sent to ship LNG from the export facility sanctioned by the United States, vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg showed on Friday. …

Harbour Energy has made a gas and condensate discovery in the Norwegian section of the North Sea, which could be tied back to existing infrastructure, the Norwegian Offshore Directorate said on Friday.  Harbour Energy, as operator of the license, and its partners have proven gas condensate in the ‘Camilla Nord’ prospect, the regulator said, adding that preliminary estimates indicate the size of the discovery is between 2.2 million and 4.7 million barrels of oil equivalent.   Wildcat wells 35/8-8 S and A were drilled in…

Crude oil prices were down today, set for the second consecutive weekly loss as glut perceptions deepen amid reports of rising oil inventories. At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $59.71 per barrel while West Texas Intermediate was changing hands for $55.99 per barrel, both down by around $2 since the start of the week. Brent briefly slid below $59 earlier in the week. All the major oil market forecasters expect an oversupplied world in 2026 and consequently predict even lower oil prices, with some seeing Brent crude slipping closer…

The oil markets are looking to finish the year on the back foot, with oil prices falling again amid expectations of a supply glut and Russia-Ukraine peace talks reviving. Nearly half of oil executives in the Dallas Fed’s latest survey have reported that their companies’ outlooks have worsened in the current year compared with last year as low oil prices take a toll. “Decreasing oil prices are making many of our firm's wells noneconomic,” one executive said in the new survey. “Natural gas is becoming an expense to operators.…

China has rattled Tehran by again backing the United Arab Emirates’s claim over three Persian Gulf islands controlled by Iran. Following a visit to Abu Dhabi by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the countries in a joint statement on December 13 highlighted Beijing’s “support for the efforts of the UAE to reach a peaceful solution to the dispute” over the three islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa. Notably, there is no explicit mention of Iran in the statement. In response, Iranian Foreign Ministry…

China’s dominance in the global electric vehicle market looks set to deepen as policy reversals in Europe and strategic pullbacks by U.S. automakers reduce competitive pressure just as Chinese EV makers push aggressively into overseas markets. China’s booming EV market has its own set of issues to address, especially the battery and manufacturing overcapacity denting the profits of the EV makers. However, the race to the bottom and the price wars in China’s electric vehicle market have sunk costs so much that China has a competitive…

President Trump’s massive naval build-up off the coast of Venezuela and the threat of invasion was labelled by the country’s illegitimate President Nicolas Maduro as a bloody grab for oil. Other Latin American leaders, notably Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro, are making similar assertions. A long history of U.S. intervention to secure vital fossil fuel resources, coupled with Venezuela controlling the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves totaling 303 billion barrels, supports this rationale. There are, however,…