As the price of gold has hovered around $4,000 an ounce in recent weeks, the men in the small-scale mines north of the village of Soykechar in Uzbekistan have watched every bounce and slide. They pull up apps on their phones that show various price points. The local TV stations announce the price. And, by word of mouth, they know the quote on the black market. “We are trying to make better lives, and we can buy good clothes for the children, better food, and we can go to private hospitals,” said Doniyor, the 34-year-old machinery manager…

The world isn't just staring down another weather event. It's staring down a weather event colliding with a supply-driven oil shock. JPMorgan warned Friday that a "super" El Niño combined with higher energy prices from the Middle East conflict could slow the decline in global inflation next year, adding roughly 0.3 percentage points to headline inflation worldwide. The bank puts the odds of the current El Niño strengthening into a "very strong" or "super" event at 81% by the end of the year, with a 97% probability conditions persist…

The total number of active drilling rigs for oil and gas in the United States fell this week, according to new data that Baker Hughes published on Friday, bringing the total rig count in the US to 587, up 45 from this same time last year. The number of active oil rigs fell by 2, reaching 450 during the latest reporting period, according to the data. This is 35 above this same time last year. The number of gas rigs rose by 1 and now stand at 127, which is 5 more than this time last year. Miscellaneous rigs stayed at 10. The latest EIA data showed…

Saudi Arabia, which at the start of the Iran war redirected virtually all crude exports through its East-West pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea, has seen crude exports from Yanbu crumble by 41% to about 2.39 million barrels per day (bpd) by June, from a peak of 4.07 million bpd in March, Wood Mackenzie vessel tracking and cargo data showed. Despite the near-total concentration of exports through Yanbu, volumes have declined steadily from the March peak, according to WoodMac's tracking data. By June, Yanbu loadings had fallen to around 2.39 million…

Saudi Arabia, which at the start of the Iran war redirected virtually all crude exports through its East-West pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea, has seen crude exports from Yanbu crumble by 41% to about 2.39 million barrels per day (bpd) by June, from a peak of 4.07 million bpd in March, Wood Mackenzie vessel tracking and cargo data showed. Despite the near-total concentration of exports through Yanbu, volumes have declined steadily from the March peak, according to WoodMac's tracking data. By June, Yanbu loadings had fallen to around 2.39 million…

The dual disruption of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb is tightening global oil flows, raising transport costs and fueling expectations of $100 oil. Friday, July 24, 2026 The double blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb has turbo-boosted oil prices this week, with both ICE Brent and WTI gaining $10 per barrel on the week. Whilst technically the Bab el-Mandeb could be bypassed through the Suez Canal, resulting in longer routes and higher costs, the dramatic decline in transits via the Hormuz should be of particular worry to the oil markets.…

Global liquefied natural gas exports grew by about 1.2 trillion cubic feet in 2025. The United States supplied approximately 1.10 trillion cubic feet of that increase. Put another way, roughly 93% of the world’s additional LNG came from the United States. The scale of that contribution is even more striking considering where the industry stood a decade ago. In 2015, the United States exported less than 0.03 trillion cubic feet of LNG. By 2025, exports had reached 5.2 trillion cubic feet, making the United States the world’s largest…

Indian refiners are in search of crude supply from as far as Angola in Africa and Venezuela in South America as their term supplies from the Middle East are trapped again and unable to reach India as planned. Some of the biggest state-held refiners in India, the world’s third-largest crude oil importer, are looking for and testing new crude grades, to offset part of the supply lost to the Middle East conflict, senior refinery executives told Indian outlet Economic Times. “We diversified our crude sourcing outside of the Strait of Hormuz,…

Indian refiners are in search of crude supply from as far as Angola in Africa and Venezuela in South America as their term supplies from the Middle East are trapped again and unable to reach India as planned. Some of the biggest state-held refiners in India, the world’s third-largest crude oil importer, are looking for and testing new crude grades, to offset part of the supply lost to the Middle East conflict, senior refinery executives told Indian outlet Economic Times. “We diversified our crude sourcing outside of the Strait of Hormuz,…

Indian refiners are in search of crude supply from as far as Angola in Africa and Venezuela in South America as their term supplies from the Middle East are trapped again and unable to reach India as planned. Some of the biggest state-held refiners in India, the world’s third-largest crude oil importer, are looking for and testing new crude grades, to offset part of the supply lost to the Middle East conflict, senior refinery executives told Indian outlet Economic Times. “We diversified our crude sourcing outside of the Strait of Hormuz,…

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company ADNOC has issued its seventh tender offering crude from the United Arab Emirates since the beginning of June, expecting to sell millions of barrels of oil between August and October, both from within and outside the Persian Gulf. Despite the renewed threats to supply from the Strait of Hormuz and the new threats to shipping in the Red Sea by the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen, ADNOC is inviting interested buyers to bid by the middle of next week for crude loading between August and October, Reuters reported on Friday,…

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company ADNOC has issued its seventh tender offering crude from the United Arab Emirates since the beginning of June, expecting to sell millions of barrels of oil between August and October, both from within and outside the Persian Gulf. Despite the renewed threats to supply from the Strait of Hormuz and the new threats to shipping in the Red Sea by the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen, ADNOC is inviting interested buyers to bid by the middle of next week for crude loading between August and October, Reuters reported on Friday,…

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company ADNOC has issued its seventh tender offering crude from the United Arab Emirates since the beginning of June, expecting to sell millions of barrels of oil between August and October, both from within and outside the Persian Gulf. Despite the renewed threats to supply from the Strait of Hormuz and the new threats to shipping in the Red Sea by the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen, ADNOC is inviting interested buyers to bid by the middle of next week for crude loading between August and October, Reuters reported on Friday,…

The top US and Russian diplomats met in a new push to find an end to Moscow's more-than-four-year-old war on Ukraine, but both sides signaled no new breakthroughs or cause for optimism. The July 23 meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov came with US efforts to broker a peace deal frozen as the Trump administration shifts focus to the Iran war, and the Kremlin shows no sign of softening its maximalist war demands. Following their meeting, which lasted just 35 minutes, Rubio described the talks…

Pakistan’s alliance of goods transporters has warned it could launch a nationwide strike over soaring fuel costs in another economic pressure that the South Asian country is feeling from the Middle East crisis. “Transporters across Pakistan should remain prepared; a nationwide strike call can be given at any time,” Malik Shehzad Awan, president of the Pakistan Goods Transport Alliance, said in a statement carried by local media on Friday. The alliance slammed the Pakistani government’s decision to hike fuel prices in the…

At least one oil tanker carrying Saudi crude oil has transited the Bab al-Mandeb Strait with its transponder switched off as risks to vessels in the Red Sea spiked this week after the Houthis announced a blockade on Saudi shipments and targeted vessels offshore Yemen. The Merbabu tanker, owned by a Greek company and laden with Saudi crude oil, transited the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in the so-called dark mode, which many shippers and tanker operators used for months to move undetected to hostile targeting in the Strait of Hormuz. The Merbabu emerged…

September WTI crude oil futures were trading at $92.31 late Thursday, up $10.54 or 12.89% for the week. The contract posted a weekly low at $79.58 before climbing to a weekly high at $92.31. This was not a normal risk-premium rally. WTI started the week with the Strait of Hormuz already impaired, then gained speed as the market realized Saudi Arabia’s alternate export route through the Red Sea was also under threat. By Thursday, traders were no longer pricing one damaged chokepoint. They were pricing a supply system with fewer ways to move…

Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict Iran has spent the week attacking the military infrastructure that allows the U.S. to wage war across the Middle East. After 12 consecutive nights of U.S. strikes on Iranian command centers, missile sites, air defenses and nuclear-linked facilities, Tehran hit American radar, communications, air-defense and aviation assets in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, including facilities tied to the Fifth Fleet, Camp Arifjan, Ali Al Salem Air Base and Muwaffaq Salti Air Base. Iranian attacks have now killed U.S. personnel…

As an energy investor, I am sure you are aware of the expected impact of the AI boom. The servers that AI platforms require demand enormous amounts of power. That, along with expected demand increases from the continued growth of EVs, has made companies with electricity generation power some of the trendiest stocks over the last couple of years. However, those producers can only meet the increased demand if there is significant investment in the infrastructure of electricity generation and transfer, so what about stocks in that industry? Well,…

Trump likes to test big ideas in real time, and very publicly. Earlier this week, Washington was prepared to surrender one of its most valuable bargaining chips with Saudi Arabia, without the conditions one would expect from American foreign policy.  For years, successive U.S. administrations treated domestic uranium enrichment as the one concession Riyadh could not have without paying a strategic price. Most recently, that cost was normalization with Israel. Two days ago, Trump was willing to simply give that leverage away for free as he…