Oil prices briefly hit triple-digits in early Monday trading before pulling back sharply, with the volatility throwing global energy stocks into a tizzy. Brent crude oil rocketed to $119 during Asia Pacific trading, its highest level since 2022, before falling below $90 per barrel in the afternoon, still a big jump from ~$78 per barrel just a week ago. The price spike was triggered by the intensifying conflict between the U.S., Israel, and Iran, which has led to a near-total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The pullback, however, came amid reports…

I want to talk about the thing nobody in Washington seems willing to say out loud, which is that the cost of this war is going to show up at your kitchen table before it shows up in any congressional budget hearing. This morning oil prices blew past $115 a barrel. Brent crude touched $119 overnight before pulling back. WTI posted its biggest weekly gain in the entire history of futures trading, dating back to 1983.  The S&P futures are down.  The Nikkei dropped 5% at open. South Korea’s KOSPI cratered 6%. The VIX is at levels…

Longstanding tensions in the Middle East are no longer simmering away -- they have tipped into a multi-theatre conflict the like of which the world has not seen in the region since the Six-Day War of 1967, with Iran at the centre of the escalation cycle. U.S. and Israeli forces are prosecuting a sustained campaign against Iranian territory, command infrastructure, and proxy assets across every active front. Iran and its network of militias are still managing to retaliate — from missile launches to maritime disruption — even as they…

Brent crude and WTI are once again above $100 and likely to stay there longer than those involved in the planning of the latest war in the Middle East may have expected. With that, energy-thirsty economies are beginning to feel the pinch, and not everyone is optimistic that it will be a short pinch. Brent crude, the global benchmark, surged past $116 per barrel earlier today, with West Texas Intermediate also reaching that level in a rare parity between the two. Murban crude, meanwhile, has hit $120 and sped past it, reflecting the continued freeze…

As many as half a million abandoned coal mines dot the United States. These mines pose a major threat to public health and safety, in addition to environmental well-being. While many of these sites have been abandoned since the 1970s, before federal regulations for their reclamation were established, they may finally be getting cleaned up, and even converted into a power bank for the renewable revolution. Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) recently announced a breakthrough in the development of a methodology to turn the nation’s…

Two weeks ago, I suggested that the complacency regarding war with Iran was misplaced and that that complacency was likely soon to be replaced by panic in the world's capitals and financial markets. The general belief was that President Donald Trump would relent, make a deal with Iran, and declare victory. Even if he didn't, the Iranian regime would be quickly overwhelmed by a combined American and Israeli attack and possibly be overthrown in a popular revolt or in the alternative, sue for peace within days. Of course, neither of those things turned…

Finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) countries reached a broad agreement on Monday to hold off the release of oil from their respective strategic reserves, for now. The ministers held a teleconference on Monday after oil prices spiked to levels last seen during the global energy crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.  The G7 is an informal, intergovernmental economic and political forum comprising seven of the world's most advanced industrialized economies including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United…

Finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) countries reached a broad agreement on Monday to hold off the release of oil from their respective strategic reserves, for now. The ministers held a teleconference on Monday after oil prices spiked to levels last seen during the global energy crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.  The G7 is an informal, intergovernmental economic and political forum comprising seven of the world's most advanced industrialized economies including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United…

The Asian Development Bank is on a spending spree in Central Asia, authorizing billions in support for states in Central Asia and the Caspian Basin. The bank’s primary aim appears to be stimulating the development of the Middle Corridor trade route. On March 2, the ADB announced up to $5.4 billion in financing covering the next four years for Kazakhstan following a meeting between the bank’s president, Masato Kanda, and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. The commitment is designed to support Tokayev’s modernization program…

JP Morgan has warned that Iran’s oil production could be slashed in half and oil exports could virtually stall if U.S.-Israeli seize Iran's Kharg Island, worsening the ongoing global oil shock. Located in the Persian Gulf, the continental island is the "backbone" of Iran's oil infrastructure, handling approximately 90% of its crude exports.  The island collects oil transported via pipeline from Iran’s largest producing fields, including Marun, Ahvaz and Gachsaran. Iran--OPEC’s third-largest producer--pumps about 3.3 million…

JP Morgan has warned that Iran’s oil production could be slashed in half and oil exports could virtually stall if U.S.-Israeli seize Iran's Kharg Island, worsening the ongoing global oil shock. Located in the Persian Gulf, the continental island is the "backbone" of Iran's oil infrastructure, handling approximately 90% of its crude exports.  The island collects oil transported via pipeline from Iran’s largest producing fields, including Marun, Ahvaz and Gachsaran. Iran--OPEC’s third-largest producer--pumps about 3.3 million…

When oil hit $55 per barrel in late 2025, the drilling and completions side of the industry surrendered. A few months later, war breaks out in Iran, and WTI climbs past $100. That’s a marker at which meaningful drilling should occur. Yet, that’s not what I’m hearing. Rising oil prices are all over the press and inside politics, but they’re not in the conversations I’m having with E&Ps and the service side. On Day Nine of “Epic Fury,” I was talking with a chemical supplier (I am the owner of a frac company…

Record volumes of nearly 40 million barrels of sanctioned Iranian, Russian, and Venezuelan crude are idling in floating storage on tankers near China, according to Kpler data cited by Bloomberg on Monday.   The crude volumes in floating storage, with more than three-quarters of the tankers laden with Iranian oil, have jumped by 17% compared to the week before the Middle East war started.   The proximity to China and the willingness of Chinese refiners, especially the private crude processors, to buy sanctioned crude could ease…

Record volumes of nearly 40 million barrels of sanctioned Iranian, Russian, and Venezuelan crude are idling in floating storage on tankers near China, according to Kpler data cited by Bloomberg on Monday.   The crude volumes in floating storage, with more than three-quarters of the tankers laden with Iranian oil, have jumped by 17% compared to the week before the Middle East war started.   The proximity to China and the willingness of Chinese refiners, especially the private crude processors, to buy sanctioned crude could ease…

Oil prices are soaring as the Middle East war chokes crude supplies, but fuel price premiums over crude are climbing even faster as the de facto closed Strait of Hormuz forces refiners in Asia to consider slashing processing rates and limiting exports. The product market came under more severe stress than the crude markets as the war dislocated oil and fuel supplies and sent jet and diesel premiums over Brent to astronomical highs. Nowhere has the stress been more severe than in jet fuel cracks and prices, signaling acute price pain for airlines…

The last time the oil industry chased a frontier like this, it changed the map of global energy. In 1968, a wildcat well on Alaska’s North Slope unlocked Prudhoe Bay, the largest oil field ever discovered in the United States. In 2015, Exxon drilled a well offshore Guyana that opened the Stabroek Block, now estimated to hold more than 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Both discoveries started the same way: a small group of geologists drilling a well in a place most of the industry had already written off. A company called Greenland Energy…

Tankers carrying jet fuel and diesel have sharply diverted toward Asia and away from their initial destinations in the west as the world’s most important oil-consuming region is grappling with a supply crunch amid halted traffic at the Strait of Hormuz.   At least five vessels with diesel and jet fuel cargoes originating from the Gulf and India have made a U-turn near Africa’s southeast coasts and are now signaling their destinations are in Asia, tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg showed on Monday.  In recent…

Iran marked the first hours after the naming of Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader by launching missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf Arab states, who have begun expressing increasing anger over Tehran’s retaliatory strikes. "Iran fires first wave of missiles under the leadership of Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei toward occupied territories," Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said on Telegram early on March 9. The post carried a photo showing a projectile with the words: "At Your Command, Sayyid Mojtaba." The broadcaster said there were…

Saudi Aramco has begun reducing oil production at two of its fields as the disruption around the Strait of Hormuz starts to choke off crude exports across the Gulf, according to sources cited by Reuters on Monday. The move comes just hours before the Saudi oil giant is due to report its 2025 earnings on Tuesday, placing the focus squarely on whether the world’s largest oil exporter can keep crude moving during the escalating U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. It was not immediately clear which oilfields were affected or how much production had been…

The Middle East war and the resulting production halt at the world’s second-largest LNG exporter, Qatar, are erasing the projected glut of the fuel that was expected before the region was set on fire, according to Morgan Stanley.  Qatar’s state energy firm QatarEnergy last week halted LNG production at its Ras Laffan hub, the world’s largest LNG complex, and later issued force majeure notices to buyers, following a drone attack at the facility and the all but halted tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.   …