ConocoPhillips more than doubled its third-quarter profit to $4 billion and raised its quarterly dividend by 11% on Thursday, joining a growing list of oil majors reporting enormous earnings gains as higher crude prices offset production disruptions caused by the Iran war. The Houston-based producer reported adjusted earnings of $3.27 per share, comfortably beating Wall Street's $2.97 estimate. Net income jumped from $1.7 billion a year earlier, despite a decline in production. The company's average realized price climbed 32% year over year to…

ConocoPhillips more than doubled its third-quarter profit to $4 billion and raised its quarterly dividend by 11% on Thursday, joining a growing list of oil majors reporting enormous earnings gains as higher crude prices offset production disruptions caused by the Iran war. The Houston-based producer reported adjusted earnings of $3.27 per share, comfortably beating Wall Street's $2.97 estimate. Net income jumped from $1.7 billion a year earlier, despite a decline in production. The company's average realized price climbed 32% year over year to…

France’s present economic woes signal serious trouble ahead for the coherence of the European Union. On Wednesday evening, the French National Assembly unanimously rejected the government’s proposed budget, provoking further fears in the bond market. A couple of weeks ago, it was reported that the French government’s budget deficit now stood at 5.1 per cent, the worst it had been for nearly a quarter of a century. Its national debt now stands at over 115 percent of its GDP. Last Friday, the credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded…

Oil prices surged Thursday, recovering some of Wednesday's staggering losses as traders reconsidered whether the U.S. midterm election results would actually bring a swift end to the Iran war. Brent crude had climbed to $98.01 per barrel by early afternoon, gaining $3.39, or 3.58%, while West Texas Intermediate rose $2.21, or 2.51%, to $90.33. Both benchmarks continued climbing later in the session. The rebound followed Wednesday's extraordinary selloff, when Brent plunged $8.98, or 8.7%, to settle at $94.62. WTI shed $7.97, or 8.3%, closing at…

Oil prices surged Thursday, recovering some of Wednesday's staggering losses as traders reconsidered whether the U.S. midterm election results would actually bring a swift end to the Iran war. Brent crude had climbed to $98.01 per barrel by early afternoon, gaining $3.39, or 3.58%, while West Texas Intermediate rose $2.21, or 2.51%, to $90.33. Both benchmarks continued climbing later in the session. The rebound followed Wednesday's extraordinary selloff, when Brent plunged $8.98, or 8.7%, to settle at $94.62. WTI shed $7.97, or 8.3%, closing at…

Oil prices surged Thursday, recovering some of Wednesday's staggering losses as traders reconsidered whether the U.S. midterm election results would actually bring a swift end to the Iran war. Brent crude had climbed to $98.01 per barrel by early afternoon, gaining $3.39, or 3.58%, while West Texas Intermediate rose $2.21, or 2.51%, to $90.33. Both benchmarks continued climbing later in the session. The rebound followed Wednesday's extraordinary selloff, when Brent plunged $8.98, or 8.7%, to settle at $94.62. WTI shed $7.97, or 8.3%, closing at…

US and Turkmen diplomats focused on expanding trans-Caspian connectivity and promoting energy export diversification during annual consultations in Ashgabat. Turkmen officials are signaling a strong desire to improve trade ties with both South Asia and the West, while maintaining the country’s long-standing status as a neutral state. Visiting US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia S. Paul Kapur met November 3 with Turkmenistan’s paramount leader, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, before holding comprehensive discussions…

U.S. refineries are producing a smaller share of gasoline from every barrel of crude oil they process and shifting production efforts toward diesel and jet fuel as soaring margins on those products reshape the economics of American refining. Gasoline yields averaged below 45% during the first eight months of 2026, falling below the previous five-year low in every month, according to data published Thursday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). That's a significant departure for a refining industry that typically produces 45 to 50…

Tight global oil supplies, compounded by fears of further U.S. strikes against Iran, are stoking concerns over a potential oil price super-spike. Global petroleum inventories are shrinking, while U.S. fuel prices surge to historic highs, fueling inflation and intensifying pressure on the economy. As Middle East tensions disrupt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for one-fifth of global oil supplies, Guyana’s petroleum output continues to expand, helping to mitigate supply constraints and the risk of significantly higher prices.…

Turkey targets total investments of $500 billion in energy infrastructure in its new energy plan to 2040, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Alparslan Bayraktar, said on Thursday, as the country looks to boost its energy independence and eventually become energy independent. In recent years, Turkey has been paying up to $70 billion to import energy, including coal, oil, and gas. The new energy plan looks to slash the import bill while strengthening the homegrown resources, including gas in the Black Sea and a fourfold jump in installed solar…

Turkey targets total investments of $500 billion in energy infrastructure in its new energy plan to 2040, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Alparslan Bayraktar, said on Thursday, as the country looks to boost its energy independence and eventually become energy independent. In recent years, Turkey has been paying up to $70 billion to import energy, including coal, oil, and gas. The new energy plan looks to slash the import bill while strengthening the homegrown resources, including gas in the Black Sea and a fourfold jump in installed solar…

Turkey targets total investments of $500 billion in energy infrastructure in its new energy plan to 2040, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Alparslan Bayraktar, said on Thursday, as the country looks to boost its energy independence and eventually become energy independent. In recent years, Turkey has been paying up to $70 billion to import energy, including coal, oil, and gas. The new energy plan looks to slash the import bill while strengthening the homegrown resources, including gas in the Black Sea and a fourfold jump in installed solar…

In a significant, albeit underreported development for global energy, and for the US-Iran standoff in the Persian Gulf, the Iranian parliament has this week announced it is exempting several key trading partners from its oil transit restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz. The move was first unveiled Tuesday by Ahmad Hayat-Moghaddam, Vice Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, at a moment when Iranian export flows are struggling under the many months-long US naval blockade of the country's ports.…

The European Union neither wants nor has any plans to resume purchases of Russian gas, EU diplomats told EUobserver as European, U.S., and Ukrainian officials are meeting in Brussels to discuss post-war recovery in Ukraine ahead of next week’s US-Ukraine-Russia negotiations in Abu Dhabi.  “We don’t see any rationale at the moment to ease sanctions or restrictions on Russia, in any sector,” an EU diplomat told EUobserver. “On the contrary, in light of the barbaric and cynical attacks on Ukrainian civilians and…

The European Union neither wants nor has any plans to resume purchases of Russian gas, EU diplomats told EUobserver as European, U.S., and Ukrainian officials are meeting in Brussels to discuss post-war recovery in Ukraine ahead of next week’s US-Ukraine-Russia negotiations in Abu Dhabi.  “We don’t see any rationale at the moment to ease sanctions or restrictions on Russia, in any sector,” an EU diplomat told EUobserver. “On the contrary, in light of the barbaric and cynical attacks on Ukrainian civilians and…

The landslide victory by Democrats in US midterm elections is expected to bring change to Congress and foreign policy in Washington. But inside Iran, many officials said they expect the country will remain in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump, even if the vote has left him weaker. As the results poured in late on November 3, showing Democrats had taken control of both the House of Representatives and Senate from their Republican rivals, Trump admitted the war he launched on Iran on the last day of February had taken a toll on his party.…

The benchmark European natural gas prices fell by 2% in the early morning in Amsterdam on Thursday, extending Wednesday’s decline, after the resounding Democratic victory in the U.S. midterm elections raised hopes of a resolution to the Iran war and a return of LNG flows through the Strait of Hormuz.  The front-month price at the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF), the benchmark for Europe’s gas trading, fell by 2.2% as of 9 a.m. in Amsterdam on Thursday, as energy markets hope the path forward to the Iran war could be pursuit…

Energy buyers burned by the Strait of Hormuz are turning to Africa, and the money is following. The African Energy Chamber projects that Africa’s upstream sector will attract ~$40 billion a year through 2030, lifting the continent’s hydrocarbon output to 12.5 MMboe/d. Mozambique, Nigeria, Angola, Libya and Ivory Coast will take the largest shares of that capital, while new projects in Uganda, Kenya and Namibia expand the production base. Major offshore discoveries and a wave of upstream deals are turning Africa into the world’s…

Butane prices are surging across the world. Northwest European November butane prices have reached $1,125/t by early November, their highest level in 30 years, having exceeded even the peaks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In Asia, the AFEI butane index stood at $1,180/t on November 3. US butane Belvieu prices have climbed to a 14-year high $920/t. This surge in prices reflects several overlapping trends, with the most significant being a reorientation of global propane/butane trade flows since the US-Iran war kicked off in March.…

In an extraordinary turn of events, Qatar, the world’s second-largest LNG exporter before the Iran war, will become the biggest buyer of liquefied natural gas from the United States, the producer that overtook the Gulf nation as top LNG exporter earlier this decade. This extraordinary turn of events is, of course, the result of the extraordinary disruption that the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz inflicted on Qatar, the LNG producer whose expansion plans for the rest of this decade were rivaled only by the U.S. The war and…