Denmark detained a container vessel previously blacklisted by Washington under last year's sweeping Iran sanctions on Thursday, amid suspicions it was operating under a false flag. The Nora was seized after authorities determined it was allegedly sailing under the flag of Comoros without authorization. The ship is now anchored in Danish waters pending further investigation, according to reports. It actually appears to be a box ship transporting containers at the time it was intercepted. It raised the Iranian flag under deeply suspicious circumstances,…

Viernes, 20 de febrero de 2026.- El presidente de la Federación Rusa, Vladimir Putin, ha reafirmado que Rusia no se va, Putin reafirma su respaldo total a Cuba y Venezuela. El gobierno ruso a través de su canciller Sergei Lablov, ha reiterado su apoyo firme a Cuba y Venezuela, asegurando que am...

Una vez más, la negligencia y la irresponsabilidad humana han puesto en jaque el patrimonio natural del oriente venezolano. Este viernes, un incendio de vegetación de gran magnitud, calificado por las autoridades como provocado, afectó una extensión aproximada de 41 hectáreas en el Parque de R...

CARACAS – Este miércoles 18 de febrero, se ordenó el establecimiento inmediato de una Mesa Técnica de Trabajo integrada por usuarios, operadores turísticos y organismos de seguridad, con el objetivo de fortalecer los mecanismos de resguardo en el Parque Nacional Morrocoy. La medida, anun...

The total number of active drilling rigs for oil and gas in the United States stayed the same this week, according to new data that Baker Hughes published on Friday, keeping the total rig count in the US  at 551 this week, down 41 from this same time last year. The number of active oil rigs stayed at 409 during the latest reporting period, according to the data. This is 79 below this same time last year. The number of gas also held steady at 133, which is 34 more than this time last year. The miscellaneous rig count stayed the same at 9. The…

If there was any lingering doubt about what’s keeping Big Oil executives up at night, the fourth-quarter results cleared it up. It’s not slogans. It’s not transition optics. It’s whether they have enough high-quality barrels to avoid production decline in the 2030s. The majors are refocusing hard on upstream portfolio renewal for the next decade, according to WoodMac, who analyzed Q4 data. The near-term commodity backdrop isn’t exactly inspiring, and Brent looks soft. Refining margins are decent, petrochemicals less…

In late 2025, during his visit to Kyrgyzstan, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin declared Russia’s readiness to build a small modular nuclear power reactor (SMR) in Kyrgyzstan, thereby signaling Moscow’s intention to move beyond traditional trade relations toward projects in long-term strategic infrastructure. Russia’s proposal may be justified by the need to address Kyrgyzstan’s persistent problem of frequent energy shortages, caused by rising consumption, aging energy infrastructure, and overreliance on hydropower…

Nearly fifty seemingly separate companies have been involved in coordinating to mask the origin of Russian oil, moving crude worth at least $90 billion, an investigation of the Financial Times has found.  FT uncovered the network due to an IT blunder—the 48 identified entities all share a single private email server.  The oil smuggling network includes firms and persons linked to Russia’s top oil producer, state-controlled Rosneft, and these have been in coordination to mask the origin of Russian crude, especially of Rosneft. …

Nearly fifty seemingly separate companies have been involved in coordinating to mask the origin of Russian oil, moving crude worth at least $90 billion, an investigation of the Financial Times has found.  FT uncovered the network due to an IT blunder—the 48 identified entities all share a single private email server.  The oil smuggling network includes firms and persons linked to Russia’s top oil producer, state-controlled Rosneft, and these have been in coordination to mask the origin of Russian crude, especially of Rosneft. …

20 de febrero de 2026.- La compañía petrolera Repsol, que ya trabaja de manera conjunta con la estatal Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) y las autoridades nacionales, aspira a aumentar la producción de crudo en más de un 50% a corto plazo (un año) y triplicarla en un periodo de tres años, según explicó...

The U.S. Supreme Court just kneecapped one of the most aggressive trade levers Washington has pulled in decades, and energy markets are now left sorting out what sticks and what doesn’t. In a 6–3 ruling, the Court struck down most of President Trump’s across-the-board tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The majority opinion was this: the Constitution does not hand taxing authority to the executive branch. That wipes out the 10%-plus blanket tariffs rolled out since April 2025 and undercuts the…

The ratcheting up of tensions between the United States and Iran could push an already red-hot supertanker market even higher with rates soaring to the highest level since 2019, analysts say.  The daily rate for hiring a supertanker on the key Middle East-to-China route has surged threefold since the beginning of the year, to over $150,000.   That’s the highest since 2020, per data from the Baltic Exchange cited by Bloomberg.  The rally in freight rates for the very large crude carriers (VLCC) capable of carrying around…

El politólogo español Juan Carlos Monedero afirmó que Donald Trump ha mantenido la distancia con María Corina Machado, señalando que el mandatario estadounidense considera que la dirigente opositora le ha hecho perder recursos.

Las autoridades de Trinidad y Tobago, estarían muy interesadas en retomar proyectos gasíferos con Venezuela, a pesar que hasta hace menos de dos meses la primera ministra de esa isla, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, aseguró que esa nación no necesitaba en lo absoluto del combustible venezolano pues el...

Desde este jueves 19 de febrero de 2026, inició el pago del bono «Contra la Guerra Económica», correspondiente al mes en curso, a través del Sistema Patria. Asimismo, el Canal Patria Digital informó en sus

After US-Iran nuclear talks concluded in Geneva under heavy American pressure on Tehran to curb its nuclear activities, leading Washington experts say the crisis now stands at a tipping point, with the chances of peace or war at "50-50." Negotiations ended on February 18 with no breakthrough. The White House said the sides remain "very far apart" despite what it described as limited progress. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Iran is expected to return with more details "in the next couple of weeks." Ahead of the Geneva meeting,…

En horas de la tarde de este jueves, usuarios de las redes sociales reportaron la rotura de una tubería de agua en la Avenida Intercomunal Valle-Coche, específicamente en las adyacencias de la estación del Metro de Coche. Señalaron que la avería está exactamente en el puente de la c...

Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict The next strategic territory emerging as a point of friction on the world stage is the Chagos Islands. The UK is preparing to transfer sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius, while still preserving long-term U.S.-UK control over the military base on Diego Garcia. The structure would give legal sovereignty to Mauritius, with Diego Garcia leased back for continued military use. Diego Garcia is a core logistics and strike hub for U.S. operations stretching from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific. The base hosts…

Iran is burying parts of its nuclear infrastructure because it is preparing for a U.S. strike, not an invasion. The U.S. has the ability to hit fixed targets inside Iran instantly, without moving ground forces, so the only plausible military scenario in view is a limited strike. Negotiations have continued through intermediaries. This week, Tehran said it was preparing a written proposal outlining terms for de-escalation. Washington, surprisingly, has kept public messaging tight (no cartoons on X). Talks are ongoing, but military options remain…

Typically, one of the first things I do when I am thinking of writing about something is to search the database and see what I might have said about that stock, sector, or whatever in the past. That can be an interesting exercise at times, and it was this week. I was surprised to see that the last time I had talked about tanker stocks here was back in February of 2021. That is surprising because they are something that I follow consistently. The fortunes of the tanker companies are, of course, linked to crude prices, but they can also sometimes…