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,…

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. …

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…

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,…

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…

Light crude oil futures are extending their gains this week, up 5.70% and threatening to break out to the upside as U.S.-Iran tensions continue to escalate. The market has rallied more than 20% from its December lows, and the big question now is how much further it can go given that the world remains well-supplied with oil. Wednesday's 4% Jump Was Just the Beginning Wednesday's 4% single-session surge set the tone for the week. It was a direct reaction to the military buildup in the Middle East and the growing fear that the U.S. is preparing to…

A jump in China’s crude oil imports from Russia is more than compensating the withdrawal of the Indian refiners from spot Russian purchases, according to tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.  So far in February, deliveries of Russia-origin cargoes at Chinese ports have averaged 2.09 million barrels per day (bpd), up from an average of 1.72 million bpd in the full month of January and 1.39 million for December, the data showed.   For Russia, the hike in Chinese purchases of its crude has more than offset the loss of a…

Tullow Oil, a London-listed firm focused on oil and gas developments in Africa, has extended debt maturities by two and a half years in a major refinancing agreement with the holders of two-thirds of senior notes and with mining and commodity giant Glencore.  Tullow Oil on Friday said it had entered into a binding Lock-Up Agreement to implement a refinancing transaction with holders of about 66% of its $1.28 billion in senior secured notes due May 2026, as well as with Glencore.    The refinancing transaction releases its Senior…

The global AI and data center boom will need acceleration of renewable energy rollout to avoid plunging millions of people into energy poverty as power bills jump, the founder of China’s major wind turbine maker Envision told the Financial Times.  “For this AI revolution, lots of people may end up with energy poverty,” Envision’s founder and chief executive officer Lei Zhang told FT.  The growing electricity demand from AI infrastructure and data centers is changing the narrative of the need of renewables. Clean…

Hungary is releasing oil from its strategic petroleum reserves to ensure supply after Russian crude flows via the Druzhba pipeline stopped at the end of last month. The Hungarian government will release 250,000 tons of crude oil from the country’s strategic reserves, with domestic oil company MOL having priority access to the commodity, according to a government decree published in the official gazette. At the end of January, Druzhba, the pipeline that carries Russian crude to refineries in Hungary and Slovakia, was damaged in what Ukraine…

Saudi oil exports to India are on course to book the strongest month since 2020, according to data from Kpler cited by Bloomberg. India has been under intense pressure from the United States to stop importing crude from Russia, and while New Delhi has been wary of making any formal commitments, oil flows to one of the world’s largest importers of the commodity have changed. Saudi oil shipments to India are seen at a daily average of between 1 million barrels and 1.1 million barrels, Kpler lead research analyst Sumit Ritolia said. This is…

Libya’s first oil licensing round in more than 17 years, launched by the National Oil Corporation (NOC) in March 2025, was meant to signal the country’s upstream comeback after more than a decade of war and fragmentation. The round offered 22 onshore and offshore blocks, including 19 undeveloped discoveries, and drew strong early interest: 44 companies and one consortium applied, with 37 pre-qualified by July. Established players such as Eni, TotalEnergies, BP, Repsol and OMV were joined by a wide range of international entrants, from…

Long dominated by its agricultural and oil sectors, Sudan is now keen to unlock its vast mineral wealth as Africa's third-largest, and the world's thirteenth-largest, nation in terms of mineral diversity. Sudan is a major African gold producer, with the sector becoming a crucial source of foreign exchange following the loss of 75% of its oil revenue after the secession of South Sudan in 2011. However, ~75% of its resources remain unexplored, with deposits of copper, iron ore, chromite, zinc, base metals, uranium and various rare earth elements…