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…

Chinese refiners have bought up all crude oil cargoes set to load from Russia’s Far East port of Kozmino in August weeks earlier than usual, traders with knowledge of the market told Bloomberg on Friday, as risks to Middle Eastern supply spiked this week with attacks on tankers in the Red Sea. China has been snapping up the cargoes at a faster pace, which raised the price of the Russian Far Eastern crude blend ESPO to a discount of just $1 per barrel to the price of ICE Brent, up from a discount of between $3 and $4 per barrel two weeks ago,…

The U.S. has identified cooperation on small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) as a key priority in its engagement with Southeast Asia as regional electricity demand continues to climb. Speaking after Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Manila, U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN Kevin Kim said the administration was in “deep discussions” with several governments in the region over the new technology.  The renewed push for SMRs comes on the heels of the memorandum of understanding signed by the U.S.,…

Some of the world’s biggest heavyweights in liquefied natural gas exports are interested in adding Cambodia to their client list as the Southeast Asian nation build sits first LNG-fueled power station. The United States, Australia, Canada, and some Southeast Asian countries are among those interested in supplying fuel for the new power plant, Cambodia’s energy minister, Keo Rottanak, told Bloomberg in an interview. Cambodia gets 63% of its electricity from renewable sources, according to Bloomberg, but according to the International…

Lithium prices have sunk to a five-month low as the return of previously idled mine capacity triggered fears of a massive market oversupply. Lithium prices on the Guangzhou Futures Exchange (GFEX), the most active lithium carbonate contract, fell to 136,800 yuan ($20,210) per tonne on Wednesday, nearly 30% below their multi-year highs reached in mid-May. The sharp pricing downturn is linked to a wave of accelerating mine restarts and expansions across China and Australia. Last month, China’s EV battery giant, Contemporary Amperex Technology…

The Trump administration is studying the deployment of offshore nuclear power generation, with the Marine Minerals Administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreeing this week to coordinate on any future developments. The announcement comes amid surging electricity demand driven by Big Tech. “Submerged reactor systems have been safely deployed in naval applications for decades, demonstrating their potential as a reliable source of energy in demanding marine environments. While no commercial deployment on the Outer Continental Shelf…

OPEC+ is expected to approve another production target increase when eight key producers meet on August 2, extending a months-long campaign to unwind voluntary supply cuts that have existed largely on paper since the Iran war upended Gulf exports. Reuters reported Thursday that Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Kazakhstan, and Oman are expected to raise their combined September production target by another 188,000 barrels per day, matching the increases announced for June, July, and August. The problem is that quotas have been rising…

Artificial intelligence is a double-edged sword for the energy sector. The rapid buildout of data centers to support widespread integration of large language models in virtually every economic sector imaginable, from our energy grids to your electric toothbrush – yes, really – is pushing energy demand growth projections to unprecedented levels, threatening to far outpace energy capacity additions and imperil energy security on a global scale. On the other hand, artificial intelligence holds enormous promise for improving energy efficiency…