Marathon Petroleum (NYSE: MPC), the biggest U.S. refiner by volumes, on Tuesday reported a loss for the first quarter as weak refining margins continued to depress profits and high turnaround activity limited the upside from margins and sales revenues. Marathon Petroleum booked a net loss of $74 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2025, compared with net income of $937 million, or $2.58 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2024. Marathon Petroleum attributed the loss “mainly due to the execution of the second…

Marathon Petroleum (NYSE: MPC), the biggest U.S. refiner by volumes, on Tuesday reported a loss for the first quarter as weak refining margins continued to depress profits and high turnaround activity limited the upside from margins and sales revenues. Marathon Petroleum booked a net loss of $74 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2025, compared with net income of $937 million, or $2.58 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2024. Marathon Petroleum attributed the loss “mainly due to the execution of the second…

Marathon Petroleum (NYSE: MPC), the biggest U.S. refiner by volumes, on Tuesday reported a loss for the first quarter as weak refining margins continued to depress profits and high turnaround activity limited the upside from margins and sales revenues. Marathon Petroleum booked a net loss of $74 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2025, compared with net income of $937 million, or $2.58 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2024. Marathon Petroleum attributed the loss “mainly due to the execution of the second…

Iran’s continued struggle with electricity shortages has led to the implementation of rolling blackouts in the capital, Tehran. Power cuts have become a fixture of both summer and winter months, but rolling blackouts this year have started earlier than usual despite the temperatures being relatively low. Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said during her weekly press conference on May 6 that the country was facing “multiple imbalances,” referring to rising demand for electricity, water, and gas. She said the government…

Oil prices rallied aggressively on Tuesday morning, recovering from the OPEC+-induced drop that was sparked by the cartel's decision to unwind production cuts at a faster rate than previously planned. Despite the recovery, uncertainty remains in markets and more volatility is likely.- Oil majors have been surprisingly inert in reacting to oil prices declining by more than $10 per barrel since early April, preferring to wait out the resolution of the U.S.-China trade war before cutting expenditures.- Posting a net profit of $7.7 billion, down 7%…

Oil prices staged a robust comeback on Tuesday, clawing back ground lost after OPEC’s surprise weekend announcement to boost production quotas by more than expected. WTI surged more than 4% on the day, trading above $59, while Brent gained 3.7%, reaching well above $62. The bounce comes after a bruising April that saw prices crater under the weight of U.S. tariffs and OPEC+ confusion. OPEC’s weekend move to raise quotas—reportedly by triple what most expected—initially sent prices tumbling. But the fine print matters. Chronic…

Oil prices staged a robust comeback on Tuesday, clawing back ground lost after OPEC’s surprise weekend announcement to boost production quotas by more than expected. WTI surged more than 4% on the day, trading above $59, while Brent gained 3.7%, reaching well above $62. The bounce comes after a bruising April that saw prices crater under the weight of U.S. tariffs and OPEC+ confusion. OPEC’s weekend move to raise quotas—reportedly by triple what most expected—initially sent prices tumbling. But the fine print matters. Chronic…

U.S. utility giant Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) reported on Tuesday consensus-beating earnings for the first quarter as higher rates and a colder winter boosted sales and demand for electricity and gas. North Carolina-based Duke Energy – which serves 8.2 million electric utility customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky – booked adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.76 for the first quarter of the year. This is higher compared to the adjusted EPS of $1.44 for the first quarter of 2024 and above the…

U.S. utility giant Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) reported on Tuesday consensus-beating earnings for the first quarter as higher rates and a colder winter boosted sales and demand for electricity and gas. North Carolina-based Duke Energy – which serves 8.2 million electric utility customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky – booked adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.76 for the first quarter of the year. This is higher compared to the adjusted EPS of $1.44 for the first quarter of 2024 and above the…

U.S. utility giant Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) reported on Tuesday consensus-beating earnings for the first quarter as higher rates and a colder winter boosted sales and demand for electricity and gas. North Carolina-based Duke Energy – which serves 8.2 million electric utility customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky – booked adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.76 for the first quarter of the year. This is higher compared to the adjusted EPS of $1.44 for the first quarter of 2024 and above the…

OPEC’s second-largest producer, Iraq, exported crude oil and petroleum products worth $29.58 billion to India last year, trade data reported by Shafaq News showed on Tuesday. Iraq, which was India’s top crude oil supplier before 2022 and the flow of cheap Russian oil, unwanted or banned in the West, held in 2024 a market share of about 20% of all crude oil imports into India, the world’s third-largest crude importer. Total Iraqi crude and refined petroleum product exports to India were valued at $29.58 billion, of which $28.6…

The recent oil price crash will surely hit Saudi Arabia’s state finances going forward, but the Kingdom already booked a hefty budget deficit for the first quarter, before oil prices dropped dramatically. During the first quarter of the year, the budget deficit of the world’s top crude oil exporter swelled to $15.6 billion (58.7 billion Saudi riyals), data from the Saudi Finance Ministry showed. That’s already more than half of the deficit the Kingdom had forecast for the full year in its FY 2025 budget statement— a deficit…

China’s streak of weak monthly coal imports continues, dragging thermal coal prices in Asia to a four-year low. Record-high domestic coal production and weaker coal-fired power generation in China have resulted in declining demand for thermal coal imports into the world’s biggest coal market. In April, China’s coal imports fell to 22.72 million metric tons, from 23.84 million tons imported in March, per data from commodity analysts Kpler cited by Reuters columnist Clyde Russell. Over the period January to April, China’s…

Onshore crude oil production in the United States has peaked, Diamondback Energy has said, expecting output to start declining later this year unless prices reverse course. At the release of its first-quarter results, the company said fracking crews in the shale patch had declined by 15% since the start of the year and are set for further declines amid the international oil price rout. Diamondback is one of the largest Permian operators and plans to curb its spending this year in response to the price developments that most analysts argue were…

Big Oil majors have no plans to scale back their budgets despite oil prices softening and more barrels poised to hit the market. That may sound reckless in a bearish environment, but it’s anything but. With demand picking up in Asia and OPEC+ preparing to unwind production cuts faster than expected, Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and TotalEnergies are digging in—ready to pump more, not less. ExxonMobil reported a decline in net profits for the first quarter to $7.7 billion, down from $8.2 billion a year ago. Chevron’s earnings fell more…

Last week,  the United States and Ukraine signed a long-awaited minerals deal, with Washington gaining access to Kyiv’s mineral resources in exchange for establishing an investment fund. The fund will be capitalized from future natural resource extraction, with Kyiv’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko saying the “full ownership and control” of the resources will stay with Ukraine. The agreement covers all sub-soil resources, including Ukraine’s oil and gas. The agreement also stipulates that future American military…

The world’s biggest international oil and gas firms are sticking to their dividend distribution policies as most met or exceeded analyst expectations of first-quarter profits. BP and Chevron reduced the pace of their share buybacks for the second quarter, but the others, Exxon, Shell, and TotalEnergies, maintained their guidance on repurchases despite the slump in oil prices at the start of the second quarter. All five Big Oil firms touted their shareholder distributions and resilience in the earnings releases and conference calls. Some fared…

The multi-layered strategic importance of Syria to Russia was underlined in 2011 when President Vladimir Putin ordered his military to intervene to counter the popular uprising that threatened to depose then-President Bashar al-Assad at that time. A sustained and dramatic escalation of its armed forces there, working closely with Iraq’s key local sponsor Iran, ensured that Russia continued to benefit from the strategic advantages Syria offered it until the U.S.- and U.K.-backed overthrow of al-Assad in December 2024 by rebel groups led by…

US President Donald Trump may have just said the quiet part out loud, answering analyst questions about the motivation behind OPEC’s decision to unwind its production cuts more than anticipated at a time when oil prices are already low. “We’re in a good position to settle with Russia as oil prices are down,” President Donald Trump said on Monday, May 5, referring to ongoing negotiations related to the war in Ukraine. The comment came just days after OPEC shocked markets by announcing it would unwind production cuts for June—three…

Prompted by the war in Ukraine and increasingly fraught trade relations with the United States, the European Union is on the hunt for natural resources.  That search is increasingly focused on Central Asia, as the recent European Union-Central Asia summit in Samarkand showed. The summit, at which the EU announced nearly 12 billion euros in investments in Central Asia, opened a “new chapter” in the relationship between the two regions, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.  But now that…