Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump’s Venezuela pitch to oil executives to invest the vast sums required to revive the country’s flagging oil sector proved largely ineffectual. Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) CEO Darren Woods offered the starkest assessment, calling the South American country “uninvestable” under its current commercial frameworks and hydrocarbon laws, while ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) CEO Ryan Lance also gave Trump a reality check, informing him his company lost billions of dollars when it exited the country under…

A couple of years ago, Venezuela’s government decided to revive a territorial claim over much of its neighbor, Guyana. The tiny country was emerging as a major oil producer, and Venezuela wanted a piece. Then came Trump and removed the head of that government. Essequibo lies between Guyana and Venezuela, with both claiming sovereignty, while Venezuela is planning a referendum on Sunday to determine the territory’s ownership future. The 61,000+ square mile territory represents about two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is also…

Saudi Arabia’s sudden enthusiasm for developing its vast shale resources -- led by the giant Jafurah basin -- is rooted in a hard?nosed mix of energy security, export optimisation, and geopolitical positioning. Riyadh wants to slash the crude it still burns for power, free up more barrels for export at a time of tight OPEC+ management, and secure new feedstock for its expanding petrochemicals and industrial base. At the same time, the Kingdom is acutely aware that the U.S. shale boom reshaped global energy markets and eroded OPEC’s…

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States saw a build of 5.27 million barrels in the week ending January 9. Crude oil inventories sagged by 2.8 million barrels in the week prior. The Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) rose by 200,000 barrels to 413.7 million barrels in the week ending January 9. Inventories in the SPR have been steadily increasing over the last year as the US Administration seeks to return the national stockpile…

Lebanon’s brutal civil war triggered waves of emigration to South America, with large diasporas settling in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia. Hezbollah initially built networks in those communities to buttress recruitment and finances. The U.S.-designated terrorist group then expanded into South America’s illicit economies, building relationships with transnational criminal syndicates and illegal armed structures to boost its finances. This increased Hezbollah’s capability to wage asymmetric warfare against the United…

Oil prices haven’t had a breather since the year started as one geopolitical crisis has moved to another. Just a week after the U.S. intervention in Venezuela captured Nicolas Maduro, U.S. President Donald Trump has turned his sights to Iran, threatening a U.S. response to the deadly suppression of mass protests against the Islamic Republic’s regime. Oil settled on Monday at a one-month high amid concerns about a potential supply disruption in the Middle East if Iranian protests further escalate and a U.S. intervention of some kind…

Oil prices pushed higher on Tuesday afternoon, with traders weighing a familiar but combustible mix of Middle East risk and Washington-driven policy uncertainty. As of 2:34 p.m. ET, U.S. benchmark WTI crude was trading around $61.10 per barrel, up roughly 2.7% on the day, while Brent crude climbed to about $65.41, gaining just over 2.4%. The gains capped a steady intraday grind higher rather than a knee-jerk spike, suggesting the market is responding to a cluster of risks rather than one clear catalyst. On one side of the oil price ledger is geopolitics.…

Oil prices pushed higher on Tuesday afternoon, with traders weighing a familiar but combustible mix of Middle East risk and Washington-driven policy uncertainty. As of 2:34 p.m. ET, U.S. benchmark WTI crude was trading around $61.10 per barrel, up roughly 2.7% on the day, while Brent crude climbed to about $65.41, gaining just over 2.4%. The gains capped a steady intraday grind higher rather than a knee-jerk spike, suggesting the market is responding to a cluster of risks rather than one clear catalyst. On one side of the oil price ledger is geopolitics.…

Oil prices pushed higher on Tuesday afternoon, with traders weighing a familiar but combustible mix of Middle East risk and Washington-driven policy uncertainty. As of 2:34 p.m. ET, U.S. benchmark WTI crude was trading around $61.10 per barrel, up roughly 2.7% on the day, while Brent crude climbed to about $65.41, gaining just over 2.4%. The gains capped a steady intraday grind higher rather than a knee-jerk spike, suggesting the market is responding to a cluster of risks rather than one clear catalyst. On one side of the oil price ledger is geopolitics.…

China and the EU took a significant step Monday toward easing their long-running electric vehicle trade dispute after Brussels released rules that could allow Chinese exporters to replace punitive tariffs with negotiated pricing commitments, according to the South China Morning Post. The European Commission said companies may submit price undertakings that must be “adequate to eliminate the injurious effects of the subsidies and provide equivalent effect to duties”. Exporters are encouraged to include shipment limits and future EU investments,…

Last week US President Donald Trump announced that Venezuela’s interim authorities will turn over up to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States, before later declaring his administration will control Venezuela's oil sales “indefinitely”. Decrying the state of Venezuela’s oil sector, including that the South American country now pumps a fraction of what it used to, Trump said, “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies — the biggest anywhere in the world — go in,…

Norway on Tuesday offered 57 new production licenses to 19 companies in the annual licensing round for acreage in the best-explored areas on the Norwegian continental shelf, as Western Europe’s biggest oil and gas producer looks to maintain the current high level of output for years to come. Norway holds an annual license round for exploration acreage in the best-known and mature areas on the Norwegian Continental Shelf—the so-called awards in predefined areas (APA) round. After more than 50 years of exploration activity, the APA rounds…

China’s National Petroleum Co. (CNPC) is set to begin work on a sector, dubbed Phase Four, of Turkmenistan’s massive Galkynysh gas field, according to a Turkmen government report. The sector, once pumping at full capacity, is expected to yield about 30 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas per year. Turkmenistan is providing all the financing for the development of Phase Four. Ashgabat is giving no indication of where it intends to send Phase-Four gas. The government report notes that China is currently the “largest…

Iran appears to have secretly released a Greece-owned oil tanker that it had seized two years ago, data from TankerTrackers.com, Inc showed as tensions between the Islamic Republic and the United States flare up again amidst deadly suppression of mass protests in Iran.  Iran captured the tanker St Nikolas in January 2024 in the Gulf of Oman, in retribution for the U.S. seizure of 1 million barrels of Iranian oil the previous year. At the time of the seizure, the vessel was traveling to the Turkish port of Aliaga after loading crude from the…

Iran appears to have secretly released a Greece-owned oil tanker that it had seized two years ago, data from TankerTrackers.com, Inc showed as tensions between the Islamic Republic and the United States flare up again amidst deadly suppression of mass protests in Iran.  Iran captured the tanker St Nikolas in January 2024 in the Gulf of Oman, in retribution for the U.S. seizure of 1 million barrels of Iranian oil the previous year. At the time of the seizure, the vessel was traveling to the Turkish port of Aliaga after loading crude from the…

Iran appears to have secretly released a Greece-owned oil tanker that it had seized two years ago, data from TankerTrackers.com, Inc showed as tensions between the Islamic Republic and the United States flare up again amidst deadly suppression of mass protests in Iran.  Iran captured the tanker St Nikolas in January 2024 in the Gulf of Oman, in retribution for the U.S. seizure of 1 million barrels of Iranian oil the previous year. At the time of the seizure, the vessel was traveling to the Turkish port of Aliaga after loading crude from the…

Oil prices have rebounded sharply on geopolitical risk despite no meaningful supply losses. Call Options Go Wild as Brent Traders Bet Big on Chaos- Iran protests and the increasing probability that US President Trump would exploit that unrest for another series of strikes on Tehran have been dragging oil prices higher, boosting oil options trading in recent days. - This Monday witnessed the busiest-ever single day of Brent crude call option trading (556,000 contracts) as market participants rushed to the market to protect themselves against…

Russia on Tuesday asserted ownership of all oil assets a state Russian company is developing in Venezuela, following the claims of U.S. President Donald Trump that major American and Western oil firms would help revive Venezuela’s oil industry.  Russia’s Roszarubezhneft, a state-owned firm that took over Rosneft assets in 2020 following U.S. sanctions on Rosneft’s Venezuelan oil trade, said on Tuesday that “all assets of Roszarubezhneft in Venezuela are owned by the Russian state,” as they have been bought at…

US military action against Iran appears to be back on the policy agenda in Washington amid the increasingly deadly crackdown on protesters in cities and towns across the country. Unconfirmed reports say that more than 500 people have been killed -- some rights groups say the death toll may be several times higher -- in suppressing the uprising, one of the biggest challenges to clerical rule since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The demonstrations were sparked by spiraling inflation and a freefall of the currency, but have since turned into a broader…

Global oil prices surged on Tuesday as markets reacted to the escalating drone strikes at the Novorossiysk terminal, which handles roughly 2% of the world's daily supply. The disruption to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) infrastructure, a vital artery for Kazakh exports managed by Western majors like Chevron and Shell, raised immediate fears of a prolonged supply squeeze.  WTI was at $60.75, up 2.1%... While Brent was trading at $65.13, up 1.9%. Two oil tankers waiting to load crude from some of Kazakhstan’s biggest oilfields were…