‘Stopgap measure’ designed to keep oil flowing into global market as Middle East crisis disrupts crude shipments
The US has temporarily allowed India to buy Russian oil currently stuck at sea in an effort to keep global supplies flowing and temper further price increases.
On Thursday the US treasury issued a 30-day waiver allowing India to buy Russian oil, having previously imposed heavy sanctions related to the war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Reports of attack on US registered tanker in Gulf lifts crude by 3% to $84 a barrel as gas price also starts to climb
Stock markets have rebounded in Asia after days of heavy losses driven by the war in the Middle East, but oil and gas prices have continued to climb amid disruption to supplies.
South Korea’s KOSPI, which posted its biggest ever fall on Tuesday of 12%, rose by almost 10% on Thursday, while Japan’s Nikkei climbed by 1.9%. MSCI’s Asia-Pacific index excluding Japan jumped by 2.7%.
Continue reading...Latest outage darkens island facing dwindling oil reserves and increasing pressure from Washington
A blackout hit the western half of Cuba on Wednesday, leaving millions of people in Havana and beyond without power in the latest outage to affect an island struggling with dwindling oil reserves and a crumbling electricity grid.
The government’s Electric Union confirmed the outage on social platform X, saying it affected people from the eastern town of Pinar del Rio to the central town of Camaguey.
Continue reading...At least four tankers have been struck by drones and maritime traffic has dropped by 80%, reports say
Iran has in effect closed the strait of Hormuz to oil and gas exports for the past four days with a mixture of drone strikes and fear that has halted commercial maritime traffic despite intense US attacks on Iran’s navy.
At least four tankers have been struck and Lloyd’s List Intelligence reported that seaborne traffic had dropped by 80% on Sunday, with little sign of a return as key maritime insurers cancelled cover the next day.
Continue reading...Beijing’s foreign ministry urges ‘all parties’ to avoid escalation as number of crossings drops 60% in one day
The Chinese government has called for vessels passing through the strait of Hormuz to be protected by all sides in the escalating Iran conflict, as shipping freight rates soared.
Maritime traffic through the strait – a narrow channel on Iran’s southern border that connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman – has effectively been closed since the US and Israel launched missile attacks on Iran at the weekend, prompting a retaliation from Tehran.
Continue reading...Donald Trump says deals ‘end our foolish dependence on foreign sources’, while Japanese PM hails enhanced economic security
Japan has drawn up plans for investments in US oil, gas and critical mineral projects worth about $36bn under the first wave of a deal with Donald Trump.
The US president and Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s prime minister, announced a trio of projects including a power plant in Portsmouth, Ohio, billed by the Trump administration as the largest natural gas-fired generating facility in US history.
Continue reading...Pentagon tracked sanctioned Veronica III from Caribbean Sea after it left Venezuela on day Maduro was captured
US military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said on Sunday.
Venezuela had faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure the president, Nicolás Maduro, before Maduro was apprehended in January during a US military operation.
Continue reading...Minister Steven Guilbeault says Indigenous nations were not consulted and the pipeline would have ‘major environmental impacts’
Mark Carney has agreed an energy deal with Alberta centred on plans for a new heavy oil pipeline reaching from the province’s oil sands to the Pacific coast, a politically volatile project that is expected to face stiff opposition.
The move proved politically damaging within hours, with the minister of Canadian culture, Steven Guilbeault, who is the former environment minister, announcing he would leave cabinet. Guilbault, a former activist and lifelong environmental advocate, said he strongly opposed the plan.
Continue reading...Policy body calls for western-backed investigation into oil officials known to be at heart of illegal enterprise
A surge in state-sanctioned fuel smuggling between 2022 and 2024 cost the Libyan people about $20bn (£15bn) in lost revenue – an alarming sum that demands decisive international sanctions against those responsible, according to the most comprehensive report published on how Libya’s primary revenue source has been systematically pillaged.
The report by the investigative and policy body the Sentry states that “politicians and security leaders who claim to serve the public and fight organised crime have, in fact, acted as the chief architects of Libya’s fuel-smuggling industry, often with backing from foreign states”. Some of the imported fuel has also been smuggled into Sudan, where it has prolonged that country’s civil war.
Continue reading...Australia stopped buying fuel directly from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine but has imported more than 3m tonnes of its oil products since 2023
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Millions of tonnes of Russian oil have been traded through a port part-owned by Macquarie Bank and potentially sold on to Australian businesses, new data shows.
The identification of a new link between Australia and the trade in Russian-origin products exposes further gaps in government sanctions, as Australia lags behind the EU and the UK in tightening import rules.
Continue reading...Oil firm asks court to block enforcement of laws that would require disclosure of planet-heating carbon emissions
Exxon, an oil firm consistently ranked among the world’s top contributors to global carbon emissions, is suing the state of California over two climate-focused state laws, arguing that the rules infringe upon the corporation’s right to free speech.
The 2023 laws, known collectively as the California Climate Accountability Package, will require large companies doing business in the state to disclose both their planet-heating carbon emissions and their climate-related financial risks, or face annual penalties.
Continue reading...Analysts say president’s war on Russia’s fossil fuel revenues is a chance to bring peace to Ukraine and profit to US
Donald Trump’s stated mission to broker peace in Ukraine could come down to this simple question: can the US president convince the world to stop buying Russia’s fossil fuels?
Last week, Trump imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, in an effort to damage Moscow’s ability to fund its war machine.
Continue reading...The US president claimed Modi had assured him of deal, but Indian officials insist no such conversation took place
India has cast doubt on claims by Donald Trump that its prime minister, Narendra Modi, had agreed to stop buying Russian oil.
On Wednesday, Trump claimed that Modi had assured him “today” that India would put an end to its purchase of Russian oil.
Continue reading...Academic told panel did not want dissenting view about value of North Sea oil and gas to UK economy
A prominent sustainability professor had events cancelled at Labour and Conservative conferences after hosts of a panel he was on said they did not want his views on oil and gas aired in front of MPs.
Prof Matthew Agarwala spoke on the fringe at Lib Dem conference for the panel organised by Total Politics but was then pulled from similar panels at subsequent Labour and Conservative conferences.
Continue reading...Company says more roles will be at risk unless UK government supports tariffs to protect industry
Ineos, the chemicals company owned by the billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, is to cut a fifth of jobs at its East Yorkshire plant, blaming “sky high” energy costs and “dirt-cheap” imports from China.
The company founded in 1998 by Ratcliffe, who co-owns Manchester United FC, said it would cut 60 jobs at the Acetyls site in Hull, which makes petrochemical products such as acetic acid. It said more roles would be at risk across the industry unless the government stepped in.
Continue reading...Vladimir Putin denounces seizing of the vessel as an act of ‘piracy’ and warned it could provoke confrontation
The captain of an oil tanker that authorities in France have detained off the country’s Atlantic coast and that President Emmanuel Macron has linked to Russia will go on trial in February over the crew’s alleged refusal to cooperate, a French prosecutor has said.
Macron has alleged that the tanker belongs to Russia’s “shadow fleet” of ageing tankers of uncertain ownership that are avoiding western sanctions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine. He also did not rule out that it could have been involved in drone flights over Denmark as it was sailing last week off the coast of the Nordic country.
Continue reading...Insolvency Service says 125 roles to go at Lincolnshire plant, which went into administration in summer
Almost a third of workers at the Prax Lindsey oil refinery in north Lincolnshire, which collapsed into administration this summer, will lose their jobs at the end of October.
The Insolvency Service said the decision to make 125 roles redundant, with 255 people remaining at the site, “was not taken lightly” and follows a thorough review of “all aspects of the business, following its insolvency”.
Continue reading...Announcement of deal baffles experts and former ministers, who say there is no sign of any untapped reserves
The newfound camaraderie between the US and Pakistan was on full display this week as Donald Trump welcomed Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and the country’s powerful army chief, Asim Munir, into the Oval Office, heralding them both as “great leaders”.
Having been cold-shouldered by successive US presidents, this was the first time a Pakistani prime minister had been invited to Washington in more than six years. It was also the unprecedented second time this year that Munir – who holds no official government role – held an intimate meeting with Trump, which many took as a telling signal of where the power to cut deals really lies in Pakistan.
Continue reading...US president claims Russia is in ‘big economic trouble’ as he calls for Nato countries to stop imports of Russian oil
Donald Trump has said he believes Ukraine can regain all the land that it has lost since the 2022 Russian invasion in one of the strongest statements of support he has given Kyiv.
The US president delivered his upbeat assessment by claiming Russia was in big economic trouble in a post on Truth Social after meeting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in New York.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Experts say the move could be part of Beijing’s ‘greyzone’ grab for disputed territory
China is drilling for oil and gas inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a move that analysts believe is likely part of Beijing’s unilateral grab for disputed territory that could also aid a future invasion of Taiwan.
During July and August at least 12 oil and gas vessels and permanent structures were detected inside Taiwan’s EEZ – including one within 50km of the restricted-waters border of the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands – as well as several steel supports for fixed offshore drilling platforms, called jackets. Their presence inside Taiwan’s EEZ have not been previously reported.
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