Energy Markets Editor
Helena covers crude, refined products and the trading houses that move them, with a focus on price formation in the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
A ship’s anchor can wreak havoc on the world’s undersea infrastructure, something that has provided plenty of rich material for Splash reporting in recent years. For Elisabeth Braw, the Cook Islands-flagged tanker Eagle S provides one of the most brazen examples. On Christmas Day 2024, the vessel was accused of dragging its anchor 90 km …
Borderlands Mexico is a weekly rundown of developments in the world of United States-Mexico cross-border trucking and trade. This week in Borderlands Mexico: US takes 76% of vehicle exports as September shipments plunge; DSV expands US-Mexico freight operations with McAllen office; and Texas university seeks $772,700 for AI-powered Laredo freight project. US takes 76% of vehicle exports as September shipments plunge More than three-quarters of Mexico’s light-vehicle exports were destined for the U.S. during the first nine months of 2026, underscoring the importance of cross-border automotive t
Australia is set to unveil the final version of a controversial plan to force liquefied natural gas producers to reserve as much as a fifth of their output for local buyers.
Oil prices edged higher as Middle East tanker attacks and Hurricane Isaias heightened supply concerns.
Supertankers are racing to the Middle East to cash in on soaring fees for carrying oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
Crude posted its biggest gain in a month amid Middle East tensions and hurricane-related production cuts.
Crude oil prices, which dipped on Tuesday, reversed their direction, with Brent ticking above $100 again earlier today following reports of fresh Houthi attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure. At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $101.49 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate was changing hands for $90.14 per barrel, despite a statement from Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, who said Tuesday the kingdom’s oil flows via the Rast-West pipeline had rebounded to 5.8 million barrels daily. The statement…
Shipping markets rarely announce the top with any clarity. More often, the argument about whether the peak has arrived only really starts when freight rates are still climbing, asset values are making less and less conventional sense and owners are sufficiently confident to keep buying ships at prices that would have looked ridiculous a few …
'The cooperation with Biotrend could open up a new source of renewable gas for European markets while further diversifying Uniper's portfolio'.
The transits are a lifeline to gulf energy producers and a boon to shipowners and commodity traders who stand to reap billions of dollars from the trade.
Tajikistan announced that it is now receiving oil and petroleum products from Iran, opening a potential new energy source for a country whose fuel supplies have long been dominated by Russia. The deliveries began in late August, Tajikistan's Energy and Water Resources Ministry told the Asia-Plus news agency, following talks between the two countries on expanding cooperation in the oil and gas sector. The ministry has not disclosed the volume of the shipments, their commercial terms, or how the oil and petroleum products were transported to Tajikistan.…
Iranian oil is disappearing from the market just as its biggest buyer returns for more. China’s recovering crude demand is colliding with the loss of a supplier that sustained its independent refiners through the crisis, forcing them to compete for increasingly expensive alternatives. The consequences reach beyond China: every replacement barrel tightens supplies for other buyers, while Tehran faces a growing incentive to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, which is now carrying an unexpectedly strong 13 million barrels a day (just 5 million below…
Oil prices pulled back on Tuesday, reversing recent gains as investors weighed signs of export recovery by Middle Eastern producers against uncertainty surrounding the fate of the Iran war. Brent crude for November delivery fell 1.5% to trade at $103.72 per barrel at 1.10 pm ET, while WTI crude for October delivery declined 2.2% to change hands at $90.62/bbl. Crude exports from the region climbed to 15.5 million barrels per day in September, good for more than 80% of prewar levels and the highest level since the conflict began seven months ago.…
Amid regulatory uncertainty, there is one key challenge to ensuring shipping meets its decarbonization goals: making the right decisions today. DNV’s latest edition of Maritime Forecast to 2050 explores how different scenarios could reshape fuel demand, investment decisions, and decarbonization pathways, helping shipowners to navigate uncertainty and build resilient fleets. Shipping’s energy transition has entered ...
The Chinese market remains the largest one in terms of seaborne crude oil imports, after the first eight months of 2026. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Banchero Costa said that “after a marginal decline in 2024, when global crude oil loadings decreased by -0.2% y-o-y, things picked up in 2025, with full-year volumes increasing ...
Peter Sand, Xeneta Chief Analyst: “For the high-flying spot rates from Far East to US East and West Coasts, we may just begin to see the end of that rising trend as we get into the first half of October. When comparing today’s spot rates to the level experienced on 1 July – shippers are ...
SUNY Maritime College’s training ship Empire State VII has been ordered to depart New York on September 30 for Norfolk, Virginia, where it will undergo a month-long activation and flight deck certification...
The VLCC market has reached levels that would have sounded absurd only months ago. Middle East-China earnings have pushed beyond $1m a day, Atlantic routes have surged into the hundreds of thousands and secondhand values have exploded to the point where rust-stained 15-year-old VLCCs are changing hands for more than newbuilds. The argument now dividing …
Brazil’s state-owned energy giant Petrobras has struck a two-decade-long deal with Sempra Infrastructure, a subsidiary of Sempra, for the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from a U.S. project under development in Jefferson County, Texas. The post Petrobras locks in 20-year US supply from Sempra’s LNG project in Lone Star State appeared first on Offshore Energy .
Sempra Infrastructure signed a 20-year agreement to supply about 0.8 million metric tons per annum of liquefied natural gas to Petrobras from the under-construction Port Arthur LNG phase 2 project in Texas.
Oil fell for a third session as easing Saudi supply concerns outweighed lingering risks around the Strait of Hormuz.
China’s diesel fuel and gasoline inventories are declining, which may eventually lead to the imposition of export curbs, Bloomberg has reported, citing recent fuel inventory data. Gasoline inventories at state-owned energy majors were down by 2.9% last week to their lowest level since 2022, according to Chinese commodity market research firm JLC International. Diesel inventories are sitting at the lowest in 15 months, booking a 2.4% dip last week, the publication noted. “With the domestic market tightening, we see an increasing risk…
For the first four months of the war between the United States and Israel and Iran, oil traders remained largely bearish. The overwhelming expectation was that the war would end soon—even as July rolled around—and oil flows out of Hormuz would recover. Instead, the world is slipping into a fuel shortage, and traders have gone bullish. They are especially bullish on fuels in the United States, it seems. The world’s biggest crude oil consumer and the biggest exporter of crude and fuels has not managed to avoid a supply squeeze at…
The defining feature of the current asset market is not limited to five-year-old tonnage trading above newbuilding prices. Repricing spans the entire age curve and intensifies with vessel age. VLCC values are up 30% year-over-year at five years, 42% at ten years, 61% at fifteen years, and 90% at twenty years. The Suezmax curve shows ...
The EU ETS is expected to keep impacting shipping both in the near and in the long term, following the latest gas price increases. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Intermodal said that “the EUA market maintained its upward trend in August, despite the quieter trading conditions and lower liquidity that typically characterize the holiday ...
Washington’s takeover of more than a fifth of Venezuela’s oil reserves in a deal officially signed by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright on 2 September was as unexpected as it was dramatic, with President Donald Trump’s comment a few days earlier that it is “the biggest oil deal in world history” looking justified from several perspectives. From a pure volume standpoint, the deal covers 65 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves (out of Venezuela’s total 303 billion barrels) across 17 fields. To put that…
Capesize The market enjoyed a notably bullish week, recovering strongly after the UK holiday-shortened start and building momentum across both basins. Early weakness in the Pacific quickly proved short-lived as sustained miner participation tightened available tonnage and restored confidence. By midweek, all major miners were actively fixing, driving C5 steadily higher and attracting increasingly aggressive ...
Rates for shipping containers from east Asia and China to the US were mostly higher this week while rates for liquid chemical tankers ex-US Gulf were mostly softer, all while schedule reliability is decreasing because of congestion at Asia ports. PORT CONGESTION Global container vessel schedule reliability dropped to 56.4% in July 2026, a decline ...
The tanker market could experience an increase of flows from West to East in the coming years, following the 65 billion barrel deal between the US and Venezuela. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Gibson said that “last Friday, President Trump announced that the US had reached an agreement to control 65 billion barrels of ...
Greek owner Sea Pioneer Shipping has emerged as the company behind SK Oceanplant’s recently announced series of six firm plus two optional aframax tankers. Market sources have identified the Vasilis Bacolitsas-led owner as the previously unnamed Greek customer behind six 115,000 dwt crude carriers at the South Korean yard, with two further options attached. SK …
By Alexandra Valencia and Yury Garcia QUITO, Sept 4 (Reuters) – Ecuador defended on Friday U.S. operations that intercepted and sank three Ecuadorean vessels this week, while relatives of some crew members...
OSLO, Sept 4 (Reuters) – Norway will provide necessary assistance to Russians in the Arctic Svalbard islands following the arrest of a ship transporting passengers and supplies to the archipelago, the Nordic...
A new project is seeking to turn cattle manure into a source of sustainable natural gas for energy production and shipping fuel. The initiative just broke ground in Broken Bow, Nebraska, where eight anaerobic digesters will process waste from the Adams Land & Cattle feedlot into what the project leads are hoping will be a lucrative and eco-friendly source of approximately 1.2 million MMBtu of pipeline-quality natural gas per year. “The Adams Land & Cattle RNG facility demonstrates how American agriculture can play an important role…
Governments worldwide are racing to develop small modular reactors (SMRs) as part of their plans for a nuclear power renaissance, with significant progress being seen in recent years. However, the United States appears to be leading the way in nuclear microreactor development, with significant investment in the technology recently announced by the U.S. Army. SMRs are advanced nuclear reactors with a power capacity of up to 300 MW(e) per unit, or around one-third of the generating capacity of a conventional nuclear reactor. They are much smaller…
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, with the total rig count in the US staying at 588, up 51 from this same time last year. The number of active oil rigs rose by 2, reaching 449 during the latest reporting period, according to the data. This is 35 above this same time last year. The number of gas rigs fell by 2 to 130, which is 12 more than this time last year. Miscellaneous rigs stayed the same at 9. The latest EIA…
Citadel is shopping for U.S. oil production assets, including a previous bid for WildFire Energy before Magnolia Oil & Gas agreed to buy the Eagle Ford producer for $4.06 billion. Reuters reported Friday that the hedge fund and commodities trader has held talks with several private-equity owners of oil-weighted exploration and production companies in recent weeks. WildFire would have given Citadel roughly 53,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of production, about 70% of it oil, plus 810,000 net acres in South Texas. Magnolia ultimately won…
Ukraine’s top sanctions official says he remains optimistic about prospects for a sweeping Russia sanctions bill in the US Congress despite growing uncertainty over when the House of Representatives will take it up, as lawmakers face a sharply shortened legislative calendar ahead of the November elections. Vladyslav Vlasiuk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s sanctions commissioner, spent this week in Washington meeting lawmakers and congressional staff as Kyiv presses Congress to advance the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia…
With the overall jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing a surprisingly big jump in employment, truck transportation participated in that rebound. The monthly report showed truck transportation employment rising 4,800 jobs to 1,470,300. It’s the highest level of jobs in the sector since October. But with employment since then mostly trending down each month, the number of jobs in the sector is still about 10,000 jobs less than it was a year ago. window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag.cmd.push(function() { var gptSlot = googletag.defineSlot('/21776187881/FW-
IBIA – The International Bunker Industry Association will bring together leading figures from across the global marine energy and shipping industries at its 2026 Annual Convention, taking place 10–12 November at the New York Marriott Downtown. The Convention will address the key issues shaping the marine fuels sector, including regulation and policy, fuel quality, alternative ...
Small and midsize shippers are often forced to stitch together various tools for parcel labels, freight quotes, tracking, and much more. The fragmentation gets more expensive as a business grows past pure e-commerce, since the moment a merchant needs to move inventory between warehouses or ship a pallet instead of a box, they’re forced out of whatever platform runs their day-to-day shipping and into unfamiliar territory. ShipStation Global CEO Tom Madine has built the company’s post-merger strategy around closing that gap, knowing that the same merchants who came to the platform for parcel lab
China’s oil consumption fell 9% year over year in the second quarter as expensive crude accelerated the use of electric cars, trucks, rail and industrial equipment. The decline helped cut China’s carbon dioxide emissions by 1% during the quarter, according to an analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. It was the first quarterly emissions decline in China driven primarily by lower oil consumption. Power-sector emissions rose 3% during the same period as coal-fired generation increased. Electric vehicles displaced…
It was a relatively subdued Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit for Chinese leader Xi Jinping. He departed the host city Bishkek having made few attention-grabbing headlines. There were no big announcements or viral moments, unlike at 2025’s SCO summit on Xi’s home turf in the Chinese city of Tianjin. In Bishkek, there were no photos of Xi, Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi cutting up together sans interpreters, nor Putin and Xi caught on hot mics discussing how to live for 150 years, nor…
Shop price inflation has hit a two-year high and is set to climb through the autumn as a surge in energy and commodity costs filters through to consumers, a top business group has found. The British Retail Consortium (BRC), which represents major supermarkets and high street shops across the UK, warned that shop price inflation increased to 1.5 per cent in the year to August. The higher rate of price rises compares to a rise of 0.9 per cent in the year to July and a three-month average of 1.2 per cent. Shop price inflation was at the…
Geodis has promoted Veronique Dameme to chief commercial officer for its global freight forwarding business, effective today. Ms Dameme brings more than 30 years’ experience in the logistics sector, including 17 years in the US, with expertise spanning international business development, customer strategy and global supply chains. She has particular experience in the healthcare and life sciences sector, having joined Geodis in October 2025 as sales director for healthcare and life sciences ... The post Dameme steps up as Geodis CCO appeared first on The Loadstar .
China-based provider of clean energy services Wison New Energies (WNE) has joined forces with the UK-headquartered energy giant Shell to bring the European firm’s liquefaction technology to the wider liquefied natural gas (LNG) market for the first time, strengthening Wison’s floating LNG (FLNG) offering and aiming to accelerate deployment of next-generation FLNG projects. The post Shell’s technology set to enter wider FLNG market through Wison deal appeared first on Offshore Energy .
Iran on Monday dismissed as “laughable” a Truth Social AI-generated post by U.S. President Donald Trump that the key Iranian oil export hub of Kharg Island is “being blown to smithereens”, as tensions in the Middle East boiled up again with U.S. attacks and Iranian claims of retaliatory strikes. President Trump late on Sunday posted an AI-generated video on his Truth Social platform, with the caption “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT”. In response to the post, Iran on Monday said, via…
There is always a winner in any major global oil crisis. In 1973/74, it was Saudi Arabia and its OPEC brothers who shifted the balance of power in the market away from the previous arrangement dominated by the West’s ‘Seven Sisters’ to the oil producers of the Middle East. After the 2014-2016 Oil Price War, it was the U.S. whose earlier nascent shale oil sector resisted the threat to its very existence from Saudi Arabia and OPEC, reorganising into a meaner, leaner, lower-cost oil production machine. The U.S. was the winner again…
Chart of the Week: Accepted Truckload Volume Index, SONAR Truckload Rejection Index – USA SONAR : ASTVI.USA, STRI.USA The Accepted SONAR Truckload Volume Index (ASTVI), which measures the volume of truckload tenders carriers accept for loads moved under existing rate agreements, averaged around 9,800 last week. The SONAR Truckload Rejection Index (STRI), which measures the percentage of tendered loads rejected, hovered around 13.5%. While both are down from their 12-month highs, together they suggest the current truckload market cycle is more supply-driven than any in recent history — and stil
Borderlands Mexico is a weekly rundown of developments in the world of United States-Mexico cross-border trucking and trade. This week in Borderlands Mexico: Nuevo León governor pitches border boom as Texas-Mexico freight surges; NADBank plans nearly $164M in water projects; and Otay Business Park completes first phase near US-Mexico border. Nuevo León governor pitches border boom as Texas-Mexico freight surges Nuevo León Gov. Samuel García is betting billions of dollars in infrastructure, industrial development and security investments can help transform the Mexican state into an increasingly
'The acquisition of EDGE expands Sapphire's LNG capabilities by adding approximately 200,000 gallons of daily LNG liquefaction capacity through modular equipment currently serving clients in the Southern U.S.'
By Baris Balci Aug 30, 2026 (Bloomberg) — At least six people died after a high-speed ferry carrying about 267 capsized while sailing from Kyrenia in northern Cyprus to Tasucu in southern...
Venezuela is considering whether it should quit OPEC, according to people familiar with the matter.
France’s engineering player Technip Energies has been hired to provide detailed engineering services for a […] The post L&T taps Technip Energies for engineering work on ADNOC’s major offshore gas project appeared first on Offshore Energy .
The company brings engineering, specialist personnel, equipment and port infrastructure together under one operating […] The post Futura combines marine engineering, cable logistics and vessel services appeared first on Offshore Energy .
Pakistan’s five oil refineries are expected to sign agreements in early September for upgrades that are expected to unlock as much as $6 billion in investment in the country’s refining sector. Representatives of the five refineries, Pak Arab Refinery Limited (PARCO), Pakistan Refinery Limited (PRL), National Refinery Limited (NRL), Cnergyico, and Attock Refinery Limited (ARL), have met with Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Petroleum, Ali Pervaiz Malik, to discuss the so-called Refinery Upgradation Policy, local daily Business Recorder…
Canada Post announced on Friday that it plans to introduce weekend parcel delivery in three major cities later this year, part of a plan to modernize its business model and capture more parcel business from electronic retailers as it tries to return to profitability. The postal carrier credited this year’s resolution of a drawnout labor dispute with restoring customer confidence in the second quarter, which sparked an early-stage recovery of parcel business and helped reduce the pre-tax loss by a third to US$199.7 million. The state-owned company also said it reduced costs by 6.3% during the q
Four shipping companies from Sweden, Norway, and Canada see a bright future in the European intermediate tanker market and are ordering four new VINGA ships — taking the series, developed by Furetank, to a remarkable 26 vessels. The new investment was announced on Friday in conjunction with the naming ceremony for FURE VASA, a newly ...
The U.S. Maritime Administration is preparing to activate SUNY Maritime College’s training ship Empire State VII for a federal mission expected to last approximately 170 days, potentially taking the vessel away from...
Quick recap: the freight-rate spike that produced two very different report cards at Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd is increasingly a story about who controls terminal and inland capacity, not who owns the most vessels – and nobody is making that case more directly right now than AD Ports. ZIM’s next move, meanwhile, has less to do with freight rates than with a decision sitting with Israeli regulators. My previous analysis already worked ... The post AD Ports the clear read-through as bottlenecks shift from ship to dock appeared first on The Loadstar .
Shanghai-listed Ningbo Marine is lining up another five bulk carrier newbuildings in China, expanding a fleet renewal programme that could see the owner add close to 600,000 dwt of fresh tonnage. The Zhejiang Energy-backed company has approved up to CNY980m ($136m) for four 65,000 dwt bulkers, while wholly owned Ningbo Marine Singapore has been cleared …
Residual fuel cracks have firmed for four consecutive weeks as blenders compete for cutter stock across Mediterranean hubs.
Producers enter the second half of the year with more spare capacity than the market has priced.
A conversation with a marine fuels supplier on quality assurance, blending and buyer trust.
