Crude oil prices were on course to book a sharp weekly gain, with Brent crude on track for gains of about $6 per barrel and WTI registering a much more modest tick higher, from around $99 per barrel on Monday to over $100 earlier today. At the time of writing, Brent crude was trading at $114.00 per barrel, and West Texas Intermediate was changing hands for $100.40 per barrel, as hostilities in the Middle East remain front-page news for oil traders. The focus, however, seems to be on Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure, including Aramco facilities.…
After months of elevated energy prices, Europe can expect fuel costs to continue rising through the winter months as demand grows. Ongoing energy trade constraints and threats to energy infrastructure across the Middle East are expected to limit global energy supplies and continue to drive up prices, hitting consumers hard unless governments intervene. The European Union (EU) is thought to have paid an additional €100 billion on oil and gas so far this year, prompting EU ministers to seek ways to manage the impact of high fuel prices. Since…
Despite the Iran war and the Hormuz crisis, the Middle East’s low-cost chemicals production is set to retain its long-term advantage over other regions. Near-term shifts in the sourcing of polymers are taking place due to the current constraints in the Persian Gulf’s industrial base, benefiting U.S. chemicals companies. But in the long run, the Middle East is likely to retain its buyers’ base because it still has the two levers to be competitive on the global market—an extensive production base and, most of all, low-cost…
During the first three months or so of the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran, the dominant mood on oil markets was that the conflict would end any day now. The brief June ceasefire reinforced that optimism, so it took a while longer for facts to be faced: the war would not end any day now. It might even extend into next year—and this means higher prices for a longer time. The ICE Brent crude futures contract for January 2027 is trading at $102.59 per barrel. The June 2027 contract is only slightly lower, at $92.71 per barrel, and the December…
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.…
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 …
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 ...
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…
The intra-Asia container freight market strengthened for a third consecutive week as unrest in the Middle East and typhoon-related disruption across China tightened capacity and pushed rates higher on most major trades. Drewry’s Intra-Asia Container Index (IACI), a benchmark widely monitored by procurement teams, rose 6% week on week on 20 August, to $1,091 per 40ft, and the consultant expects prices to continue increasing in the coming weeks, supported by persistent ... The post War and weather continue to limit intra-Asia capacity and keep rates high appeared first on The Loadstar .
Crude oil is “very quietly” moving through the Strait of Hormuz at a premium of about $10/b, but products are not, leading to a “very strange” market dynamic with bearish crude and bullish fuel, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said Aug. 24, while restating the company’s commitment to the Middle East. Speaking at the ONS oil ...
Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore — countries that share the primary stewardship of the Strait of Malacca — said on Tuesday they were committed to keeping the narrow corridor and the waters around it “free, open and safe for international shipping.”
Equinor sees a multi-billion LNG export project in Tanzania becoming more attractive for development amid the Middle East conflict that has crippled liquefied natural gas supply through the Strait of Hormuz, a senior executive at the Norwegian energy major said on Tuesday. However, Equinor and its co-operator of the project, Shell, have been locked in difficult negotiations with the government and authorities in Tanzania for years and the provisional Tanzania LNG project has not advanced much this decade. “You don't want to wait too long…
U.S. refineries have been running at full speed for months to make up for lost fuel supply from the Middle East. Fuel exports from the United States have been breaking records. This may be about to change, and not because of the war. It is oil sands maintenance season in Canada. In September, Canadian crude oil production may drop by 300,000 barrels daily due to maintenance activities in the oil sands, Rystad Energy said this week, as quoted by Bloomberg. Usually, whenever such a seasonal disruption occurs, it gets offset with crude from storage.…
Rotterdam Rotterdam’s LNG bunker price has jumped by $70/mt, mirroring gains in the front-month Dutch TTF natural gas contract. Over the past week, TTF has climbed by around 6% to $22.41/MMBtu ($1,165/mt). The latest rally in TTF prices has been driven by the escalating US-Iran tensions and growing concerns over energy shipments through the Strait ...
The LNG shipping market is witnessing the emergence of Mexico’s LNG export corridor, underlying the growing influence of the Pacific LNG trade. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Intermodal said that “amid broader uncertainty in the LNG market, the outlook is being shaped by disruptions to Middle Eastern flows, an uncertain Qatari recovery, and Europe’s ...
U.S. offshore engineering and construction player McDermott has won an engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) assignment for a gas development project off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), enabling it to deliver one of the Middle East’s heaviest offshore topsides. The post McDermott clinches over $1 billion EPCI job for ADNOC’s $6.2B giant gas project appeared first on Offshore Energy .
