OPEC on Wednesday lowered its forecast for global oil demand growth in 2026, joining other forecasters such as the International Energy Agency in cutting expectations due to the Iran war. The producer group sees a smaller hit to demand than the IEA, which earlier on Wednesday increased its estimate of the decline in oil use this year. OPEC said consumption would rebound later and raised its demand growth forecast for 2027. The war has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key global [Read more]

U.S. crude and gasoline stocks fell last week while distillate inventories rose, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Crude inventories fell by 4.3 million barrels to 452.9 million barrels last week, the EIA said, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 2.1-million-barrel draw. Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub dropped by 1.7 million barrels in the week ended May 8, the EIA said. Oil futures extended gains following the [Read more]

U.S. energy firms pulled a record 8.6 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in the week ended May 8, reducing the total amount of oil in the SPR to 384.1 million barrels, the lowest since October 2024, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its weekly Petroleum Status Report on Wednesday. That topped the prior weekly all-time high withdrawal of 8.4 million barrels in September 2022. (Reporting by Scott DiSavino and Shariq Khan in New York, Editing [Read more]

Annual electric power generation from utility-scale solar will surpass that from coal for the first time in 2026 within the electricity grid, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook on Wednesday. Solar generation in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid, which serves most of the state, is forecast to reach 78 billion kilowatt-hours in 2026, compared with 60 billion kilowatt-hours from coal, the EIA said. Solar generation is [Read more]

The U.S. Energy Information Administration on Tuesday revised its earlier forecasts to reflect a much bigger and lengthier hit to global oil supplies from the Iran war than it previously projected, highlighting the uncertainty that has roiled broader energy markets since the conflict began three months ago. Energy analysts have found it difficult to predict the length and depth of disruptions to oil markets from the war in the Middle East, especially as U.S. President Donald Trump has issued [Read more]

The U.S. and China are expected to inch toward a managed trade mechanism for non-sensitive goods this week, with each side possibly identifying some $30 billion worth of goods on which they could reduce tariffs and sell to each other without crossing national security red lines. The so-called "Board of Trade" was first broached by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in March as a key "deliverable" agreement for this week's high-stakes summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese [Read more]

Global oil supply will not meet total demand this year as the Iran war wreaks havoc on Middle East oil production, the International Energy Agency said in its monthly oil market report on Wednesday. "With Hormuz tanker traffic still restricted, cumulative supply losses from Gulf producers already exceed 1 billion barrels with more than 14 million (barrels per day) of oil now shut in, an unprecedented supply shock," the agency said. Its base-case forecast is for a gradual resumption of [Read more]

BP has not resumed contract talks with a U.S. steelworkers’ union since locking out more than 800 workers at its Whiting, Indiana, refinery in March, the union said on Tuesday, accusing the company of delaying negotiations while claiming publicly it wants to bargain. The United Steelworkers said it again sought to restart talks last week but was told BP was unavailable to meet for nearly two weeks. (Reporting by Anmol Choubey in Bengaluru; Editing by Nia Williams) [Read more]

The discount on Western Canada Select crude oil to North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate futures narrowed slightly on Tuesday. WCS for June delivery in Hardisty, Alberta settled at $15.90 a barrel below the U.S. benchmark WTI, according to brokerage CalRock, 5 cents higher than Monday's close. * While the discount has narrowed since the start of the month, the differential for heavy Canadian crude remains wider than it was at the beginning of the U.S. war on Iran. * The WCS [Read more]

The U.S. Department of Energy's statistical arm on Tuesday said it assumes that the Strait of Hormuz will be effectively shut through late May and traffic will resume gradually from next month, prompting the agency to hike its forecasts for U.S. motor fuel prices. Iran's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz in its ongoing war with the U.S. and Israel has upended global energy markets as millions of barrels per day of Middle Eastern energy exports have been stranded, flaming concerns of fuel [Read more]