United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said on Wednesday the carrier expects fuel prices to remain elevated throughout 2027. Kirby said achieving United's goal of double-digit pretax margins next year would probably require lower fuel costs, slower industry capacity growth or airlines continuing to prioritize higher fares over fuller planes. The Iran war has disrupted oil and jet fuel shipments from the Middle East, while attacks on energy infrastructure have further strained supplies. Restoring [Read more]

US crude and gasoline stocks fell last week, while distillate inventories rose, the US Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Crude inventories fell by 3.06 million barrels to 412.5 million barrels in the week ended October 16, the EIA said, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 820,000-barrel draw. Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub rose 987,000 barrels in the week, the EIA said. Oil inventories moved into positive territory [Read more]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he hoped for a positive outcome from US envoy Steve Witkoff's meeting in Russia on Wednesday and that he supports talks between the leaders of Kyiv, Washington and Moscow. Zelenskiy said in an interview with Fox News that his talks with Witkoff in Oslo a day earlier were productive and that Ukraine was ready for diplomacy. He thanked the US for restoring intelligence sharing and said he hoped the limitations on Starlink and Starshield satellite [Read more]

The Trump administration is offering to loan up to nearly a third of the 1-million-barrel US emergency heating oil reserve, the Department of Energy said on Wednesday, in a bid to tame prices, which have surged on diesel shortages due to the wars in Iran and Ukraine. The move, reported first by Reuters, came after senators from both political parties urged the administration to release heating oil from the reserve as prices for diesel, a fuel from the same refining stream, hit records above [Read more]

President Donald Trump's deal with Russia to supply diesel to US and global markets is unlikely to meaningfully lower diesel prices, market watchers and analysts said, noting that the promised volumes are too small to ease a global supply squeeze. Diesel prices have shot to record highs during the US-Israeli war on Iran, creating a political liability for Trump and his Republican Partyas they campaign to maintain thin majorities in the US Congress in the November 3 midterm [Read more]

Indian Oil Corp (IOC) plans to cut its Middle Eastern oil purchases under annual deals in 2027/28 as the Iran war has created uncertainty for supplies from the region, a source familiar with the matter said. Indian refiners traditionally relied on the Middle East for more than half of their annual crude supplies, particularly heavier, high-sulphur grades, because of the region's proximity. IOC, the country's top refiner, had planned to source about 47% of its crude imports from Middle [Read more]

The global average crude freight rate remains seven times higher than a year ago and is unlikely to fall sharply while the Middle East conflict persists, posing some upside risk to Goldman Sachs' Brent price forecast, the bank said in a note dated Tuesday. * The global average crude freight rate surged above $20/bbl from $3/bbl a year ago, with rates on Middle Eastern routes rising above $35/bbl, the bank said * Goldman said the war-risk premium for crossing the Strait of Hormuz and [Read more]

China tapped its massive crude oil stockpiles for the fourth month in the past five in September as rising refinery processing rates outweighed a slight recovery in oil imports. However, the recent pattern of drawing on inventories may end in October, with crude imports poised to recover to the most since March, the last month largely unaffected by the US and Israeli war against Iran, which started on the last day of February. Refineries processed about 530,000 barrels per day (bpd) more [Read more]