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]

U.S. power consumption, which hit its second straight annual record high in 2025, will rise further in 2026 and 2027, the Energy Information Administration said in its Short-Term Energy Outlook on Tuesday. The EIA projected power demand will rise from a record 4,195 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2025 to 4,248 billion kWh in 2026 and 4,379 billion kWh in 2027. Demand is surging due in large part to data centers dedicated to artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, and as homes and [Read more]

The United States' war in Iran has ​cost $29 billion so far, a senior Pentagon official said on Tuesday, an increase of $4 billion from an estimate provided late last month. With just six months before midterm elections in which President Donald Trump's Republicans may face an uphill battle to keep their House majority, Democrats are riding high in public opinion polls as they attempt to link the war with cost of living issues. On April 29, the Pentagon said the war at that point had cost [Read more]

The Iran war is starting to shape China's imports of major commodities, with April data showing a sharp decline in crude oil but rising trade in metals. The headline-grabbing number from the figures released last week by customs was the slide in arrivals of crude oil, with the world's biggest importer taking in 9.37 million barrels per day (bpd), the lowest in almost four years. April's imports were down 20% from the same month in 2025 as seaborne imports from the Middle East declined sharply [Read more]