China's foreign ministry confirmed on Friday that an oil products tanker carrying Chinese crew was attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, and expressed deep concern about vessels affected by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. There are Chinese nationals aboard the vessel, but no reported crew casualties so far, foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said during a regular news conference. Chinese media Caixin reported on Thursday that a Chinese-owned oil products tanker marked "CHINA OWNER [Read more]

U.S. oil and gas producer Devon Energy said on Thursday its board had approved a $8 billion share repurchase program, a week after activist investorKimmeridge called for higher shareholder returns. Last week, Kimmeridge, a well-known activist investor in the energy sector, urged Devon's incoming board to swiftly pursue asset sales, improve capital allocation and revamp executive pay to boost shareholder returns once its $58 billion merger with Coterra Energy closes. * The all-stock merger [Read more]

The discount on Western Canada Select crude oil to North American benchmark West Texas Intermediate futures widened slightly on Thursday. WCS for June delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, settled at $15.80 a barrel below the U.S. benchmark WTI, according to brokerage CalRock, compared to $15.70 on Wednesday. * While the discount has narrowed since the start of the month, the differential for heavy Canadian crude remains wider than it was at the start of the U.S. war on Iran. * The WCS [Read more]

Global energy markets are headed into 'troubled waters' as the Iran war continues to knock out millions of barrels of oil each day, Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, said on Thursday at a conference in Toronto. His comments come as Brent oil futures were seesawing between $96 and over $102 a barrel on Thursday following mixed reports of a short-term deal to end the war and possibly reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade choke-point that has been effectively shut since [Read more]

A pipeline that ships crude oil between the Permian basin in West Texas and Houston was fully operational on Thursday after a brief outage due to a leak, operator ONEOK said. Traders had received a shipping notice from ONEOK on Wednesday, seen by Reuters, noting that an incident affecting the BridgeTex pipeline could result in temporary delays or interruptions to scheduled receipts and deliveries. The outage comes as flows from the Permian, the top shale basin, to Gulf Coast pipelines have [Read more]

A series of well-timed market bets on falling oil prices totalling as much as $7 billion during March and April spread across multiple exchanges and types of fuel and derivatives just before major Iranian policy announcements by U.S. President Donald Trump, according to traders, market experts and Reuters analysis of exchange data. The size exceeds previously reported bets amounting to $2.6 billion, which have already prompted the U.S. administration to warn staff against using nonpublic [Read more]

Goldman Sachs said that strong crude exports outside the Gulf and subdued demand from China are helping to partially offset market tightening caused by very low Gulf exports. Goldman Sachs said in a note dated Thursday that 45% of the hit to Persian Gulf crude/condensate exports is being offset, primarily by increased exports from the Americas, but there is no net offset to the decline in refined products exports. It highlighted that an increase in exports does not equate to higher [Read more]

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Thursday that Iran appears to have cut back oil production by 400,000 barrels per day and is likely to reduce it more as its storage units fill. "It looks like they've likely already cut back their production, maybe by 400,000 barrels a day. They'll likely continue to ramp down their production as their storage fills and their inability to export oil," Wright said in an interview with Fox News. A U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ​ports has shrunk [Read more]

While prices for crude oil futures have surged and slumped in line with the latest headlines about the war between the United States and Iran, the impact of the crisis in physical markets for refined fuels has been worsening. Another hint of a peace agreement was enough to send Brent contracts down 7.8% on Wednesday to a close of $101.27 a barrel, even though a full and sustained re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz still seems a long way off. In the meantime, the effective closure of the [Read more]