Yemen's Saudi-led coalition said early on Saturday it had intercepted two drones launched by the Iran-backed Houthis towards the Saudi capital Riyadh. The coalition posted on X that it was monitoring missile threat and drones launched at the kingdom without providing further details. The Saudi civil defence had sent alerts overnight for Khamis Mushait and Abha but not for the capital. The Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen and much of the north, have been launching attacks [Read more]

Venezuela's long-awaited vote may not happen for a year or more due to planned overhauls of the courts and electoral authorities, according to five political sources and analysts, despite Acting President Delcy Rodriguez's promise of a transition to "full democracy". Rodriguez, who took power after a US raid captured then-President Nicolas Maduro in January, told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that state institutions were preparing for elections. She said her government had opened talks [Read more]

Iran has given the United States a "concrete" seven-day plan to open the strategic Strait of Hormuz and the choice now rests with the US, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told reporters at the United Nations on Friday. "If the necessary conditions are met, the strait can be reopened, a normal maritime passage restored within seven days. The choice now rests with the United States," he said. "The actions that the United States should should take are not new. They are all already in the [Read more]

Oil prices fell about 2% on Friday on mounting hopes for a truce between the US and Iran and talk about a possible US ban on diesel exports, even as traders worried that increasing attacks against Saudi Arabia by Houthi fighters could disrupt supply from the Middle Eastern producer. Brent futures fell $2.28, or 2.1%, to settle at $104.32 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell $2.20, or 2.3%, to settle at $92.41. That put Brent up less than 1% for the week and WTI down about 8%. US [Read more]

Phillips 66 is using artificial intelligence to predict outages within its refining systems, save on maintenance costs and increase crude processing, said Tandra Perkins, an executive vice president at the US refiner. * "I need my systems up more than they're down, being able to predict that obviously saves on maintenance costs," Perkins said on Friday while speaking at the Reuters Momentum AI conference in Austin, Texas. * The increased availability allows for more crude to be processed [Read more]

US Treasury yields set fresh multi-decade highs on Friday even as easing oil prices offered some relief, with traders still pricing in further Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. Stocks, meanwhile, were buoyed by continued enthusiasm for the AI trade. Oil prices fell about 1% as markets weighed the possibility of a truce between the US and Iran against concerns that increasing attacks against Saudi Arabia by Houthi fighters could disrupt supply from the Middle Eastern producer. But the [Read more]

BP studied a possible deal to buy Devon Energy's operations in South Texas, four sources familiar with the matter said, with one of the sources adding it has now backed away from such a move. After years of prioritizing investments in renewable energy, and leadership churn that included five chief executives since 2020, London-headquartered BP has reverted to a strategy that places its traditional oil and gas business at its heart. Since Meg O'Neill joined as CEO in April, BP has entered [Read more]

Washington's talk of a possible ban on diesel exports is widening the gap between US crude oil futures and the global Brent benchmark, a signal that markets expect US refiners to process less crude oil if their diesel output gets stuck at home. While that may bring some immediate relief to high domestic diesel prices, which this week hit a record $6.528 a gallon and stirred a political uproar, the bigger discount for domestic crude futures could be a double-edged omen: an indicator of higher [Read more]