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Trump administration officials on Sunday defended a decision to temporarily lift some sanctions on Russian oil and predicted that a sharp increase in gasoline prices resulting from the Iran war would last only weeks. Appearing on multiple TV talk shows, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said a waiver issued last week to allow Indian purchases of Russian oil would alleviate pressure on the global market. "It's a 30-day pause to allow, which is [Read more]

Iraqi oil production from its main southern oilfields has fallen by 70% to just 1.3 million barrels per day as the country is unable to export oil via the Strait of Hormuz due to the Iran war, three industry sources said on Sunday. Production from the fields stood at around 4.3 million bpd before the war. "Crude storage has reached maximum capacity and the remaining output after the major cut will be used to supply the country’s refineries," said an official with the state-run Basra Oil [Read more]

U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran would be "hit very hard" on Saturday and that he was considering widening the areas and groups of people being, targeted, without providing details. "Today Iran will be hit very hard! Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran's bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time" Trump said in a post on Truth Social. He also noted that Iran had [Read more]

Kuwait has implemented a precautionary reduction in crude oil production and refining throughput after the ongoing attacks by Iran against the country and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said on Saturday. The cuts are another disruption for the global energy industry because of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, as oil and gas storage at facilities in the Middle East Gulf rapidly fill. Oil fields in Iraq have already cut production and Qatar declared force [Read more]

Azerbaijan said it had prevented several acts of "terrorist" sabotage planned by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including a plot to attack a major oil pipeline running through the South Caucasus to Turkey. The targets included the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, the Israeli embassy in Azerbaijan, an Ashkenazi synagogue, and a leader an ancient Jewish community in Azerbaijan called the Mountain Jews, according to a State Security Service statement cited by the Azertag [Read more]

The White House is asking federal agencies to step up efforts to address soaring energy prices from the Iran conflict, signaling a concern that steps taken so far may not be enough, according to two people familiar with the matter. Senior officials have asked the departments of Energy, Transportation and Treasury and the Environmental Protection Agency to provide more policy options, with an emphasis on measures that President Donald Trump could implement without congressional approval, one of [Read more]

U.S. Gulf Coast heavy grades continued to surge on Friday as the Iran conflict spurred several Middle Eastern producers of heavy crude to curtail production and drove buyers to scoop up U.S. barrels. Prices of Mars sour crude, the flagship crude produced in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and favored by refiners globally, traded at a $11 premium to U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude on Friday, brokers said. That was the highest since April 2020, and up $4 from Thursday. Just a week [Read more]