News

Barclays is maintaining its 2026 average Brent crude oil price forecast at $100 a barrel though risks are skewing higher, the bank said in a note on Friday. In trading on Friday, Brent futures were at about $105 a barrel as investors doubted the prospects of a breakthrough in U.S.-Iran peace talks, while the key Strait of Hormuz stayed closed. Around 20% of global energy supplies transited the strait before the war, and the conflict has removed 14 million barrels per day of oil - or 14% of [Read more]

As prices for physical crude oil hit all-time highs of over $160 per barrel last month, analysts and traders alike rushed to predict a market Armageddon if the U.S.-Iran war dragged on and the Strait of Hormuz stayed closed. Five weeks later, with the strait still largely shut and peace talks at an impasse, prices have not risen but have instead fallen to $100-$110 a barrel. The fall was driven by several factors: Chinese refiners slashed refining runs and also reduced imports and instead [Read more]

With airline tickets growing more expensive and customers facing the risk of cancelled flights, insurance experts are advising those with summer travel plans to stay on their toes. Air carriers are continuing to grapple with sky-high jet fuel costs, an offshoot of Iran's ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has led to soaring oil prices globally since late February. Like their international peers, Canadian airlines have been consolidating some flights and adding fuel surcharges, [Read more]

A diplomatic deal between the United States and Iran would be unfeasible if Tehran implemented a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Thursday. "No one in the world is in favor of the tolling system. It can't happen. It would be unacceptable. It would make a diplomatic deal unfeasible if they were to continue to pursue that. So it's a threat to the world if they were trying to do that, and it's completely illegal," Rubio said. He also [Read more]

U.S. underground natural gas storage capacity of the 375 active storage fields in the Lower 48 states increased in 2025, according to an annual report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Thursday. The EIA uses two metrics to assess storage capacity: demonstrated peak capacity, which rose 0.1%, or 6 billion cubic feet (bcf), in 2025, and working gas design capacity, which rose 0.6%, or 26 bcf, last year. One billion cubic feet of gas is enough to supply about 5 million [Read more]