Headlines

China's seaborne imports of crude oil ticked up in August from July but remained nearly 40% below levels before the start of the Iran conflict. China, the world's biggest oil importer, saw seaborne arrivals of 7.14 million barrels per day (bpd) in August, from July's 6.93 million bpd, according to data compiled by commodity analysts Kpler. August's imports were 4.27 million bpd below the average of 11.41 million bpd in the three months leading up to the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran on [Read more]

An average of 10 commodity ships transited the Strait of Hormuz per day over the past 10 days, the lowest since May, according to shipping data on Monday, after U.S. and Iranian strikes on tankers. The 10-day moving average was 10 on Sunday, down from more than 15 on Friday and nearly 13 on Saturday, data from analytics firm Kpler found. Only two vessels passed through the strait on Saturday while six went through on Sunday, mostly using the Iranian route. U.S. forces struck three Iranian oil [Read more]

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said U.S. forces struck and disabled three Iranian crude oil tankers on Sept. 5 after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired ballistic missiles toward two U.S. Navy warships in regional waters. The U.S. military said the attacks caused no American casualties and described the tanker strikes as retaliation aimed at imposing an economic cost on the IRGC. “Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher [Read more]

The billionaire who helped broker the Trump administration’s sweeping long-term oil deal with Venezuela was until recently a target of U.S. money-laundering investigations involving funds embezzled from the state-owned oil company PDVSA. Now, after assisting U.S. authorities ahead of the capture of authoritarian leader Nicolas Maduro, Alejandro Betancourt is Washington’s key partner in an unusual oil agreement with Caracas. According to last week’s announcement, the U.S. gains access to about [Read more]

OTTAWA - The federal Conservatives have launched a campaign to engage their supporters and encourage them to vote to stay in Canada in the upcoming Alberta referendum. Albertans are set to vote on Oct. 19 on whether they want to remain a province or begin the legal process to hold a binding referendum on leaving the country. In a speech he delivered in Calgary this summer, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called for Albertans to stay united and argued that separatists have a problem [Read more]

The Labor Day federal holiday on Monday, Sept. 7 will affect the release schedule of some major energy data to be issued during the Sept. 6 week. Below is the schedule for the release of U.S. petroleum, oil and natural gas supply and inventory for the week. WEEK OF SEPT 6: AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE - OIL API's weekly petroleum stocks report will be delayed to Wednesday, Sept. 9 at 4:30 p.m. EDT (2030 GMT). The report is normally released on Tuesday. ENERGY INFORMATION [Read more]