A Ukrainian drone strike on Friday forced Russia’s Novoshakhtinsk refinery in the Rostov region offline, according to regional governor Yury Slyusar. The plant, which processes about 110,000 barrels per day (roughly 5–5.6 million tons per year), is not one of Russia’s giants. It is, however, a clean illustration of why diesel—the workhorse fuel for trucking, […]
Continue Reading
The remark, given to Nikkei Asia in Tokyo on September 24, is the clearest signal yet that Riyadh no longer treats three outlets as enough insurance against a two-front maritime crisis. Nasser said engineering and feasibility work is already underway. He did not name destinations, capacities, or dates. He did say Aramco can restore interrupted […]
Continue Reading
On paper, this looks like an org chart. In practice, it is a financing and accountability decision. Gulf national oil companies have spent the last several years listing or monetizing everything except the core oil barrel. ADNOC listed pieces of gas, drilling, and retail. Aramco already listed SABIC and has raised billions against pipelines and […]
Continue Reading
Saudi Arabia’s capital came under direct threat early Saturday as air-raid alerts sounded over Riyadh and explosions were heard, followed by a large plume of black smoke rising from a fuel storage depot at King Khalid International Airport. The incident marks the first time Houthi attacks have visibly affected the Saudi capital since fighting with […]
Continue Reading
Aramco’s East-West pipeline outage leaves European term buyers with a zero allocation for October. Crude is being rerouted to Asia. Products, not barrels, remain the tighter market. Saudi Aramco has told European term customers they will receive no crude in October under long-term contracts, according to people familiar with the decision cited by Bloomberg and […]
Continue Reading
American oil executives have spent months warning that a prolonged disruption of the Strait of Hormuz would eventually produce a fuel crisis rather than a simple crude shortage. They now say that moment has arrived. Commercial inventories of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel have been drawn down for more than six months. Strategic crude reserves […]
Continue Reading
NASA fire-detection satellites and open-source thermal data captured two intense fires at the Aramco complex in Yanbu on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, each radiating roughly 40 megawatts of heat—far above the 5–10 megawatts typical of a routine flare. The detections, highlighted in reporting shared by Chris Martenson quoting Mario Nawfal, come as Yanbu has […]
Continue Reading
Oil prices jumped more than 3% in early Asian trading Monday as weekend attacks by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis and strikes in the Strait of Hormuz compounded an already fragile supply picture. By mid-session, Brent was trading near $107–$109 a barrel and WTI around $102–$104, levels last seen in the spring. The immediate catalyst was a […]
Continue Reading
The Federal Reserve can raise rates. The Treasury can issue bills. Neither institution can weld a crude distillation unit back together after a drone strike, add inches to a California products pipeline, or refill Gatun Lake. That is the story of September 2026: crude is still findable; diesel is not. The constraint has moved downstream, […]
Continue Reading
Chevron Chairman and CEO Mike Wirth delivered a blunt message in Austin on Friday: the shock absorbers that kept oil from exploding earlier in the Iran war are finished. Strategic stockpile releases and the U.S. decision to loosen rules on sanctioned crude sitting in floating storage have been “played out.” From here, he said, it […]
Continue Reading