Tag: natural resources

DOJ Seeks $61M in Iranian Oil Proceeds Laundered Through Binance Accounts

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed to forfeit $61 million in crypto it says was generated from Iranian black-market oil sales.

The U.S. Department of Justice said Monday it is seizing and seeking to forfeit $61 million in cryptocurrency that it alleges came from black-market sales of sanctioned Iranian oil.

That sum is a fraction of the operation prosecutors describe in the civil forfeiture complaint. A cluster of self-custodied wallets received and distributed more than $1.5 billion in oil proceeds, routing funds to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-linked businesses, other crypto addresses and an Iranian exchange, according to the filing. Two China-based firms, Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, allegedly used trading accounts at Binance to launder proceeds and funnel them to the Iranian government and its proxies.

It comes after the U.S. tries to crack down on Iran’s use of the leading cryptocurrency: the U.S. in July said that it had frozen crypto linked to the Iranian regime, mostly in the form of Tether’s stablecoin; Iran started a bitcoin-backed insurance service for its counties shipping companies earlier this year.

There was no mention of bitcoin in Monday’s claim — but the Iranian government is also using bitcoin to skirt around sanctions. Bitcoin has no issuer, so no blacklist function and bitcoin held without intermediaries can’t be frozen

“The Government of Iran relies on black-market sales of sanctioned crude oil to fund its military and foster terrorism in the Middle East and around the world, along with other malign efforts to develop a nuclear program and ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear payloads,” Deputy U.S. Attorney Sean S. Buckley said in a statement. 

“As alleged in the complaint filed today, the Government of Iran used a network of cryptocurrency actors in China and elsewhere to launder more than $1.5 billion in illicit oil money intended to benefit the Iranian military and the terror-designated IRGC.”

The filing alleges that the illicit oil money was laundered via Chinese companies Blessed Trust Limited and Hexa Whale Trading Limited.

Once the money was laundered, it was funneled back to Iran’s government, its agents, and its proxies, feds said. 

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in July said Iran had been dodging sanctions by accepting pay in bitcoin from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. 

OFAC said at the time that Hormuz Safe, developed by Iran’s Ministry of Economy, “accepts payment in bitcoin and other digital assets” so it can bypass sanctions. 

The Financial Times last week reported that the Middle Eastern country was using bitcoin to settle cross-border transactions through Iranian crypto exchanges after the central bank advised its countrymen to do anything necessary to help the economy.

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Iran’s Disappearing Oil Is Becoming Everyone’s Problem

Iranian oil is disappearing from the market just as its biggest buyer returns for more. China’s recovering crude demand is colliding with the loss of a supplier that sustained its independent refiners through the crisis, forcing them to compete for increasingly expensive alternatives. The consequences reach beyond China: every replacement barrel tightens supplies for other buyers, while Tehran faces a growing incentive to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, which is now carrying an unexpectedly strong 13 million barrels a day (just 5 million below pre-crisis level), while its own oil remains trapped.

Iranian crude has long been an underestimated part of the global oil balance. After Bashar al-Assad’s government fell in December 2024, breaking the political relationship that sustained Iranian shipments to Syria, China became Iran’s only crude buyer – in 2025, it received an average of 1.4 million b/d. The war initiated by the US and Israel in late February initially made Iran even more important to Chinese buyers: while Tehran blocked other tankers from crossing Hormuz, its own cargoes passed freely, lifting Chinese intake of Iranian oil to around 1.76 million b/d in April.

That competitive edge ended with the US blockade announced on April 13. Loaded tankers could no longer leave the Gulf, while empty vessels could not enter. Loadings at Kharg Island, Iran’s main export terminal, collapsed from 1.8 million b/d in March to 260,000 b/d in May. A June 17 memorandum allowing Iranian cargoes to pass for 60 days offered temporary relief: loadings recovered to 740,000 b/d in June and 890,000 b/d in July. But the reprieve expired in August, shipments slumped again to 250,000 b/d, and no Iranian loadings were observed in the Gulf in September.

The more important part of the story, however, was unfolding outside the Strait. Iran had accumulated a vast floating stockpile that allowed deliveries to China to continue even when fresh cargoes could not leave the Gulf. In mid-April, that cushion stood at about 160 million barrels, spread across waters around South, Southeast and East Asia. Drawing on those stocks, China still imported 1.37 million b/d of Iranian oil in May, just 10% below February’s level. But the buffer was shrinking; floating storage fell to 106 million barrels by mid-June before the temporary reopening replenished it to 128 million by mid-July.

That replenishment of available floaters has since stopped. China still received 980,000 b/d of Iranian crude in August, but only 475,000 b/d in September, with arrivals ceasing from September 26 (all of the last arriving cargoes had been loaded in June).

Iran still has around 86 million barrels on the water, the lowest volume since January 2025. Yet 23 million barrels (more than a quarter) are trapped inside the Gulf. The total has barely changed since Chinese arrivals have wound down to an almost complete halt over the past two weeks, with evident loadings in the Kharg island stopping completely. With onshore storage gradually filling up (Kpler data suggests Iranian storage tanks are now 60% full, storing around 70 million barrels), Iran will face the inevitable choice of cutting production. Whilst roughly 2.2 million b/d of production is relatively safe due to demand from its refineries, Tehran’s pre-war crude output of 3.2 million b/d seems to be no longer achievable.

For China’s ‘teapots’ (the smaller independent refineries concentrated in Shandong province), this removes a cornerstone of their crude supply. Accounting for roughly a fifth of Chinese crude imports, these refiners have built their purchasing strategies around discounted sanctioned barrels, particularly from Iran and Russia. Now they must search for barrels farther away, from the Middle East, West Africa and South America. In mid-September, ten Chinese independent refiners reportedly sent traders to Singapore to secure available supplies from the mentioned regions.

The shift is visible at Shandong’s ports. Qingdao, connected by pipeline to 12 independent refineries, relied on Iran for 40% of its 690,000 b/d incoming flows in 2025. In recent months, it has increased purchases of Brazil’s Tupi and Buzios grades and even started receiving Guyana’s Golden Arrow in July, while still relying on Saudi and Russian supplies. Nevertheless, intake has fallen to a record low of around 150,000 b/d over the past three months.

At Dongying, on Shandong’s northern Bohai coast, situated near 32 independent refineries, Russia and Iran supplied virtually all of last year’s 330,000 b/d intake, accounting for two-thirds and one-third respectively. Iranian deliveries started to decrease in summer months, with just two cargoes arriving in August and just one in September. Total intake fell to a mere 220,000 b/d in September as crude-deprived refiners were compelled to cut refinery throughputs.

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Trump Maps Out $200 Billion in Korean Investment, but the Biggest Deals Aren’t Done Yet

President Donald Trump put some yuge numbers on the table Wednesday: up to $200 billion in South Korean investment for American energy projects, including Alaska LNG, eight nuclear power plants, and a massive natural gas power project in Texas.

The announcement finally gives shape to part of the $350 billion investment package South Korea agreed to as part of last year’s trade deal with Washington. Of that total, $150 billion was set aside for shipbuilding and another $200 billion for strategic investments selected in cooperation with the United States.

From Reuters:

“Thanks to the agreements my administration has secured with the Republic of Korea, they will invest up to $200 billion,” Trump said.

He said that the investment would include the construction of eight large-scale nuclear power plants, a liquefied natural gas pipeline in Alaska and a 6-gigawatt power generation facility in Texas.

The announcement is part of a series of economic and investment deals Trump is highlighting ⁠ahead of November’s midterm elections, as he seeks to reinforce his economic record amid voter concerns over the Iran war and high gasoline prices. The Alaska LNG project also comes as Republicans seek to retain incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan who faces Democrat Mary Peltola. Sullivan was in the Oval Office for the Wednesday announcement.

The Alaska LNG project includes an 807-mile (1,299-km) pipeline carrying natural gas from the North Slope to a liquefaction facility on Alaska’s southern coast, allowing the fuel to be shipped to Asian markets. The project is designed to transport about 3.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day and produce up to 20 million metric tons of LNG annually, according to the White House.

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Massive Gas Pipeline Blast Rocks Damascus Suburbs – 2nd Suspected Sabotage This Week

A huge explosion has rocked a Damascus suburb area on Wednesday evening (local), in what could be the second act of suspected sabotage against natural gas infrastructure in just a few days.

“A gas pipeline exploded Wednesday near the Tishreen power station in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta area in the Damascus countryside,“ Alikhbariah TV reported.

According to more per regional sources, “It said the loud blast heard in Eastern Ghouta was caused by the pipeline explosion near the power station.”

Unconfirmed images are already widely circulating…

Syria had reported at least two acts of major sabotage against its gas infrastructure in the prior six weeks.

One of these events happened Monday, and saw a fire rage out of control for many hours at a gas pipeline between al-Shola and Deir Ezzor following a mystery explosion.

For several years stretching through much of the last decade, Syrian cities – including the capital – have suffered intermittent and long power outages. It was especially during the tail-end of the proxy war to oust Assad that lack of fuel and electricity became a prolonged crisis.

Damascus residents, for example, often had a mere one hour of electricity in their homes per day – if at all. Entire remote villages and towns simply proceeded with daily life amid a total and persistent blackout.

This was to a large degree the result of a US-led sanctions war which in effect strangled the population. US troops had even for years directly occupied Syria’s eastern oil and gas fields, which had been crucial for meeting domestic energy needs.

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Mystery Explosions: Syria’s Recovering Gas Network Keeps Getting Sabotaged

Syria has reported at least two acts of major sabotage against its gas infrastructure in six weeks, and it raises questions over who or what group is behind it, and what this means for future energy transit projects.

Monday evening saw a fire rage out of control for many hours at a gas pipeline between al-Shola and Deir Ezzor following a mystery explosion. 

Syrian Petroleum Company (SPC), which oversees the site, called it an act of sabotage which abruptly halted gas flows from the Jbeissa gas plant to power generation stations, according to details from state-run SANA.

The New Arab writes that “In January, the SPC began pumping raw gas from the Jbeissa fields in Hasakah to the Furqlus gas plant in Homs province, with around 1.2 million cubic metres passing through the network each day to support electricity generation.”

The report adds, “Damascus has also been working to reconnect other major eastern gas facilities to the national network.”

For several years stretching through much of the last decade, Syrian cities – including the capital – have suffered intermittent and long power outages. It was especially during the tail-end of the proxy war to oust Assad that lack of fuel and electricity became a major crisis.

Damascus residents, for example, often had a mere one hour of electricity in their homes per day – if at all. Entire remote villages and towns simply proceeded with daily life amid a total and persistent blackout. This was to a large degree the result of a US-led sanctions war which in effect strangled the population. US troops had even for years directly occupied Syria’s eastern oil and gas fields, which had been crucial for meeting domestic energy needs.

But now after Jolani and his HTS jihadists seized power, and with Washington sanctions declared removed, the country is trying to restore and rebuild services.

While no group has yet claimed responsibility for sabotaging facilities in the east, it illustrates how the country is still in a deeply unstable situation.

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“Not Enough Raw Material!” – Resource Wars Put Tungsten In Crosshairs As Western Rearmament Supercycle Looms

The UK just invested £71m to restart a tungsten mine, with an option on half the output. Other governments will follow. I should be pleased – I’ve spent years arguing the West needs to fund its own supply.

The problem is I’ve seen what happens next. In 2008, Japan and South Korea poured billions into securing critical mineral supply chains. They funded projects across Australia and Canada. The result: no material produced. The money went to a generation of junior mining executives. I remember them on their boats in Monaco – very grateful, very happy. Governments have good ideas. The people they back to deliver on them are sometimes another matter.

The challenge is that a government is a jack of all trades – it can’t tell a good mine from a bad one, so it hires engineers who write glowing feasibility reports with a waiver in the small print. And there is no shortage of people who call themselves management. Most of them are clowns who shouldn’t be left alone with a box of matches.

Japan and South Korea learned. They stopped trying to pick winners and pushed the risk onto their industrial base – the companies that buy the stuff. Those companies know how to protect a dollar. If the new money follows that model, the checks might land somewhere useful this time.

Tungsten markets

Michael Dornhofer, ISBP – assessment as of 11 September, 2026

Tungsten prices in the USA and Europe stay unchanged for another week and are still around 3000 USD/mtu WO3. Reports from China show their domestic price trend moved to an upward tendency.

The reason is quite simple: There is not enough raw material! As the APT price in China is only about one third of the western price, Chinese APT producers are not willing to buy western concentrates on western price level. But without a significant amount of imported raw material, the industry is running short on raw material. Soon it will become clear whether the Chinese domestic prices will go up towards western levels, or China might reduce output of downstream products for export.

The coming weeks will show us. And there’s another interesting development that even some “experts” overlooked. On 5 August, China placed several foreign entities under sanctions and banned them from operating in China. One entity on this list is the non-profit organization RBA.

RBA (Responsible Business Alliance) is the world’s largest industry coalition dedicated to promoting responsible business conduct. RBA has more than 600 member companies including Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon etc. and runs the RMI (Responsible Minerals Initiative) program.

Nearly the entire western downstream industry insists on RMI certificates for their total supply chain. When, due to the ban of RBA, no RMI audits and certificates are possible in China, western downstream producers cannot accept any tungsten material or downstream products coming out of China.

China wants to replace the RMI audits by audits performed by CCCMC (Chinese Chamber of Commerce for Metals & Chemicals). But knowing that China imports thousands of tonnes of concentrate from countries like Myanmar and North Korea, and so material from these countries are in the tungsten supply chain in China, it’s questionable who would trust Chinese audit certificates.

So, this easy-to-overlook new regulation in China could lead to an additional “firewall” between China and RoW, which might have a very significant effect on the tungsten world market.

Michael Dornhofer is founder of ISBP (Independent Supply Business Partner) in Graz, Austria. He has spent more than 20 years in tungsten, including 13 years at Wolfram Bergbau und Hütten, Sandvik’s tungsten business, and has worked as an independent agent and consultant to the tungsten and hard metal industry since 2019.

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US Data Centers To Burn More Natural Gas Than Most Nations

Several weeks ago, we explained why most data center developers favor on-site gas power: it boiled down to two main reasons – availability (especially since modular nuclear power for commercial ‘behind the meter’ use is still in the distant future) and price. Furthermore, a recent BloombergNEF analysis shows the marginal cost of operating an on-site gas plant may be below industrial electricity tariffs, making continued generation from on-site assets the cheaper option in many cases. 

As we discussed in late August, marginal generation costs depend on fuel prices and variable operating expenses. BloombergNEF modeled the marginal cost of operating engines, turbines and fuel cells at a mid-scenario gas price of $3.97 per million British thermal units. Gas engines, such as ones manufactured by Wartsila and INNIO, have the highest marginal cost, at $43.2 per megawatt-hour (MWh). Fuel cells, most prominently procured from Bloom Energy, are the cheapest to continue running, at $21.5/MWh, benefiting from high thermal efficiencies and the lowest variable operational cost.

It appears that none of this was lost on US data centers, and the result has been an explosion of nat gas use to power the domestic data center industry which in turn is critical to keep the AI bubble afloat. 

Which brings us to another key data point: according to a new outlook from BloombergNEF, data centers in the United States will consume more natural gas than most countries within a decade.

Gas consumption to produce electricity for data centers is expected to grow by 15 billion cubic feet per day in the ten years to 2035, even accounting for many currently planned projects never being built, BloombergNEF said. That’s more gas than is currently consumed by all nations except China, Russia, Iran and the US itself, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration. It’s also more than double BloombergNEF’s previous forecast in December of 6.9 billion cubic feet per day.

The report is the latest illustration of how the future of AI is intertwined with the burning of vast amounts of fossil fuels, tying Big Tech’s ambitions to those of the legacy oil and gas industry, and why – as we discussed over the weekend – a Democratic win in the midterm elections will make life for data center developers a socialist hell. 

The abundance and low cost of producing natural gas in the US, combined with gas power plants’ ability to quickly ramp up and down as needed by 24/7 data centers, are a key part of why the fuel is expected to supply 69% of the power needed by new grid-connected data centers in BloombergNEF’s forecast.

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D.C. Gas Ban Gets Favorable Hearing In Federal Appeals Court

A federal appeals panel appeared inclined Tuesday to let Washington, D.C.’s restrictions on natural gas in certain new buildings stand.

The case turns on the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, or EPCA, which gives the Department of Energy authority to set efficiency and energy-use standards for appliances including furnaces, water heaters, dryers and stoves. Industry groups argue that D.C. cannot accomplish through a building code what federal law prevents it from doing directly to an appliance.

The challengers include the National Association of Home Builders, Restaurant Law Center, National Apartment Association, Maryland Building Industry Association, Washington Gas and two labor unions.

D.C.’s Clean Buildings Act requires certain newly constructed or substantially improved buildings to operate at zero energy beginning in 2027. The building standards effectively prohibit natural-gas appliances in covered properties.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes upheld the law in March. Her ruling found that EPCA regulates how much energy covered appliances consume, not whether a local government permits those appliances to be installed in a particular building.

Bloomberg Law reported Tuesday that the D.C. Circuit panel appeared similarly unconvinced by the industry groups’ preemption argument during oral arguments.

Federal appeals courts are already split on essentially the same question.

The Ninth Circuit struck down Berkeley, California’s natural-gas piping ban in 2024, finding that a city could not evade EPCA by eliminating the fuel supply needed to operate federally regulated appliances. That ruling covers nine Western states.

The Second Circuit went the other direction in June. It upheld New York City and New York State restrictions on fossil-fuel appliances, finding that EPCA preempts appliance energy-conservation standards but does not prevent governments from prohibiting certain appliances altogether.

Washington’s case gives the D.C. Circuit the same statutory language and two competing appellate interpretations.

For builders, restaurants and gas utilities, the result determines whether D.C.’s 2027 requirements stand. For the natural gas industry, another ruling against preemption would leave Berkeley increasingly isolated – and gas appliance rules dependent on which federal circuit a building happens to sit in.

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Trump Says Iran’s Oil Hub Kharg Island Is Being Blown “TO SMITHEREENS”

President Trump issued a stunning message Sunday night indicating that Iran’s most important oil-export hub was under devastating attack.

“Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT,” Trump announced on Truth Social.

Trump’s post included a dramatic AI-generated video depicting explosions across the island.

Neither the White House nor the Department of War had publicly confirmed a new attack on Kharg Island’s oil facilities. Reuters reported that Iranian state media had also issued no immediate response.

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Illegals Raping Natural Resources In Westport, Cops Don’t Care, Town Doesn’t Care, State Doesn’t Care

There are a lot of people in Westport, CT who profess to care for the environment, or is that just a control mechanism to gain political power?

Because, no one cares in Westport when their environment is being destroyed as long as its being done by illegal aliens. By the hundreds. Every Night. Till there is nothing left.

Night harvesting is banned statewide

Connecticut General Statutes § 26-228 prohibits taking any shells or shellfish from the shores or waters of the state between sunset and sunrise. The penalty is a fine of $100–$500 and/or up to 30 days in jail. Westport’s recreational shellfishing regulations explicitly adopt this rule. Harvesting is allowed only from sunrise to sunset.

Limits and permit requirements

  • A Westport recreational shellfish permit is required (annual or one-day). Children under 17 do not need their own permit but must be with a permitted adult. The permit must be displayed while harvesting.
  • Daily limit: ½ bushel of shellfish per person in any 24-hour period. “Unlimited” is not allowed.
  • Size limits apply (examples): hard clams (quahogs) must be at least 1.5 inches or 1 inch thick; oysters at least 3 inches; soft-shell clams 1.5 inches; razor clams 4 inches; mussels 2 inches. Undersized shellfish must be returned immediately.
  • Harvest is for personal/family consumption only, not sale.

But, illegal night harvesting is happening at a massive scale in Westport, and across the state.

“Unbelievable, isn’t it? Take a ride by old Mill and look at the Spanish guys with Minor’s hats on, responded one resident we asked who lives in the Compo Beach area when asked if what was going on nightly is legal.

“There’s no blue crabs left. No steamers. No Clams. No mussels.

“The answer to your question absolutely not especially now it’s been closed down with all the rain.”

Another resident of Old Mill told us, “There’s nothing left, they stripped the place clean.”

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