Tag: oil

The US refinery now processing Venezuelan oil

The Minerva Gloria is docked at a wharf in the Mississippi Sound, not far from the US’s vast oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.

The ship, 820ft (250m) long, painted navy and burgundy, is carrying precious cargo from Venezuela that, just six months ago, would have been impossible to bring to the US – 400,000 barrels of crude oil.

Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves. Under Venezuela’s former president Nicholas Maduro oil exports had dropped significantly, due to a lack of investment. Then came US sanctions against any imports from the Latin American country.

But US President Donald Trump vowed to tap those reserves after the US military captured Maduro in a surprise, night-time raid in January.

Now the oil is flowing again in Venezuela. In March, the country’s monthly crude exports surpassed one million barrels per day. The first time since September.

As the world reels from the impact on global energy prices caused by Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz, big oil and gas companies like Chevron are now importing Venezuelan crude oil by the shipload.

“It’s a big deal not only for Chevron but the entire Gulf region,” says Tim Potter. He is the director for Chevron’s oil refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi, the company’s largest operation in the US. It is also the only major US oil company currently operating in Venezuela.

Together this means that Chevron can extract its own Venezuelan oil, process it itself, and get it directly to the US consumer.

“It’s a pretty big incentive for us to run it,” Potter says. “The refinery was really designed, and we invested in the refinery, to run heavy oils like from Venezuela.”

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US stock markets fall, oil soars as Trump promises to bomb Iran ‘back to the stone age’

The value of US stock markets fell, while the price of oil soared in early trading on 2 April following US President Donald Trump’s speech in which he vowed to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age.”

The president said on Wednesday evening from the White House that the US would continue its bombing campaign on Iran “until our objectives are fully achieved,” suggesting the war will last longer than expected.

“I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly. We’re going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks – we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Age, where they belong,” Trump vowed.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell some 1.3 percent when the US stock market opened the following morning. The S&P 500 index was also down 1.3 percent, while the Nasdaq composite was down 1.7 percent. Much of the losses were recovered over the course of the trading day.

Oil prices rose sharply and remained high throughout the day. The price of US crude rose to $113 – a 13 percent gain.

Brent crude, the international baseline, rose more than eight percent, to $109 per barrel.

US stock markets rallied, and the price of oil fell to start the week, after Trump stated on Sunday he was having “serious discussions” with a “new and more reasonable regime in Tehran.”

But the price of oil has risen following Trump’s remarks, which underscored that the war will not end soon and the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed indefinitely.

Since the US and Israel launched a war on Iran on 28 February, the strategic waterway has effectively remained closed due to the threat of Iranian attacks and soaring insurance premiums for vessels wishing to transit it.

Energy prices have since skyrocketed, as Gulf oil exports through the strait have ground to a halt.

During his Wednesday address, Trump expressed no urgency in opening Hormuz, instead criticizing European nations suffering from fuel shortages for refusing to send their own warships to reopen it.

“To those countries that can’t get fuel – many of which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, we had to do it ourselves – I have a suggestion,” he said.

“Number one, buy oil from the United States of America; we have plenty. We have so much. And number two, build up some delayed courage … Go to the strait and just take it. Protect it. Use it for yourselves. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done.”

Trump claimed that Hormuz would likely “just open up naturally” at the close of the war.

He called rising gas prices in the US a “short-term” matter, while claiming “the United States has never been better prepared economically to confront this threat.”

Regarding Trump’s threats, Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said Thursday that Tehran has “no choice but to fight back strongly.”

“We will not tolerate this vicious cycle of war, negotiations, ceasefire, and then repeating the same pattern,” he said in a statement reported by state media. “This is catastrophic not only for Iran, but for the entire region and beyond.”

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Former CentCom Chief McKenzie: U.S. Has Planned for Kharg Island Attack for Years

Retired Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, the former chief of the U.S. Central Command, which is managing the war against Iran, told CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday that the U.S. has planned for a ground invasion of Kharg Island and other points in Iran for years.

McKenzie also said the war will be considered a success when the United States reopens the Strait of Hormuz.

Last week, Trump gave Iran until April 6 to reopen the vital energy waterway, which carries 20 millions barrels of oil per day.

Yet the plan for U.S. forces to reopen the strait is also years old, McKenzie said. McKenzie’s commentary strongly suggested U.S. ground forces will attack Kharg island to seize its oil facilities.

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Ukraine’s Backers Want Reduction In Long-Range Strikes On Russian Oil, Zelensky Says

We’ve been highlighting the significant impact of the Iran war on developments in Ukraine, where the over four-year long war is showing no end in sight. Ukraine’s President Zelensky has made clear his view that the current global focus on the Iran conflict has put Kiev in a weakened position.

Already, Ukraine’s international partners are ‘primarily’ sending their anti-ballistic missile systems to the Middle East – with Ukraine ‘forgotten’ – Zelensky has recently said. But there’s more, as the hits keep coming: Zelensky revealed Monday that some of Ukraine’s backers have sent “signals” to scale back long-range strikes on Russia’s oil sector as global energy prices have soared.

“Recently, following such a severe global energy crisis, we have indeed ⁠received signals from some of our partners about how to reduce our responses in the ​oil sector and the energy sector of the Russian Federation,” Zelensky told journalists in a WhatsApp briefing, reported by Reuters.

This is perhaps what’s behind his calling for an Easter holiday truce with Russia. He had on the same day that he told journalists about a potential pause on long-range attacks on Russian energy stated: “If Russia is ready to stop hitting Ukrainian energy facilities, we will not respond against their energy sector.”

Zelensky just came off a tour of Middle East Gulf states, even amid Iran’s ongoing retaliation in the region, while seeking Ukrainian security assistance. In recent days he met with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Jordan.

Reuters notes of this, “Fresh from a four-day visit to the Middle East, Zelenskiy said that he had reached agreement with some countries in the region to provide energy support to Ukraine.”

“Zelenskiy said at the weekend during his Middle ​East tour that he ​had reached a deal ⁠on diesel deliveries for a year to Ukraine, without providing further details,” the report continues. “Diesel is vital for the functioning of the Ukrainian armed forces and ​the country’s agricultural sector, the bedrock of the economy.”

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US gas prices soar as Iranian attack hits Kuwaiti tanker off Dubai coast

Welcome to RT’s live coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran and the wider chaos across the Middle East and beyond that the unprovoked attack has caused. Overnight, there have been reports of significant strikes both on Tehran and the Jewish state. While in Dubai there are reports of loud explosions and a strike on a Kuwaiti tanker.

The price of oil has dropped by almost 1% on global markets, while Moscow has doubled-down on its refusal to sell oil and gas to unfriendly nations.

The Pentagon is set to hold its sixth press briefing since the start of the conflict a month ago, with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine expected to appear before journalists later on Tuesday.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted on Monday that “a coalition of nations” would secure the Strait of Hormuz by force while Iran’s ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali spoke to RT’s Sanchez Effect and dismissed US President Donald Trump’s claims that Tehran is negotiating with Washington, saying that US and Israeli officials are “planning how to strike Iran” rather than seeking peace.

Trump has also claimed that his goal of regime change in Iran was achieved by killing the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in the initial strikes on February 28. 

“The one regime was decimated, destroyed, they’re all dead. The next regime is mostly dead, and the third regime – we’re dealing with different people than anybody’s dealt with before… it truly is regime change… you can’t do much better than that,” Trump said.

The new leadership in Iran is “very reasonable,” he said, claiming that he feels that a deal with Tehran could be reached “soon.”

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Trump Says He Wants to “Take the Oil” in Iran

President Donald Trump has suggested the United States may try to take over Iran’s oil the way it did with Venezuela’s, per a Financial Times interview.

“To be honest with you, my favourite thing is to take the oil in Iran, but some stupid people back in the US say: ‘Why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people,” Trump told the FT.

“Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options,” the U.S. president also told the publication, adding. “It would also mean we had to be there [in Kharg Island] for a while.”

Kharg Island is Iran’s oil hub, handling 90% of the country’s oil exports. The island lies beyond the Strait of Hormuz, however, which would make taking it a challenge, as noted by various military experts. According to official Pentagon statements, the U.S. has bombed as many as 90 targets on Kharg Island but these have not included oil facilities or infrastructure, per President Trump himself.

“We can do that on five minutes’ notice. It’ll be over,” Trump said earlier this month, referring to the pipelines connecting mainland Iran to Kharg Island. “Just one simple word, and the pipes will be gone too. But it’ll take a long time to rebuild that.”

That one simple word has yet to be pronounced, it seems, even as Trump told the FT on Sunday that “I don’t think they have any defence. We could take it [Kharg Island] very easily.”

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U.S. Postal Service seeks 8% fuel surcharge for package deliveries as Iran war raises oil prices

The U.S. Postal Service on Wednesday said it is seeking to impose a temporary 8% fuel surcharge for package and express mail deliveries to deal with rising transportation costs, which include higher oil prices as a result of the Iran war.

If approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission, the surcharge would take effect April 26 and remain in place until Jan. 17, 2027, the Postal Service said in a notice on its website.

The 8% surcharge would apply to postage on Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage, and Parcel Select products. First-class stamps and other mail services would not be affected.

Oil prices have jumped more than 40% since Feb. 28, when the United States and Israel attacked Iran.

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$580 million in oil bets placed moments before Trump’s Iran post – FT 

Oil traders placed more than half a billion dollars in bets minutes before US President Donald Trump announced “productive” talks with Iran on Monday, the Financial Times has reported.

A burst of activity followed by a sharp price drop has raised questions about possible advance knowledge among market participants.

About 6,200 Brent and WTI futures contracts changed hands between 6:49 AM and 6:50 AM in New York – a one-minute flurry worth $580 million, based on FT calculations using Bloomberg data. Volumes in both benchmarks – Brent and US West Texas Intermediate – spiked simultaneously, about 27 seconds before 6:50 AM, while S&P 500 futures surged shortly after.

The trades came roughly 15 minutes before Trump said on Truth Social there had been “productive conversations” with Tehran to end the war in Iran.

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The Donald Gets a Double-Whammy

It sure looks like the Donald is on the receiving end of a double-whammy. His victory declaration in Iran looks to rank right up there with George Dubya Bush’s “mission accomplished” pratfall on the deck of a US aircraft carrier in 2003; and that also means that his SOTU boasting about defeating “Joe Biden’s” inflation and getting the gas pump price under $2 per gallon is out the window, too.

What’s back in play front and center, therefore, is the AFFORDABILITY issue come November. The Dems have no clue about how to fix it, of course, but they sure as hell will be brutally pounding the GOP candidates and the Donald with the latter’s own bogus hot air on the matter.

For want of doubt, consider the conflagration in the global oil markets at this very moment. At ground zero in the Persian Gulf, the major crude oil from the region have already shot the moon.

Thus, Oman crude prices are up to $154/barrel, crossing $150 for the first time ever. At the same time, Dubai crude is up to $130/barrel, while Brent is trading at $110.

This means, in turn, that the gap between Oman and world prices is off-the-charts wide, and now stands at 30% or $44 per barrel. By comparison, before the Iran War, the difference between all benchmarks was just $5 per barrel during January and February.

In very short-run, of course, Brent and WTI are priced based on US and European supply conditions, while the actual disruption is concentrated in the Middle East, meaning they do not fully capture the severity of the physical shortage. YET.

On the other hand, global crude oil markets everywhere and always eventually get arbitraged, causing the major marker grades to fully reflect worldwide supply, demand and inventory conditions. So unless the Gulf is re-opened within a matter of days, the marker grades will soon rise toward these Gulf prices as global inventories continue to be liquidated.

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Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt Appoints Oil & Gas Executive Who Reportedly Donated to Adam Kinzinger to Fill Mullin’s Senate Seat

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt has chosen oil and gas executive Alan Armstrong to fill the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Markwayne Mullin.

The move comes as Mullin barrels toward confirmation as President Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security.

President Donald Trump announced that Oklahoma Senator and undefeated MMA fighter Markwayne Mullin will lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) effective March 31.

If Mullin is confirmed and leaves the Senate, Kevin Stitt, the Republican governor of Oklahoma, will be required to appoint a temporary replacement to serve until voters choose a senator in the next election.

Under Oklahoma law, Governor Kevin Stitt will have 30 days to appoint a temporary U.S. senator to fill the vacancy until voters decide the seat in the next election.

The appointee will serve only briefly and is expected to sign an oath promising not to run for the seat in the upcoming election, a measure designed to prevent the advantages of incumbency in the race.

According to NOTUS, citing three sources, Stitt selected Armstrong, a longtime energy executive and former CEO of Williams Companies, to serve out the remainder of Mullin’s term.

The news outlet reported that Armstrong and Stitt were expected to meet with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago to finalize the decision.

Reports reveal Armstrong previously donated $5,800 to former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of the most vocal anti-Trump Republicans.

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