largest one day natural gas price increase since ​July 2022; US gasoline exports hit an 82 month high

US oil prices finished higher for the first time in four weeks following new US sanctions against Russia’s two largest oil producers, and after across the board draws from US oil and product inventories…after falling 2.3% to $57.54 a barrel last week after Trump committed to talks with Chinese president Xi, possibly defusing a serious trade war, and after the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast a massive oil glut next year, the contract price for the benchmark US light sweet crude for November delivery slipped in early Asian trading on Monday, weighed down by concerns over a potential global supply glut and renewed US-China trade tensions that had heightened fears of slower economic growth and weaker energy demand, then erased its overnight gains in early US trading as traders were discouraged by the prospects of a market surplus, and settled down 2 cents at $57.52 a barrel as traders weighed a potential global glut, exacerbated by U.S.-China trade tensions and concerns about weaker energy demand…the November oil contract rose slightly in choppy trading on global markets on its last day of trading on Tuesday, as traders focused on expectations that the market was likely to become oversupplied​, and sought clarity on the trade dispute between the U.S. and China, the world’s two biggest oil consumers, then got a boost after the U.S. Department of Energy said it is looking to buy 1 million barrels of crude oil for delivery to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, ​s​eeking to take advantage of relatively low oil prices to help replenish the stockpile, and expired 30 cents, or 0.5% higher at $57.82 a barrel, as traders reassessed expectations of a looming glut and sought clarity on the trade dispute between the U.S. and China, while the more actively traded contract for the benchmark US light sweet crude for December delivery settled 22 cent higher at $57.24 a barrel….with markets now citing the contract price for the benchmark US light sweet crude for December delivery, that contract rose by more than 1% in Asian trading on Wednesday, buoyed by sanctions-related supply risk and hope for a US-China trade deal, while Asian traders digested news of the U.S. seeking oil for delivery to its strategic reserves. then continued rising in morning US trading on a report the US and India were nearing a trade deal that could see the South Asian nation gradually reduce imports of Russian crude, which would boost demand f​r​om other supplier​s, and settled $1.26, or more than 2% higher at $58.50 a barrel, buoyed by growing U.S. energy consumption and hopes of progress on a U.S. trade deal with India…..oil prices climbed sharply on global markets on Thursday, rising more than 2% in early trading, as new US sanctions against Russia’s two largest oil producers — Rosneft and Lukoil — fueled fresh concerns about supply disruptions, and then added to its sharp gains in New York trading after the U.S. also threatened to take further action if Russia did not agree immediately to a ceasefire in Ukraine. and as the European Union sanctioned the two Russian oil companies as well, and settled $3.29 or 5.6% higher at $61.79 a barrel, the largest one day gain since June 13​th, after US sanctions on major Russian suppliers Rosneft and Lukoil prompted energy firms in China and India to consider cutting Russian imports….crude oil prices steadied at those levels in international trading on Friday, as traders booked profits and analysts cited US sanctions on Russia’s Rosneft and Lukoil, China halting Russian oil imports, and rising supply concerns, but slowed in early US trading on Friday as the buying prompted by concerns about supply due to U.S. Sanctions on Russia subsided, then pulled back during the last two hours of trading to settle 29 cents lower at $61.50 a barrel amid skepticism about the Trump administration’s commitment to sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil companies over the war in Ukraine, but still finished 6.9% higher for the week, while contract price for December US crude, which had ended the prior week priced at $57.15 a barrel, finished this one 7.6% higher…

meanwhile, natural gas prices rose for the first time in three weeks on near record LNG demand and on forecasts for much co​o​ler weather in the eastern US by the end of the month…after falling 3.2% to $3.008 per mmBTU last week on mild weather forecasts and on ample supplies of gas in storage ahead of winter, the price of the benchmark natural gas contract for November delivery opened 22.2 cents higher on Monday as updated forecasts brought news of a cold blast of weather to move in by month end, and continued a staggered ascent throughout the session, as near record LNG exports provided additional support, and settled 38.9 cents or 13% higher at $3.397 per mmBTU, surging past technical resistance to the largest single day increase since ​July 2022, as traders reacted to sharply colder weather forecasts, triggering a round of short-covering activity…natural gas prices opened 2.9 cents higher on Tuesday and rose to an intraday high of $3.478 by 10:25 AM, as bullish weather forecasts for month-end continued to provide support throughout the day, and held near that level to settle 7.7 cents higher at $3.474 per mmBTU, as robust LNG flows and colder weather forecasts boosted demand…natural gas prices opened 4.8 cents higher on Wednesday and rose to intraday high of $3.553 early on, as overnight weather forecasts provided early support, but hit technical resistance after the strong price advance and settled 2.4 cents lower at $3.450 per mmBTU as traders tried to make sense of an uneven weather outlook, surging LNG exports and strong production levels….natural gas prices opened 5 cents lower Thursday and hovered near that level in early Thursday trading as traders eyed conflicting weather reports and awaited the storage report, then fell to $3.350 as the bearish-leaning report hit the wire, but traded 11 cents higher before turning lower and settling down 10.6 cents at $3.344 per mmBTU as a bearish storage report from the EIA outweighed support from colder weather forecasts signaling stronger heating demand….natural gas futures dipped lower early Friday, as traders weighed strong export demand against a mixed domestic weather outlook and elevated levels of supply, then moved lower in volatile trading through early afternoon, with upside moves checked by stout supply and technical resistance, and settled 4.0 cents lower at $3.304 per mmBTU on a small output increase over recent days and ample amounts of fuel in storage, but still finished 9.8% higher for the week…

The EIA’s natural gas storage report for the week ending October 17th indicated that the amount of working natural gas held in underground storage rose by 87 cubic feet to 3,808 billion cubic feet by the end of the week, which left our natural gas supplies 34 billion cubic feet, or 0.9% more than the 3,774 billion cubic feet of gas that were in storage on October 17th of last year, and 164 billion cubic feet, or 4.5% more than the five-year average of 3,644 billion cubic feet of natural gas that had typically been in working storage as of the 17th of October over the most recent five years….the 87 billion cubic foot injection into US natural gas storage for the cited week was more than the 81 billion cubic foot injection into storage that the markets were expecting ahead of the report, and also higher than the 79 billion cubic foot of gas that were added to natural gas storage during the corresponding week of 2024, and also higher than the average 77 billion cubic foot addition to natural gas storage that has been typical for the same mid October week over the past five years…

The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA

US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending October 17th indicated that after a big jump in our oil refining, and a decrease in oil supplies that the EIA could not account for, we had to pull oil out of our stored crude supplies for the seventeenth time in thirty-seven weeks, and for the 30th time in sixty-seven weeks, in spite of an increase in our oil imports a decrease in our oil exports….Our imports of crude oil rose by an average of 393,000 barrels per day to average 5,918,000 barrels per day, after falling by an average of 878,000 barrels per day over the prior week, while our exports of crude oil fell by an average of 263,000 barrels per day to average 4,203,000 barrels per day, which, when used to offset our imports, meant that the net of our trade of oil worked out to an import average of 1,715,000 barrels of oil per day during the week ending October 17th, an average of 656,000 more barrels per day than the net of our imports minus our exports during the prior week. At the same time, transfers to our oil supplies from Alaskan gas liquids, from natural gasoline, from condensate, and from unfinished oils averaged 458,000 barrels per day, while during the same week, production of crude from US wells was 7,000 barrels per day lower than the prior week at 13,629,000 barrels per day. Hence, our daily supply of oil from the net of our international trade in oil, from transfers, and from domestic well production appears to have averaged a total of 15,802,000 barrels per day during the October 17th reporting week…

Meanwhile, US oil refineries reported they were processing an average of 15,730,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending October 17th, an average of 601,000 more barrels per day than the amount of oil that our refineries reported they were processing during the prior week, while over the same period, the EIA’s surveys indicated that a net average of 20,000 barrels of oil per day were being pulled out of the supplies of oil stored in the US… So, based on that reported & estimated data, the crude oil figures provided by the EIA appear to indicate that our total working supply of oil from storage, from net imports, from transfers, and from oilfield production during the week ending October 17th averaged a rounded 92,000 more barrels per day than what oil refineries reported they used during the week. To account for that difference between the apparent supply of oil and the apparent disposition of it, the EIA just plugged a [-92,000 ] barrel per day figure onto line 16 of the weekly U.S. Petroleum Balance Sheet, in order to make the reported data for the supply of oil and for the consumption of it balance out, a fudge factor that they label in their footnotes as “unaccounted for crude oil”, thus indicating there must have been an error or omission of that magnitude in this week’s oil supply & demand figures that we have just transcribed.…moreover, since 587,000 barrels per day of oil supply could not be accounted for in the prior week’s EIA data, that means there was a 680,000 barrel per day difference between this week’s oil balance sheet error and the EIA’s crude oil balance sheet error from a week ago, and hence the changes to supply and demand from that week to this one that are indicated by this week’s report are off by that much. and hence useless....However, since most oil traders react to these weekly EIA reports as if they were gospel, and since these weekly figures therefore often drive oil pricing and hence decisions to drill or complete oil wells, we’ll continue to report this data just as it’s published, and just as it’s watched & believed to be reasonably reliable by most everyone in the industry…(for more on how this weekly oil data is gathered, and the possible reasons for that “unaccounted for” oil supply, see this EIA explainer….also see this old twitter thread from an EIA administrator addressing these ongoing weekly errors, and what they had once hoped to do about it)

This week’s rounded 20,000 barrel per day average decrease in our overall crude oil inventories came as an average of 137,000 barrels per day were being pulled out of our commercially available stocks of crude oil, while an average of 117,000 barrels per day were being added to our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, extending the string of nearly continuous weekly additions to the SPR since September 2023, which followed nearly continuous SPR withdrawals over the 39 months prior to August 2023… Further details from the weekly Petroleum Status Report (pdf) indicated that the 4 week average of our oil imports fell to 5,920,000 barrels per day last week, which was 4.6% less than the 6,204,000 barrel per day average that we were importing over the same four-week period last year. This week’s crude oil production was reported to be 7,000 barrels per day lower at 13,629,000 barrels per day even as the EIA’s estimate of the output from wells in the lower 48 states was 4,000 barrels per day higher at 13,208,000 barrels per day, because Alaska’s oil production was 11,000 barrels per day lower at 421,000 barrels per day...US crude oil production had reached a pre-pandemic high of 13,100,000 barrels per day during the week ending March 13th 2020, so this week’s reported oil production figure was 4.0% higher than that of our pre-pandemic production peak, and was also 40.5% above the pandemic low of 9,700,000 barrels per day that US oil production had fallen to during the third week of February of 2021.

US oil refineries were operating at 88.6% of their capacity while processing those 15,730,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending October 17th, up from the 85.7% utilization rate of a week earlier, with part of that increase ​l​ikely from restarting processing following the El Segundo refinery fire in California…. the 15,730,000 barrels of oil per day that were refined that week were 2.2% less than the 16,084,000 barrels of crude that were being processed daily during the week ending October 18th of 2024, and were 0.9% less than the 15,865,000 barrels that were being refined during the prepandemic week ending October 18th, 2019, when our refinery utilization rate was at 85.2%, which was well below the pre-pandemic normal range for this time of year, likely due to catastrophic flooding in Southeast Texas in the wake of tropical storm Imelda of that year…

With the increase in the amount of oil being refined this week, gasoline output from our refineries was also higher, increasing by 235,000 barrels per day to 9,594,000 barrels per day during the week ending October 17th, after our refineries’ gasoline output had decreased by 394,000 barrels per day during the prior week.. This week’s gasoline production was still 3.6% less than the 9,954,000 barrels of gasoline that were being produced daily over the week ending October 18th of last year, and 5.0% less than the gasoline production of 10,098,000 barrels per day seen during the prepandemic week ending October 18th, 2019….at the same time, our refineries’ production of distillate fuels (diesel fuel and heat oil) increased by 40,000 barrels per day to 4,632,000 barrels per day, after our distillates output had decreased by 577,000 barrels per day during the prior week. After last week’s unusually large production decrease, our distillates output was 7.6% less than the 5,011,000 barrels of distillates that were being produced daily during the week ending October 18th of 2024, and 2.8% less than the 4,765,000 barrels of distillates that were being produced daily during the pre-pandemic week ending October 18th, 2019....

Even with this week’s increase in our gasoline production, our supplies of gasoline in storage at the end of the week fell for the 12th time in fourteen weeks and for the 25th time in thirty-four weeks, decreasing by 2,147,000 barrels to 216,679,000 barrels during the week ending October 17th, after our gasoline inventories had decreased by 267,000 barrels during the prior week. Our gasoline supplies decreased by more this week despite the production increase because our exports of gasoline rose by 194,000 barrels per day to an 82 month high of 1,212,000 barrels per day while our imports of gasoline fell by 27,000 barrels per day to 505,000 barrels per day and as the amount of gasoline supplied to US users fell by 1,000 barrels per day to 8,454,000 barrels per day.… Even after twenty-seven gasoline inventory withdrawals over the past thirty-seven weeks, our gasoline supplies were 1.5% more than last October 18th’s gasoline inventories of 213,575,000 barrels, and just slightly below the five year average of our gasoline supplies for this time of the year…

With the modest increase in this week’s distillates production, our supplies of distillate fuels fell for the 23rd time in 42 weeks, decreasing by 1,479,000 barrels to 115,551,000 barrels during the week ending October 17th, after our distillates supplies had decreased by 4,529,000 barrels during the prior week.. Our distillates supplies decreased by less this week because the amount of distillates supplied to US markets, an indicator of domestic demand, fell by 386,000 barrels to 3,847,000 barrels per day, and because our exports of distillates fell by 94,000 barrels per day to 1,072,000 barrels per day, while our imports of distillates fell by 84,000 barrels per day to 76,000 barrels per day... With 52 withdrawals from inventories over the past 90 weeks, our distillates supplies at the end of the week were still 1.5% more than the 113,839,000 barrels of distillates that we had in storage on October 18th of 2024, while about 7% below the five year average of our distillates inventories for this time of the year…

Finally, with the increase in our oil refining and decrease oil supplies that the EIA could not account for, our commercial supplies of crude oil in storage fell for the 14th time in twenty-six weeks, and for the 24th time over the past year, decreasing by 961,000 barrels over the week, from 423,785,000 barrels on October 10th to 422,824,000 barrels on October 17th, after our commercial crude supplies had increased by 3,524,000 barrels over the prior week… Even after three larger increases prior to this week, our commercial crude oil inventories were still 4% below the recent five-year average of commercial oil supplies for this time of year, while they were about 28% above the average of our available crude oil stocks as of the second weekend of October over the 5 years at the beginning of the past decade, with the big difference between those comparisons arising because it wasn’t until early 2015 that our oil inventories had first topped 400 million barrels. After our commercial crude oil inventories had jumped to record highs during the Covid lockdowns in the Spring of 2020, then jumped again after February 2021’s winter storm Uri froze off US Gulf Coast refining, but then fell sharply due to increased exports to Europe following the onset of the Ukraine war, only to jump again following the Christmas 2022 refinery freeze-offs, our commercial crude supplies have somewhat leveled off since, and as of this October 17th were 0.8% less than the 426,024,000 barrels of oil left in commercial storage on October 18th of 2024, but were 0.4% above the 421,120,000 barrels of oil that we had in storage on October 20th of 2023, while 3.9% less than the 439,945,000 barrels of oil we had left in commercial storage on October 21st of 2022… 

This Week's Rig Count

The US rig count was up by two over the week ending October 24th, the seventh increase in tenth weeks, as the number of rigs targeting oil was up by two, while the count of rigs targeting natural gas was unchanged…for a quick snapshot of this week's rig count, we are again including below a screenshot of the rig count summary pdf from Baker Hughes...in the table below, the first column shows the active rig count as of October 24th, the second column shows the change in the number of working rigs between last week’s count (October 17th) and this week’s (October 24th) count, the third column shows last week’s October 17th active rig count, the 4th column shows the change between the number of rigs running on Friday and the number running on the Friday before the same weekend of a year ago, and the 5th column shows the number of rigs that were drilling at the end of that reporting period a year ago, which in this week’s case was the 25th of October, 2024…

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Tell the Commission: Fracking hands off Jockey Hollow Wildlife Area -by Save Ohio Parks -An unnamed oil and gas company has submitted a “nomination” to the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission to frack 1,460 acres of Jockey Hollow Wildlife Area in Harrison County. If approved, it would be the third-largest tract of Ohio public land for oil and gas extraction. But before that can happen, we the people who pay for and use this land have a chance to comment. Tell the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission: Don’t approve fracking at Jockey Hollow Wildlife Area. Visit the Nomination Comment Form, choose Nomination 25-DNR-0002, and submit your comment by November 13, 2025.Jockey Hollow is a 3,469-acre wildlife area six miles southwest of Cadiz in Harrison County. It received its name in the 1940s from locals who raced horses there.The area went through a decade of surface mining from 1958 to 1968, when 200,000 tons of coal were removed. Mining left deep scars on the land. "Over 10,000 feet of exposed highwall was left behind, as well as ungraded spoil, barren areas, water filled pits, exposed toxics and little or no topsoil,” according to the Ohio Biological Survey.In 2004, Jockey Hollow Wildlife Area was established through an agreement with Consolidation Coal Company, and extensive efforts began to repair the land. Over 80,000 trees were planted, along with shrubs and grasslands to provide living space for wildlife. The wildlife area was opened to the public in 2012, and is popular for hunters, fishers, hikers, and wildlife watchers.Tell the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission: Don’t approve fracking at Jockey Hollow Wildlife Area. Visit the Nomination Comment Form, choose Nomination 25-DNR-0002, and submit your comment by November 13, 2025. You can draw from our sample letter below — but please personalize to explain why preserving our wildlife areas is important to you:

Marietta, OH, Passes 3 Resolutions Against Injection Wells - Marcellus Drilling News -In August, Marietta, OH, officials, including the city’s Republican mayor, law director, water superintendent, and a majority of city council members, asked the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Oil and Gas to deny a permit application from DeepRock Disposal Solutions for the Stephan #1 injection well, which would be the company’s fifth injection well in the area (seeMarietta, OH Officials Ask ODNR to Deny Permit for Injection Well). In September, the ODNR rejected Marietta’s appeal and went ahead and issued a permit for the well (see ODNR Rejects Marietta Hearing Request, Issues Injection Well Permit). Earlier this month, the Marietta City Council passed three resolutions to block new injection wells in the area. One resolution asks the state to block new injection wells statewide!

Judge Won’t Dismiss OH Case re EQT, Gulfport Tapping Pt Pleasant - Marcellus Drilling News -- We happened across a lawsuit we didn’t know about, involving an issue we’ve seen before. A landowner in Belmont County, Ohio, filed a lawsuit in June 2024 alleging that Gulfport Energy, in a joint development agreement with EQT (the lease owner), drilled three wells under the landowner’s property that tapped into the Point Pleasant formation, which sits immediately below the Utica. The landowner said the lease only allows drilling in the Utica and Marcellus and NOT in the Point Pleasant.

CenterPoint to Sell Ohio Natural Gas Business for $2.6 Billion (Reuters) - CenterPoint Energy (CNP.N), opens new tab will sell its natural gas distribution unit in Ohio to National Fuel Gas (NFG.N), opens new tab for $2.62 billion, as the U.S. utility focuses on its core regulated electric and gas operations in other states. Shares of distribution company National Fuel fell 4.7% in morning trade on Tuesday and that of CenterPoint were down marginally. Assets being sold include about 5,900 miles of transmission and distribution pipeline in Ohio serving about 335,000 metered customers, CenterPoint said. The deal is the latest in a slew of sales by U.S. utilities refocusing on higher-growth, regulated markets in response to surging power demand. It will allow CenterPoint to recycle more than $2 billion into other electric and natural gas businesses, CEO Jason Wells said. Analysts at Scotiabank said the deal shows CenterPoint's progress toward a profit growth of nearly 9%, which would be among the fastest in the industry. Being one of the few utilities with the ability to turn demand into earnings should make CenterPoint attractive to investors, they said. The deal will boost CenterPoint's balance sheet and free up capital to expand in Texas, Indiana and Minnesota. The utility in late September said it was planning $65 billion in capital spending from 2026 through 2035. For National Fuel, the unit provides a stronger foothold in Ohio, broadening its regulated gas utility services. The deal value represents roughly 1.9 times the unit's 2024 rate base, CenterPoint said, adding that the deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. CenterPoint expects $1.42 billion in proceeds in 2026 and the rest in 2027. The company delivers electricity and natural gas to more than 7 million customers across Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Ohio and Texas.

CenterPoint Sells 5,900 Miles of Ohio Gas Pipelines to National Fuel for $2.6 Billion - CenterPoint Energy will sell its Ohio natural gas business, including 5,900 miles of pipeline and 335,000 customers, to National Fuel Gas Company for $2.62 billion. (P&GJ) — CenterPoint Energy has agreed to sell its Ohio natural gas local distribution company (LDC), Vectren Energy Delivery of Ohio, to National Fuel Gas Company for $2.62 billion, marking a significant divestiture in its multi-state utility portfolio. The deal includes about 5,900 miles of transmission and distribution pipelines that serve roughly 335,000 metered customers across West Central Ohio. The sale price represents about 1.9 times the company’s 2024 Ohio LDC rate base. The transaction, subject to regulatory reviews by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, is expected to close in late 2026. CenterPoint anticipates receiving $1.42 billion in proceeds in 2026 and the remaining $1.2 billion in 2027 under a seller note. “Our Ohio natural gas business is a strong and growing enterprise supported by a deeply committed local team focused on safety, excellence in execution, and delivering positive outcomes for customers,” said Jason Wells, Chair and CEO of CenterPoint Energy. “Together with National Fuel, we will be focused on delivering a seamless transition for the approximately 335,000 customers in West Central Ohio.” Wells added that the transaction aligns with CenterPoint’s 10-year, $65 billion capital plan, enabling it to “efficiently recycle more than $2 billion back into our other electric and natural gas businesses” to support long-term earnings growth. While the Ohio divestiture continues CenterPoint’s trend of refining its gas portfolio, Wells emphasized that natural gas remains central to the company’s strategy in Texas, Indiana, and Minnesota, where it operates larger service territories. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and Guggenheim Securities, LLC advised CenterPoint on the deal, while Gibson Dunn, Barnes & Thornburg, Bricker Graydon, and Whitt Sturtevant served as legal counsel.

DEP Extends Temporary Air Quality Permits For Shell Petrochemical Plant In Beaver County; No Schedule Yet For Public Review Of Full Title V Air Quality Permit Accepted July 2024 [PaEN] The Department of Environmental Protection published notice in the October 25 PA Bulletin extending the three Air Quality Permits needed for the continued temporary operation of the Shell Petrochemical Plant in Potter Township, Beaver County until a full Title V Air Quality permit can be put in place. (PA Bulletin, page 7459)The new expiration date is April 28, 2026. This is the third extension of these temporary permits by DEP.Shell submitted the Title V Air Quality permit application for the petrochemical plant on June 19, 2024 and DEP accepted the application as administratively complete on July 2, 2024. Read more here.On December 18, 2024 DEP said the agency will review the Shell Petrochemical Plant Title V Air Quality Permit application under the “enhanced public participation process” established in its Interim Final Environmental Justice Policy holding local stakeholder meetings, one or more public meetings and a hearing. Read more here.Visit DEP’s Shell Petrochemical Plant webpage for more information.For more information on environmental programs in Pennsylvania, visit DEP’s website. Submit Environmental Complaints; Click Here to sign up for DEP’s newsletter; sign up for DEP’s eNotice; Like DEP on Facebook, Follow DEP on Twitter and visit DEP’s YouTube Channel.(Photo: Explosion and fire at Shell plant on June 4, 2025.) Resource Links - Shell Petrochemical:

• -- DEP: Shell Petrochemical Plant Fire Resulted In Possible Release Of An Unknown Quantity Of 1,3-Butadiene And Benzene Into The Atmosphere In Beaver County [PaEN]
• -- DEP To Review Shell Petrochemical Plant Title V Air Quality Permit Under Environmental Justice Policy Enhanced Public Participation Process [PaEN]
• -- Environmental Groups File Notice Of Intent To Sue The Shell Petrochemical Plant In Beaver County For Air Pollution Violations: Similar Action In 2023 Resulted In $10 Million Settlement [PaEN]
• -- DEP Extends Air Quality Permits For Temporary Operation Of Shell Petrochemical Plant; No Schedule Posted Yet For Considering Full Title V Air Quality Permit [PaEN]

DEP: Contaminated Water From EQM Gathering (EQT) Double Pipeline Construction Site Traveled Nearly 2 Football Fields From Site Of Spill In Nottingham Twp., Washington County On October 17, 2025, the Department of Environmental Protection was notified by EQM Gathering OPCO LLC (EQT) of a contaminated water spill at the NINFS004 Pipeline construction site for two pipelines-- natural gas and water-- in Nottingham Township, Washington County. During its October 20 inspection, DEP found water contaminated with bentonite and sediment being pumped out of a pipeline drilling entrance pit was discharged from a storage tank at the Mingo shale gas well pad as a result of a “miscommunication.”The discharge collapsed the secondary contaminment around the tanks and traveled some 700 feet off the pipeline permit area into a drainage channel.EQM constructed a temporary dam and collection point in the channel to stop the spill flow and pump out the contaminated water. Remediation efforts were ongoing during the inspection.In separate problems, DEP said a temporary access road to the pipeline construction site was “overwhelmed” with sediment after a rain event and secondary containment around fracking wastewater tanks also collapsed on the Mingo shale gas well pad.Violations were issued. Response requested by Nov. 10. DEP inspection report.On the same day, DEP inspected another drilling site along the NINFS004 Pipeline construction route in Union Township, Washington County and found activities appeared to be in compliance with the Erosion and Sedimentation Control permit. The owner had just finished drilling the borehole for the water pipeline under two streams and two roads and was preparing to start drilling for the natural gas pipeline the following week.DEP did recommend that water levels in at least two sump areas be reduced. DEP inspection report.To report oil and gas violations or any environmental emergency or complaint, visit DEP’s Environmental Complaint webpage.Text photos and the location of abandoned wells to 717-788-8990.Visit DEP’s Compliance Reporting Database and Inspection Reports Viewer webpages to search their compliance records by date and owner. Use DEP’s Oil and Gas Mapping Tool to find if there are oil and gas wells near or on your property and to find wells using latitude and longitude on well inspection reports. (Photos: Top- Double pipeline drilling bore pit; Tank where discharge began; Bottom- Drainage channel with contaminated water; Temporary dam and contaminated water pumping area.)

DEP: Day 155 - Contaminated Water Still Flowing From Seneca Resources Vandergrift Shale Gas Wells, Well Pad; Cleanup Continues In Charleston Twp., Tioga County [PaEN] On October 15, 2025, the Department of Environmental Protection did a follow-up inspection of the Seneca Resources Vandergrift shale gas well pad and found multiple areas where contaminated water was still flowing from wells and the well pad fill slop in Charleston Township, Tioga County.The spill was discovered during a complaint inspection on May 13, 2025.While significant cleanup efforts have been undertaken, this inspection found work crews installing permanent, eight foot deep drainage trenches around the shale gas well cellars to collect contaminated wastewater from the wells for monitoring and disposal.The inspection also found contaminated liquid flowing down and from the east fill slope of the well pad and into a sump. The water was then pumped into a fracking wastewater tank on the pad for later disposal. DEP continued to recommend Seneca monitor for contamination, remediate areas as necessary and continue collecting and disposing of contaminated fluid. DEP continued the violations from May 13.Click Here for the October 15 inspection report with photos. The May inspection found two large areas of distressed vegetation with evidence of a wastewater release in one area 50 feet wide extending down the well pad slope about 120 feet and another area 20 feet wide and stretching 65-70 feet down slope as a result of what Seneca said were leaking valves and wastewater flowing from an open pipe during well plugging operations. Read more here. You can chart the progress in cleaning up this wastewater spill through DEP’s inspection reports: July 17, 2025; July 24, 2025, August 6, 2025; August 20, 2025; August 26, 2025; and September 18, 2025.

Status Report on 4 Key NatGas Pipeline Projects in New York State -- Marcellus Drilling News -- An article appearing in the Peekskill (NY) Herald has this headline: “Natural Gas Pipelines: A Path to Renewable Energy?” The subhead reads, “Several projects propose solutions that address the threat of statewide energy shortages in the near future.” The article highlights four active pipeline projects in the Empire State that we have covered multiple times. These pipelines would flow more Marcellus gas from Pennsylvania (perhaps beyond) into New York and New England. They include Enbridge’s Project Maple, Williams’ Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE), Williams’ Constitution Pipeline, and Iroquois Gas Transmission’s Iroquois Enhancement by Compression (ExC). Where does each project stand?

MVP Asks FERC to Approve Expanded Capacity by Extra 600 MMcf/d- Marcellus Drilling News - In July 2024, EQT announced a plan to expand capacity along the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from 2.0 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) to 2.5 Bcf/d (see EQT’s Game Plan Changed – Keep MVP & Expand Extra 0.5 Bcf/d). In July of this year, the company said it had concluded an open season (where new customers may claim the expanded capacity) and was already preordering equipment for the expansion, ahead of an official filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see EQT Ordering Equipment to Expand MVP from 2.0 to 2.5 Bcf/d). Yesterday, EQT announced that it had finally submitted its official request to FERC. However, the company upped the requested capacity from 500 to 600 MMcf/d (or 0.6 Bcf/d). Cool!

Anti-Fossil Fuel NGOs Gear Up to Oppose Elba Pipe in South Carolina -- Marcellus Drilling News --In April, MDN told you about a new greenfield expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Elba Express pipeline into South Carolina to serve growing demand for natural gas in the state (see KM Pipes Update: Expand Elba to SC; SSE4 Survey Work Done). The $431 million Elba Express Bridge project is designed to provide 325 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of firm transportation capacity to a new gas-fired power plant in Colleton County, SC (see SC PSC Approves Gas-Fired Power Plant Proposed for Edisto River). Earlier this month, we reported that letters have been sent to 185 landowners in South Carolina along the proposed route, requesting permission to survey their land for the project (see SC Landowners Receive Notice of Survey Work for Elba Express Pipe). It took a while, but with this project now getting real, anti-fossil fuel Big Green NGOs are flooding the zone with lies about the pipeline, stirring up the locals in the process.

Japan's top power generator JERA to buy US shale gas assets for $1.5 billion (Reuters) - Japan's top power generator JERA said on Thursday it will acquire natural gas production assets in the United States for $1.5 billion, in its first foray into shale gas production. JERA said it has reached an agreement with pipeline operator Williams and GEP Haynesville II to acquire 100% of their interests in the South Mansfield gas field in western Louisiana's Haynesville Shale basin. GEP Haynesville II is a joint venture between GeoSouthern Energy, backed by Blackstone and Williams. Williams separately announced a $1.9 billion investment in Woodside Energy's liquefied natural gas production and export terminal under construction in Louisiana. JERA, a joint venture between Tokyo Electric Power and Chubu Electric Power has been boosting its exposure to the U.S. LNG sector this year, including signing a letter of intent last month to potentially take supplies from Alaska's $44 billion LNG export project. The latest U.S. investment would give JERA more control of its supply chain as Japan prepares for a surge in power demand from data centres critical to the artificial intelligence boom.

Williams Buys Driftwood Pipe, 10% Stake in Woodside Louisiana LNG -- Marcellus Drilling News - Williams engaged in some LNG jiu-jitsu yesterday, announcing several transactions related to LNG exports. It’s somewhat complicated, but we’ll break it down. First, Williams sold its interest in the Haynesville’s South Mansfield upstream (drilling) venture to JERA, Japan’s top power generator, for $398 million. Williams will continue to operate the gathering system for the South Mansfield wells. Second, Williams is buying 80% (becoming the operator) of the Driftwood Pipeline LLC, which includes the construction of Line 200, a fully permitted greenfield pipeline connecting Woodside’s Louisiana LNG facility to multiple pipelines, including Transco and Louisiana Energy Gateway (LEG). Third, Williams is buying a 10% stake in the Louisiana LNG export facility. Williams will pay $378 million for the Driftwood Pipeline and the 10% stake in Louisiana LNG. However, Williams will contribute another $1.9 billion for its share of capital expenditures for the LNG facility and pipeline. Williams’ total investment will be roughly $2.3 billion. And yes, there is a connection to the Marcellus/Utica.

Williams, Woodside and Jera Deals Signal New Phase in Asian Demand for U.S. LNG -- Woodside Energy Group Ltd. took a major step closer to its equity goal for the $17.5 billion Louisiana LNG project and related pipeline as Williams hones in on export infrastructure investments. Map showing Williams Cos. natural gas portfolio across the United States, highlighting major transmission and gathering pipelines, gas plants, fractionators, storage sites, and operational hubs. Key assets such as Transco, Gulfstream, MountainWest, Overland Pass, Northwest, and Bluestem are labeled, illustrating Williams’ extensive midstream network spanning from the Gulf Coast and Rockies to the Northeast and Pacific Northwest. At A Glance:
Williams takes 10% stake in terminal, 80% in Line 200
Midstreamer commits to $1.9B in capital contribution
Jera buys Williams, GeoSouthern western Haynesville assets

LNG exports throw lifeline to coal plants - American coal and renewable generation surged through the first three quarters of 2025, largely thanks to the rising cost of natural gas. The chief culprit for the higher gas prices is a lack of pipeline capacity, limiting how much gas can be moved from productive regions like West Texas to a slew of new liquefied natural gas terminals along the Gulf Coast. That has pushed gas prices up from the rock-bottom levels they hit last year, tempering the use of natural gas for electricity production, analysts say. “There is a disconnect between what is going on upstream and what is going on downstream,” said Ira Joseph, an analyst who tracks gas and power markets at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. While domestic gas production is keeping up with demand — hovering around record levels — pipelines are not. The result is a lifeline for coal, threatening to stall decreases in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.

Venture Global gets permission to introduce natural gas into final LNG block at Plaquemines plant (Reuters) - Venture Global (VG.N), opens new tab received permission to introduce natural gas into the final block of its Plaquemines LNG export facility in Louisiana on Tuesday, according to a filing from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The FERC approval means Venture Global could be producing liquefied natural gas from its entire Plaquemines export facility by the end of the week, more than a year before the company is expected to provide its first set of long-term customers with their contracted amounts of gas. Venture Global, the second largest LNG exporter in the U.S., has aimed to quickly construct and ramp up production at its plants to make money from spot market sales at higher prices during the commissioning phase. The practice has drawn attention from some customers after an arbitration loss earlier this month related to delayed commercial sales at a different facility. Federal regulators last week approved a separate request from Venture Global to extend the commissioning phase at Plaquemines until December 31, 2027. The company has said that the planned start of commercial, long-term sales would not be affected. Completion of the Plaquemines export facility will bring it to its full capacity of 27.2 million metric tons per annum. In September, Plaquemines, the second largest plant in the country, was already responsible for more than 17% of total U.S. exports, according to data from financial firm LSEG.

VG Getting Heat from Contracted Customers re Plaquemines LNG Startup - Marcellus Drilling News - BP recently won a victory in an arbitration lawsuit against Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass (CP) LNG for not selling contracted LNG deliveries in a timely fashion (see Venture Global’s CP LNG Loses Arbitration to BP, Owes Big Money). Venture Global is attempting to repeat the same delivery delay tactic with another new LNG export facility located in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. Except this time, contracted customers are already pushing back (seeChevron Complains that VG’s Plaquemines LNG to Delay Startup). Typically, a new LNG facility will load and ship several (maybe two or three) cargoes to “work out the kinks” and ensure everything is working as advertised. Venture Global, using loopholes in its signed contracts, maintained that they were working out the kinks long after it began shipping. Venture Global’s CP LNG liquefied and shipped *over 400 cargoes* from March 1, 2022, through April 2025 before it announced it was “commercially ready” to begin operations.

FERC Grants VG Request to Delay Official Start of Plaquemines LNG -- Marcellus Drilling News -- Venture Global is building a new LNG export facility in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, approximately 20 miles south of New Orleans. When fully complete, Plaquemines LNG’s nominal capacity will be 2.6 Bcf/d (3.2 Bcf/d peak). The first portion of the new plant came online in December when it officially shipped its first cargo to Germany. Venture Global said that it would (as it did with the Calcasieu Pass facility it previously built) pretend that Plaquemines LNG is not “commercially ready” while shipping all sorts of LNG cargoes around the world. The practice allows the company to cream the market and make more money for the first couple of years (see Plaquemines LNG Coming Online, Will Hose Customers for 2 Years). But that’s not enough for Venture Global! In September, the company asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend the deadline for declaring the facility commercially ready by another 15 months, from September 30, 2026, to December 31, 2027 (see VG Wants an Extra 15 Months for Commissioning Plaquemines LNG). FERC fell for the ruse and agreed.

Venture Global Secures NFTA Permit for CP2 LNG — The Offtake --A look at the global natural gas and LNG markets by the numbers

• 3.2 Bcf/d: Venture Global Inc. is seeking authorization to commission its last remaining liquefaction block at Plaquemines LNG. FERC gave the company permission at the beginning of the month to introduce nitrogen to the block, starting the clock on when all 36 trains could begin producing LNG. The facility has a nameplate capacity of more than 27 million tons/year (Mt/y), allowing it to pull up to 3.2 Bcf/d in feed gas. However, natural gas nominations to Plaquemines LNG have already exceeded that level over prolonged periods during commissioning.
• 800 MMcf/d: A fourth midscale train at the Corpus Christi LNG Stage 3 expansion project is ready for significant testing and could begin pulling feed gas within the next several weeks. FERC has granted Cheniere Energy Inc. permission to introduce hazardous materials to the warm end of the train. In August, Federal Energy Regulatory staff granted permission to start liquefaction at Train 3, roughly one month after gas was introduced to the warm end. Once all four trains are producing,the expansion could pull up to 800 MMcf/d in additional feed gas demand to South Texas.
• 28 Mt/y: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has finalized a permit allowing Venture to export up to 3.96 Bcf/d from its CP2 LNG project to non-free trade agreement (NFTA) countries. The agency granted a conditional permit earlier in the year, allowing the company to reach a final investment decision on the first phase of the 28 Mt/y capacity project in July. So far, DOE under the Trump administration has granted NFTA permits for more than 13.8 Bcf/d in LNG exports. Those permits account for a roughly 92% increase over current U.S. exports if all projects are built.
• 15.2%: The Title Transfer Facility (TTF) saw the largest price drop among global benchmarks last year as supply balances reached an inflection point, according to Eni SpA’s latest World Energy Review. TTF prices dropped an average of 15.2% year/year in 2024, followed by Henry Hub at 13.8% and the Japan-Korea Marker at 11.8%. LNG demand in Europe also cooled due to record high storage, pushing imports down 6% compared to 2023’s high point levels.

Pipeline operator Williams pumps $1.9 billion into Woodside's Louisiana LNG venture(Reuters) -U.S.-based gas pipeline operator Williams will invest $1.9 billion in Woodside Energy's $17.5 billion liquefied natural gas production and export terminal under construction in Louisiana, the companies said. Under the agreement, Williams will own a 10% stake in the project's infrastructure company and 80% of the Driftwood pipeline that will supply natural gas to the Louisiana LNG project. Woodside's ownership of the Louisiana LNG project will be reduced to 50%, as the Australian energy company sold a 40% stake to U.S. investor Stonepeak for $5.7 billion in April. Woodside said it expected total proceeds of $378 million from the latest deal, cutting its total capital spending on the project to $9.9 billion from a previous estimate of $11.8 billion. Shares in the Australian company gained as much as 4.1% to A$24.11 in Sydney on Thursday, hitting their highest level since September 17. Williams will receive a 1.5 million metric tons per annum (mtpa) share of production from Louisiana LNG as well as 10% of a 1 mtpa offtake deal Woodside previously signed with Uniper, the companies said. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has looked to boost oil and gas production and exports. Since Trump returned to office in January, more than 65 mtpa of additional U.S. LNG capacity has gotten the financial go-ahead. Louisiana LNG, which is expected to have a capacity of 16.5 mtpa when it produces first LNG in 2029, was the first export project to get to a final investment decision in the U.S. in 2025. Trump has urged trade partners to boost imports of American energy and has issued a flurry of executive orders to accelerate domestic oil and gas production.

Kinder Morgan Profit Rises on Stronger Natural Gas Demand, $9.3 Billion Project Backlog - Kinder Morgan posted higher third-quarter profit as natural gas demand surged, boosting pipeline volumes and supporting its $9.3 billion project backlog amid rising U.S. LNG exports and power generation growth. (Reuters) — U.S. pipeline operator Kinder Morgan posted a rise in third-quarter profit on Oct. 22, helped by higher volumes of natural gas transported through its pipelines. The U.S. LNG sector is witnessing a resurgence in commercial activity driven by expectations of rising exports as new terminals come online following President Donald Trump's January decision to lift a pause on new permits. "Total demand for natural gas is expected to grow ... We are also actively exploring more than 10 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) of opportunities to serve the natural gas power generation sector," CEO Kim Dang said. "Our internal projections estimate 28 Bcf/d increase in natural gas demand by 2030," which will be driven primarily by growth in LNG exports, as well as power demand and exports to Mexico, Dang added during a post-earnings call. The company, which moves roughly 40% of the country's total natural gas output, said the project backlog stood at $9.3 billion, with about $500 million of projects placed in service during the quarter offset by a roughly equivalent amount of projects added. The company said it transported about 47,461 billion British thermal units of natural gas per day in the quarter, compared with 44,827 billion Btu per day last year. However, its total delivery volumes, which also include refined products such as jet fuel and diesel fuel, fell to 2.11 thousand barrels per day during the quarter ended September 30, from 2.15 thousand barrels per day last year. Kinder Morgan's CO2 segment, which includes enhanced oil recovery operations and renewable natural gas projects, saw weaker results due to lower CO2 and D3 RIN (renewable fuel credit) prices. The Houston, Texas-based company said its net income came in at $628 million for the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with $625 million a year earlier.

Kinder Morgan Eyes Steady $9.3B Natural Gas Project Backlog -Mounting constraints across key U.S. natural gas corridors — driven by rising LNG exports and power demand — are opening expansion opportunities for Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) beyond the slate of natural gas projects that make up the bulk of its $9.3 billion backlog, executives said Wednesday. Map and table showing Kinder Morgan Inc.’s $8.6 billion natural gas project backlog across the United States. The table lists 10 major projects with details on capital costs, capacity in Bcf/d, in-service dates, and permitting or construction status. A U.S. map highlights pipeline routes and basins including the Permian, Haynesville, Bakken, and Powder River, with markers for gas storage sites and LNG terminals. At A Glance:
$10 billion in potential projects beyond backlog
Haynesville throughput near record highs
Southwest expansions still on table

NextDecade Announces Positive FID on Rio Grande Train 5 LNG Project - Marcellus Drilling News - In September, NextDecade Corporation announced it had reached a final investment decision (FID) to move forward with construction of Train 4 at its Rio Grande LNG export facility in Brownsville, Texas, within the Port of Brownsville (see NextDecade Announces Positive FID on Rio Grande Train 4 LNG Project). The expected LNG production capacity of Train 4 is 6 MTPA (million tonnes per annum, which translates to roughly 0.8 Bcf of natural gas used per day). Last week, one month after the Train 4 announcement, NextDecade announced an FID for Train 5, which will add another 6 MTPA to the total, bringing the total expected LNG production capacity under construction at Rio Grande LNG to approximately 30 MTPA. Read More

‘This Is the Age of Gas,’ Says Baker Hughes CEO, as LNG and Power Projects Surge - Houston-based oilfield services giant Baker Hughes Co. is betting big on North American natural gas and power markets, with future growth fueled by a wave of LNG expansions and surging demand for reliable electricity across data centers, Lower 48 operations and industrial hubs.Chart titled “LNG Capacity Outlook” showing global LNG capacity growth from 2024 through 2035. Data from Baker Hughes indicates about 500 Mt/y of global capacity in 2024, rising to roughly 532 Mt/y in 2025. Around 245 Mt/y is under construction, and an additional 175 Mt/y could be added through potential LNG projects reaching final investment decisions between 2025 and 2031. Total capacity could approach 950 Mt/y by 2035, with about 100 Mt/y of new capacity expected between 2024 and 2026. At A Glance:
U.S. LNG projects drive growth
Power generation demand surges
Data centers boost turbine orders

‘Irrational Exuberance’ for FID Risking Prolonged LNG Supply Glut, Says Gulfstream CEO --The race toward a final investment decision (FID) for U.S. LNG export projects this year is likely to exacerbate an expected supply glut later this decade, which could jeopardize some projects that have already crossed the finish line, said Gulfstream LNG CEO Vivek Chandra. Chart showing North America’s operational and sanctioned LNG facility peak export capacity from March 2016 through September 2033, measured in billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). The graph visualizes growth from early projects like Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi to future expansions such as Plaquemines, Golden Pass, Rio Grande LNG, and Port Arthur LNG. The cumulative capacity surpasses 40 Bcf/d by the early 2030s, illustrating rapid LNG export growth across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Source: NGI, U.S. DOE, and EIA. At A Glance:
Gulfstream targeting FERC authorization in 2026
Timing FID for stronger demand
Few U.S. LNG sites left in crowded market

NYMEX NatGas Price Soars, Up 39 Cents (+12.9%) at $3.397/MMBtu - Marcellus Drilling News --The front-month NYMEX natural gas futures price soared yesterday (the biggest one-day increase in more than three months), closing up +0.389 (+12.93%) at $3.397/MMBtu. Why? In a word, weather. The price jumped based on forecasts for much colder weather and higher heating demand over the next two weeks than previously expected. Also playing a role is a decline in natural gas output this month and near-record flows of gas to LNG export plants. LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group) said average gas output in the Lower 48 states fell to 106.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) so far in October, down from 107.4 Bcf/d in September and a record monthly high of 108.0 Bcf/d in August.

NatGas Posts Biggest Single Day Gain Since 2022 | Rigzone - In an EBW Analytics Group report sent to Rigzone by the EBW team on Tuesday, Eli Rubin, an energy analyst at the company, highlighted that natural gas posted the largest single day gain since 2022 on Monday. The report pointed out that the November natural gas contract closed at $3.397 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) yesterday. This marked a 38.9 cent, or 12.9 percent, increase from Friday’s close, the report outlined. “Yesterday’s 38.9¢/MMBtu price spike was the largest single-session gain for a NYMEX natural gas front-month contract since the rampant price volatility of 2022,” Rubin said in the report. “The initial price surge was due to de-risking of severe early-November price weakness, with cooler weather lessening chances of an early-November supply glut,” he added. “After clearing key technical resistance at $3.22-3.24/MMBtu, however, continued short-covering - catalyzed by cooler weather - led to further gains,” he continued. In the report, Rubin said supportive weather added 23 billion cubic feet of demand in 24 hours for the last week of October and first week of November. He pointed out, however, that “forecasts are ‘less bearish’ rather than outright supportive”. “Early-cycle production nominations dropped sharply this morning but will likely be revised higher,” Rubin noted in the report. “Weekly average LNG demand continues to flirt with all-time highs. Prices could retest the double-top from earlier this month at $3.55-3.58/MMBtu - but shorts pushed to the sidelines during yesterday’s move higher could reenter the market later this week,” he added. In an EBW report sent to Rigzone by the EBW team on Monday, Rubin, noted that a “bullish weather shift spark[ed]… [a] natural gas revival”. “After testing as low as $2.893 per MMBtu intraday Friday - and with weekend Henry Hub spot prices falling to $2.66 [per MMBtu] - a cooler weekend weather shift has revived bullish fortunes for the November contract,” Rubin said in that report. “Further, weekly average LNG was at a record high over the weekend and natural gas production readings slumped in the Permian and Marcellus,” Rubin added. In an exclusive interview with Rigzone on Tuesday, Art Hogan, Chief Market Strategist at B. Riley Wealth, highlighted a “perfect trifecta of catalysts to move gas prices higher”. “The big move in natural gas yesterday came on the heels of forecasts for much colder weather and higher heating demand over the next two weeks than previously expected,” Hogan told Rigzone. “There has also been a decline in output so far this month and near-record flows of gas to liquefied natural gas export plants,” he added. In another exclusive interview with Rigzone on Tuesday, Phil Flynn, a senior market analyst at the PRICE Futures Group, told Rigzone that natural gas “turned up as forecasts for temperatures turned down”. “On top of that we are seeing increased tropical weather activity and increasing hopes for a U.S.-China trade deal,” he added. “In the meantime, LNG export expectations are rising, and add a bit of winter [and] you could see inventories deplete a bit faster than expected,” he continued.

Colder outlook, robust LNG flows lift US natgas to two-week high — U.S. natural gas futures hit a two-week high on Tuesday, underpinned by sharply colder 1–2 week forecasts that are lifting heating demand expectations, a month-to-date dip in output and strong LNG feedgas demand. Front-month gas futures for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 7.7 cents, or 2.3%, to settle at $3.474 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) and hit the highest level since October 8. Prices rose as much as 13% in the previous session. "Further revisions to the 11-15 day outlooks, which are shifting much less "mild" and more temperate with some early season heating demand creeping onto the eastern portion of the maps" were supporting prices, said Gary Cunningham, director of market research at Tradition Energy. In the tropics, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said a tropical wave in the Caribbean had a near-100% chance of becoming a cyclone, with heavy rain and gusty winds possible over the ABC Islands within a day or two. "The bulk of this week's strong price pop appears to be fueled by a shift in the short-term temperature views in the direction of colder patterns," analysts at energy advisory firm Ritterbusch and Associates said in a note. LSEG said average gas output in the Lower 48 states fell to 106.5 billion cubic feet per day so far in October, down from 107.4 bcfd in September and a record monthly high of 108.0 bcfd in August. Record output earlier this year allowed energy companies to inject more gas into storage than usual. There is currently about 4% more gas in storage than normal for this time of year. LSEG projected average gas demand in the Lower 48 states, including exports, would rise from 100.3 bcfd this week to 103.6 bcfd next week. Those forecasts were higher than LSEG's outlook on Friday. The average amount of gas flowing to the eight big U.S. LNG export plants rose to 16.5 bcfd so far in October, up from 15.7 bcfd in September and a monthly record high of 16.0 bcfd in April. Gas was trading over $11 per mmBtu at both the Dutch Title Transfer Facility benchmark in Europe and the Japan Korea Marker benchmark in Asia. Dutch and British gas prices traded in a narrow range on Tuesday morning, as stable temperatures support lower heating demand and as supply from Norway and from liquefied natural gas (LNG) remains stable. Meanwhile, oil majors, including Chevron and Shell , have reduced oil and gas output at a top Kazakhstan field after a Ukrainian drone strike damaged a gas processing plant in Russia that supports their operations, the companies said on Tuesday.

U.S. natural gas futures dip after 18% surge hits technical resistance — U.S. natural gas futures eased on Wednesday as the contract hit technical resistance after soaring about 18% over the past few days. Front-month gas futures for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 2.4 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $3.450 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). On Tuesday the contract closed at its highest level since October 7. "Nearby gas futures are falling slightly following a test of resistance at this month’s $3.58 high that appears to be prompting some profit taking following this week’s strong ... advance," analysts at energy advisory firm Ritterbusch and Associates said in a note. Prices soared earlier this week on forecasts for more demand over the next two weeks than previously expected, a drop in output so far this month and near-record flows of gas to liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants. In the tropics, the U.S. National Hurricane Center projected Tropical Storm Melissa would strengthen into a hurricane on Saturday as it slowly heads northwest across the Caribbean Sea toward Jamaica. The system is not expected to reach the U.S. mainland during that time. Even though storms can boost U.S. gas prices by cutting output along the U.S. Gulf Coast, they are more likely to reduce prices by shutting LNG export plants and knocking out power to homes and businesses. About 40% of the power generated in the U.S. comes from gas-fired plants. Meteorologists forecast temperatures across the country would remain mostly near-normal through November 6. With the weather turning seasonally colder, LSEG projected average gas demand in the Lower 48 states, including exports, would rise from 101.1 bcfd this week to 105.9 bcfd next week. Those forecasts were higher than LSEG's outlook on Tuesday. The average amount of gas flowing to the eight big U.S. LNG export plants rose to 16.5 bcfd so far in October, up from 15.7 bcfd in September and a monthly record high of 16.0 bcfd in April. Gas was trading around $11 per mmBtu at both the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TRNLTTFMc1) benchmark in Europe and the Japan Korea Marker (JKMc1) benchmark in Asia.

US natural gas prices ease to one-week low as storage remains high -- U.S. natural gas futures eased about 1% to a one-week low on Friday on a small output increase in recent days and ample amounts of fuel in storage. Forecasts for more demand over the next two weeks than previously expected and near-record flows of gas to liquefied natural gas export plants supported prices. Front-month gas futures for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 4.0 cents, or 1.2%, to settle at $3.304 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), their lowest close since October 17. Despite the daily decline, the contract was still up about 10% for the week after sliding about 3% last week and 7% two weeks ago. The U.S. National Hurricane Center projected Tropical Storm Melissa would strengthen into a hurricane on Saturday as it slowly heads north and then west across the Caribbean Sea near Jamaica before continuing north toward Cuba by the middle of next week. The system is not currently expected to reach the U.S. mainland during that time. LSEG said average gas output in the Lower 48 states has fallen to 106.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) so far in October, down from 107.4 bcfd in September and a record monthly high of 108.0 bcfd in August. Record output earlier this year allowed energy companies to inject more gas into storage than usual. There is currently about 5% more gas in storage than normal for this time of year. Meteorologists forecast temperatures across the country will remain mostly near-normal through November 8. With the weather turning seasonally colder, LSEG projected average gas demand in the Lower 48 states, including exports, would rise from 101.7 bcfd this week to 107.8 bcfd next week and 108.5 bcfd in two weeks. The forecast for next week was higher than LSEG's outlook on Thursday. The average amount of gas flowing to the eight big U.S. LNG export plants has risen to 16.5 bcfd so far in October, up from 15.7 bcfd in September and a monthly record high of 16.0 bcfd in April. On a daily basis, LNG export feedgas hit an all-time high of 17.29 bcfd on Thursday, topping the prior record of 17.28 bcfd on April 9, with flows to Venture Global LNG's VG.N 3.2-bcfd Plaquemines plant in Louisiana at a record 3.7 bcfd. LNG plants can pull in more gas than they can turn into LNG because they use some of the fuel to power equipment.

Texas Natural Gas Prices Rise Amid Pipeline Work, but LNG Terminals Maintain Supplies (Line chart showing daily natural gas prices at Agua Dulce and Houston Ship Channel from August through October 2025. Both price hubs trend closely between $2.50 and $3.25/MMBtu, with mild fluctuations and a late-October uptick. Source: NGI’s Daily GPI.)

• Natural gas prices in Texas have seen considerable gains over the past two days amid pipeline work in the region that has curtailed flows. NGI’s Agua Dulce and Houston Ship Channel prices have jumped by 70.0 cents and 67.5 cents/MMBtu, respectively, since Monday (Oct. 20), NGI’s Daily Historical Data shows. This is slightly higher than their regional averages.
• The price jump has come on the heels of increasing pipeline flow curtailments along the Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) Tejas Pipeline LLC (KM Tejas). KMI on Tuesday said capacity from south to north through the Station 2 Compressor Station would be limited by about 75% until further notice, requiring reductions to nominations. KMI has been performing emergency repairs at Station 2 since Oct. 15, though flow was initially restricted by only 12.5%, and prices appeared to soften at Agua Dulce and Houston Ship Channel in response.
• Scheduled receipts on KM Tejas from interstate pipelines have averaged around 317,600 MMBtu/d since the start of the pipeline work, representing a cut of about 242,000 MMBtu/d compared to the past 30-day maximum of about 560,000 MMBtu/d, per Wood Mackenzie. The main impact has been on receipts from KMI’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC. Similarly, KM Tejas deliveries to interstate pipelines have since averaged around 823,600 MMBtu/d, representing a cut of about 262,000 MMBtu/d versus the 30-day maximum.
• There have been no significant dips in delivered feed gas to LNG facilities in Texas because of the KM Tejas pipeline constraints so far. The total day/day change in U.S. LNG feed gas deliveries was a reduction of 80,089 MMBtu from 16,899,016 MMBtu on Tuesday. Both Corpus Christi and Freeport LNG have multiple feed gas delivery pipelines in service now, each interconnecting with various interstate and Texas intrastate pipelines for daily supplies.
• As such, neither terminal had meaningful reductions in daily feed gas deliveries. Once Golden Pass LNG’s export facility is online, it would also have a similar network of feed gas delivery pipelines to ensure supply availability during times of pipeline maintenance events.

EQT Expects Global Natural Gas Demand to ‘Far Outpace’ Domestic Market -- EQT Corp. management said Wednesday it has no immediate plans to purchase more LNG after signing three agreements in the last two months for offtake from Gulf Coast projects under development. Natural Gas Intelligence's (NGI) spot Appalachia Regional Avg. daily natural gas price graph showing historical market volatility. At A Glance:
Company lining up overseas LNG buyers
Working to secure regasification
Expanding MVP Boost project

BP Whiting Refinery outage has started to raise gas prices across the Midwest - Gasoline prices are starting to jump across the Midwest as a result of the BP Whiting Refinery fire last week.

Ten Michigan Tribal Nations ask U.S. Supreme Court to send Line 5 pipeline case back to state court • Ten Tribal Nations in Michigan have filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court urging them to reject an attempt by Canadian oil pipeline company Enbridge Energy to have a federal court settle a lawsuit first brought by Attorney General Dana Nessel in 2019, asking instead to have the case remain in state court. “For many years, Tribal Amici have called on the State to uphold its public-trust obligation to protect the Straits of Mackinac and the Great Lakes, including the fisheries, from these known dangers of the aging Straits Pipelines,” the Tribal Nations wrote in their brief. “Michigan’s suit against Enbridge is a long-overdue course correction.” The brief cites the leak of a different pipeline, Enbridge’s Line 6B, into the Kalamazoo River in 2010, and the environmental harms that resulted from that. Nessel is seeking to close the pair of pipelines that run through the Straits of Mackinac as the pipes were aging, looking to prevent a leak that could substantially contaminate the Great Lakes. While the suit was initially filed in state court, it has bounced between state and federal court in a question of who has jurisdiction. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals last year sent the case back to state court, which was a win for Nessel, but in June, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to take up the case on an appeal from Enbridge. While the case had been in the federal appellate court, 63 tribal nations — again led by the Bay Mills Indian Community — filed a similar brief seeking to have the case return to state court. The decision from the Sixth Circuit came down to a 30-day deadline to request the case move to federal court, which the court determined Enbridge missed. The Supreme Court took up the case in June, and will decide whether Enbridge should be granted an exemption to that 30-day deadline. “No part of Section 1446 allows a defendant to escape the 30-day deadline by asserting that it only recently discovered that a federal court might be more sympathetic to its arguments,” the amicus brief reads. “But at bottom, that is Enbridge’s explanation for what it attempted here.”“Enbridge missed a court deadline by more than two years, without excuse, and now they want to change the rules,” Caroline Flynn, a lawyer at Earthjustice who is representing the Tribes, added in a press release. “The Supreme Court should see through Enbridge’s transparent attempt at gamesmanship.”The Tribal Nations also argued that federal courts should not “encroach” on state court jurisdictions.“If it were not for Enbridge’s procedural gamesmanship, the merits of this state public-trust dispute may well have been settled long ago — and the risks to Tribal Amici’s critical treaty-protected resources addressed,” the brief continues.

All At Once – Producers Ramp Up Simultaneous Fracking, Triple Fracking to Increase Efficiency - E&Ps and oilfield service companies are constantly chasing the latest techniques to extract oil and gas faster and easier. Hydraulic fracturing was, of course, a game-changer, but now producers are using simultaneous fracking and even triple fracking, relatively newer approaches that use more resources but boost efficiency. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll break down these strategies, explore when they make sense for operators, and highlight the biggest challenges. In Part 1 of this blog series, we discussed how the Shale Era was made possible by unprecedented advancements in drilling-and-completion technology, especially in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The combination of the two, along with other basin-specific techniques, has significantly increased the efficiency of oil and gas recovery, as evidenced by the higher initial production (IP) rates within the first 60 days, as shown in Figure 1 below for the Permian Basin. We also detailed how the industry has increasingly utilized much longer laterals and how the choice of well tubing — coiled or stick pipe — plays an important role. In Part 2, we talked about new well designs that companies are rolling out, such as the U-turn (aka “horseshoe”) and J-hook wells, which use dramatic 180-degree underground turns to access more oil and gas from each location. In today’s blog, we’ll discuss some of the newer completion techniques, including simultaneous fracking and triple fracking. Fracking is a well-stimulation technique where a high-pressure mix of fluid that can include water, sand and chemicals is injected into a horizontal well to boost recovery.Simultaneous fracturing, often dubbed in the industry as SimulFrac, means fracturing two wells at the same time using the same pumps and crews. Each stage is treated in tandem, which cuts the time required at each site and maximizes equipment use. This process is part of the completion stage and occurs after the wells have been drilled and cased. The SimulFrac method started gaining traction around 2020 when operators began using advanced drilling technology. One issue is that, with two wells being completed at once, it requires double the amount of fracking fluid. Accessing that much water isn’t easy. To solve this, producers in the Permian and other shale formations have built large-scale water pipelines and recycling systems to treat and reuse produced water to boost supply. (For more, see our series on produced water, Shake, Rattle and Roll.) A single well can require about 750 Mbbl of water, double that for simultaneous fracturing, and up to 2.3 MMbbl for triple-fractured wells (more on that below). The same goes for sand. A 10,000-foot lateral typically requires around 25 million pounds (12,500 tons) of sand, so two wells would need about 50 million pounds (25,000 tons) and three wells would need about 75 million pounds (37,500 tons). Operators without access to that much water or sand simply can’t execute these wells. (But like with produced water, efforts have been made to ease the delivery of fracking sand and improve logistics; see Enter Sandman.) Since 2020, simultaneous fracturing has grown from being utilized at less than 1% of wells in the U.S. to now being used by nearly all major operators, according to our friends at Novi Labs, which specializes in upstream oil and gas data and analytics. According to Spears Research, it’s the dominant completion choice in the Permian, with up to 50% of completions using simultaneous fracturing. It is used in other shale areas, too, and as we said, the biggest issue is that operators must be able to access massive amounts of sand and water at each drilling location. Simultaneous fracking has greatly improved efficiency by allowing operators to pump multiple wells at once. This keeps pumps and crews working instead of sitting idle between stages. The first step toward this was the technique known as the Zipper Frac, shown in the far-left column of Figure 2 below. Here, one well (A) is actively pumped, shown by the solid line, while the adjacent well (B) is being prepared for the next stage, shown by the dashed line. Only one well is fracked at a time, but alternating between the two reduces downtime and boosts pump utilization. Another popular technique, a cousin of SimulFrac, is called triple fracking or TrimulFrac, which is an advanced version of SimulFrac, where three wells are fractured simultaneously. This approach can increase the benefits significantly, but it requires even more sophisticated logistics, real-time monitoring and effective equipment management. As shown in the far right column in Figure 2 above, the three solid lines show a pump to three wellbores labeled A, for simultaneous fracturing, while dashed lines indicate prepping for the next set of wellbores (B group), so three wells receive stimulation at once for maximum efficiency. The two strategies are very similar. As with SimulFrac, TrimulFrac involves a massive amount of materials up front. A challenge with both approaches is that these operations create identical “cookie-cutter” wells because they are completed simultaneously. This means operators cannot customize completions for specific formations, which could impact performance. Operators believe the reduced drilling and completion time outweighs the minor loss in completion precision. TrimulFrac only adds to the challenges that come with simultaneous fracturing, as working on three wells at once requires more horsepower, resulting in higher fuel consumption and increased maintenance costs. For instance, using 40 barrels of fracking fluid per minute per well across three wells requires 120 barrels per minute, which can strain equipment and operations. And as we noted earlier, a TrimulFrac pad can require up to 2.3 MMbbl of water. Like SimulFrac, TrimulFrac is a strategy that can only be managed by large operators due to its significant water and infrastructure requirements. Most smaller operators don’t have the resources to pull it off. Chevron had success with SimulFrac in 2024, stating that its Permian pilots required 25% fewer pump hours and pad costs were reduced by 8% compared to traditional operations. This type of fracking cut friction by 31%, saving energy and cutting well completion time by 30%. (Friction refers to the resistance the fracturing fluid encounters as it moves through the wellbore, pipes and fractures in the rock.) Chevron began using TrimulFrac in the Permian for the first time last year and said it plans to use the technique on 50% to 60% of its wells in the basin. The company said its initial results showed 25% faster completion times and 12% lower cost per well compared to traditional operations, but also faced significantly ramped-up logistical requirements (such as 60% more water and sand used per day and over 10 sand trucks per hour at the site). Matador Resources stated in its 2024 filings that it reduced the drilling-and-completion cost per completed lateral foot in 2024 from $1,010 to $910, representing an 11% improvement. The company credited most of this gain to operational efficiencies, including U-turn wells (which we discussed in Part 2) as well as SimulFrac and TrimulFrac. The company expects that SimulFrac and TrimulFrac techniques will account for more than 80% of its completions in 2025.

Oil and Gas Industry Layoffs Accelerate with Lower Prices -Oil and gas producers and oilfield services providers are slashing workforce numbers as the mergers wave in the sector gives way to reorganization and restructuring. Over the past few months, the U.S. and European supermajors, as well as large independent producers, smaller players, and the world’s top services providers, have announced – either publicly or via internal memos – that they begin processes to eliminate roles, office-based jobs, and contractor numbers. Chevron, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, BP, Shell, Equinor, Harbour Energy, APA Corp, OMV, Exxon’s Canadian affiliate Imperial Oil, Halliburton, and SLB have all began layoffs in certain geographies and markets, according to a snapshot of the job cuts in the oil and gas sector compiled by Reuters. Behind the thousands of layoffs announced in the industry lie two major driving forces—lower international crude oil prices compared to last year, and the many mergers and acquisitions that the companies completed in the past two years. Efforts to cut more costs amid lower prices and strategy readjustments – as is the case with BP’s “fundamental reset” to focus on the core oil and gas business – are also driving companies to reduce workforce numbers. ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and BP have announced thousands of job cuts, with some planning to reduce their workforce by as much as 25% by the end of 2027. BP has already reduced contractor numbers by 3,200, and expects a further 1,200 contractors to exit by the end of 2025, BP’s chief financial officer Kate Thomson said on the Q2 earnings call in August. Moreover, BP expects its ongoing organizational transformation to see 6,200 roles impacted by the end of 2025, out of an office-based workforce of 40,000 employees. Chevron, which bought Hess Corporation for $53 billion, has said it would reduce its workforce by 20% by the end of 2026 as part of wide cost cuts. This includes 800 jobs in the Permian. ConocoPhillips, which acquired Marathon Oil Corporation last year, plans to slash workforce numbers by up to 25% across functions and geographies to simplify the organization and cut costs. SLB is said to be reducing job numbers in wider reorganization, while Halliburton is also reportedly cutting roles in recent weeks, after laying off nearly 300 employees in Argentina earlier this year, Reuters notes.

U.S. Upstream Oil & Gas Dealmaking Falls Again Amid Low Oil Prices - Mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. upstream oil and gas sector fell for a third straight quarter, marking an end to blockbuster takeovers seen in recent years amid persistently low energy prices. According to Enverus Intelligence Research, deals worth $9.7 billion were closed in the third quarter, marking a 28% drop from the second quarter and putting the current year far below the record $192 billion recorded in 2023. U.S. crude futures averaged ~ $65 a barrel during the third quarter, around the level most U.S. oil producers require to break even but $10 per barrel below oil prices a year ago."Crude prices in the mid-$60s or worse have made it tough for sellers, especially private equity firms with oil-weighted assets," said Andrew Dittmar, principal analyst at Enverus. "Most remaining shale M&A opportunities need stronger pricing to justify public companies paying for the undeveloped locations," he added.The slowdown in the U.S. dealmaking has also been attributed to a lack of opportunities in the Permian Basin, North America's leading M&A hotspot. E&P companies have increasingly been turning elsewhere as asset values skyrocket and the Permian cools. Earlier in the year, EOG Resources acquired Encino Energy for $5.6 billion a company that specializes in the Utica Shale; Diversified Energy bought Anadarko Basin giant Maverick Natural Resources for nearly $1.3 billion while Citadelpaid $1.2 billion for Paloma Natural Gas. Paloma Natural Gas primarily operates in the Haynesville Shale region, which spans the Louisiana and Texas border, with its assets concentrated on the Louisiana side. The company manages a significant number of mineral acres in this area and focuses on developing and producing natural gas there. In contrast, Canada's hot M&A streak has continued in the current year, with upstream M&A deal value totaling nearly $12 billion in the first half of the current year, almost equal to the full-year average over the past five years. Top takeovers included Whitecap Resources acquisition of Veren for $15 billion; Strathcona Resources divested its Montney assets while CNRL purchased Shell Plc's stake in the Athabasca Oil Sands Project. However, Strathcona recently terminated its takeover bid for MEG after Cenovus Energy made a revised, higher offer for MEG. Canada's Oil Sands have a significantly lower breakeven point, and can still eke out a profit at oil prices that would make the majority of U.S. Shale Patch companies print red.

US seeks 1 million barrels of oil for Strategic Petroleum Reserve(Reuters) -The U.S. Department of Energy said on Tuesday it is looking to buy 1 million barrels of crude oil for delivery to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as it seeks to take advantage of relatively low oil prices to help replenish the stockpile. The previous administration of former President Joe Biden sold record amounts of oil from the SPR, including a 180-million-barrel sale after Russia, one of the world's top oil producers, invaded Ukraine in 2022. The reserve, which has about a 700-million-barrel capacity, is now holding nearly 409 million barrels. President Donald Trump's administration has been looking to replenish the SPR, but has been limited by a lack of funds and by ongoing maintenance at the reserve, held in a series of hollowed-out salt caverns on the Texas and Louisiana coasts. Pumps, pipes and other above-ground SPR infrastructure are constantly exposed to corrosive, salty air. Trump's tax and spending bill included about $171 million for the SPR oil purchases and maintenance, much less than the $1.3 billion that had originally been in the legislation. Buying more oil for the SPR will likely require the passage of new legislation. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Trump is trying to replenish the SPR with the help of Congress. "While this process won't be complete overnight, these actions are an important step in strengthening our energy security and reversing the costly and irresponsible energy policies of the last administration," Wright said. Both the international oil benchmark Brent and the U.S. benchmark WTI had hit their lowest levels since early May on Monday, as record U.S. oil production and a decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies to press ahead with planned supply hikes raised expectations of oversupply. WTI crude futures on Tuesday closed up 30 cents at $57.82 a barrel. Bids for the SPR solicitation close on October 28.

Valero exec: ‘Nothing has materialized’ to stave off Calif. refinery closure - California officials’ attempts to work with one of the state’s primary gasoline producers to prevent the closure of a Bay Area refinery have failed to move the needle, an oil executive said Thursday. Valero Energy still plans to cease refining operations at its Benicia oil refinery by the end of April 2026, the company reaffirmed in its third quarter earnings report, released Thursday.A financial analyst noted the state’s desire to keep the refinery open and asked the Valero executive team during its Thursday earnings call when the company would reach a “point of no return” on closing the Benicia facility.“We have been in discussion with California, but nothing has materialized out of that, so as a result, nothing’s changed,” said Valero general counsel Rich Walsh. “Our plans are still moving forward as we’ve shared and as we’ve informed the state. So I don’t see anything changing on that.”

Trump To Buy Tiny 1 Million Barrels For SPR As China Unleashes Record Oil Stockpiling Spree --Badly beating down oil jumped, if only briefly, on a Bloomberg report that the Trump administration plans to buy 1 million barrels for the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, taking advantage of low oil prices to begin filing the depleted stockpile. The Energy Department intends to announce Tuesday that it’s seeking oil for delivery in December and January, using a portion of the $171 million from President Donald Trump’s signature tax and spending law that provided for crude purchases, according to an agency official. West Texas Intermediate, which is down about 30% since its peak in mid-January and traded at about $58 a barrel on Tuesday, near the lowest since 2021, staged a modest bounce, only to sink after the kneejerk reaction was processed. Trump has vowed to refill the oil reserve, which has a maximum capacity of about 700 million barrels. It currently has about 408 million barrels, but the administration has limited funds to buy more. Unfortunately just 1 million here and there won't do anything in the grand scheme of things; meanwhile China has been aggressively adding millions of barrels every month to its SPR, and according to many analysts has been the main reason preventing far lower oil prices. Here is Reuters on the topic:China is building oil reserve sites at a rapid clip as part of a campaign to boost crude stockpiles that increased in urgency after Russia's Ukraine invasion upended global energy flows and has accelerated this year, according to public data, traders and industry experts. State oil companies including Sinopec and CNOOC will add at least 169 million barrels of storage across 11 sites during 2025 and 2026, according to public sources including domestic news reports, government reports and company websites.Of that, 37 million barrels of capacity has been built, the sources show. Once completed, the new sites will be able to store two weeks of China's net crude imports, according to Reuters calculations based on Chinese trade data, a significant volume as China is by far the world's biggest oil importer.Beijing's reserve-building - S&P Global Commodity Insight last month estimated China had stockpiled an average of 530,000 barrels per day thus far in 2025 - is soaking up surplus global supply and supporting prices under pressure as the OPEC+ producers group winds down production cuts. Traders and consultancies say they expect the stockpiling, fuelled by prices recently below $70 per barrel, to continue at least through the first quarter of 2026.

Trump targets Atlantic and Pacific coasts for new oil drilling - The Trump administration plans to propose opening federal waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to offshore drilling, two people familiar with the plan said Wednesday, a move that is likely to antagonize coastal states governors — and make a direct jab at California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Full details of the plan were not yet known, but a push to bring drilling rigs to untouched sections of the U.S. coastline brought bipartisan opposition when Trump tried to carry out a similar plan during his first administration. The proposal would be part of the Interior Department’s upcoming five-year plan on offshore oil lease sales, said the people who were granted anonymity because the plan wasn’t yet public. The administration is expected to offer acres off the southern coast of California and “at least a small sliver” of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, one of the people said. It was unclear if that would include waters off Florida, where elected leaders of both parties have opposed drilling along their shoreline for decades because of the risk to the state’s tourism-based economy. Interior’s plan, a framework used to schedule offshore lease sales in federal waters for a five-year period, could change by the time the initial proposal becomes a finished product, this person said.

Trump offshore drilling plan faces fierce opposition in Congress -Lawmakers are girding for a fight against President Donald Trump’s apparent plans to open up the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines to offshore drilling. In interviews Thursday, Democrats called the idea “not lawful,” a “huge mistake” and “absolutely ridiculous.” Coastal Republicans, for their part, said they would also oppose any offshore drilling, though at least one East Coast Republican was open to the idea — albeit with a caveat. Trump faced bipartisan opposition when he attempted a similar move in 2020, during his first term. He eventually backed down following widespread outcry amid his reelection effort. It’s unclear this time around whether lawmakers, especially coastal Republicans, will be able to stop him as intraparty opposition has largely evaporated in his second term. Moreover, any new drilling effort is likely to be met with multiple lawsuits. Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said on Thursday he was opposed to new drilling off the coast of his state. Trump’s plan, which POLITICO reported is expected to offer acres off the southern coast of California and “at least a small sliver” of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, is likely to be wildly unpopular in Florida. The plans have not yet been finalized.“I haven’t supported drilling in the eastern Gulf of America,” Scott said, using Trump’s preferred name. “It’s important to Florida.” The Houston Chronicle, which first reported on the plans, said that Florida would continue to enjoy a drilling ban. Coastal Republicans in the past have mounted stiff opposition to drilling off their coastlines, especially in states like Florida and South Carolina, where tourism is a major draw. Opposition only grew after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, which spilled millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf. The Atlantic coast currently has no offshore oil and gas, while the Pacific has greatly scaled back its production in part due to state and federal laws to phase out or ban new offshore drilling. Trump, in his last term, banned new drilling off the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida until 2032 following pressure from allies in those states and to shore up his own environmental standing as he faced off with future President Joe Biden. He could reverse those plans now.Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), a Trump ally who is running for governor, said that the moratorium still stands and that she continues to oppose offshore drilling in South Carolina.“President Trump put protections in place to prevent offshore drilling off South Carolina’s coast, and those remain in effect through 2032,” Mace’s communications director, Sydney Long, said in a statement to POLITICO’s E&E News. “Congresswoman Mace continues to oppose offshore drilling in South Carolina to protect our coastline, economy, and way of life.”

Burgum advances Alaska drilling, mining and wildlife refuge road - Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the approval Thursday of a suite of new policy directives in Alaska aimed at opening large swaths of federal lands in the state to energy development and mining, as well as moving forward with a long-sought-after road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Among the policy measures Burgum announced is the signing of an order to reopen the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and gas drilling, reversing a Biden administration decision that had halted development in the area along Alaska’s north coast. Burgum as part of his decision reinstated seven oil and gas leases purchased by the state of Alaska for drilling in the coastal plain. The Biden administration had canceled the leases in 2023, but a federal court in March ordered the leases to be reinstated. Burgum also announced the agency is taking the decisive action to advance construction of the Ambler mining road, a 211-mile-long gravel road slated to dissect swaths of pristine wilderness in Alaska to provide access to a remote mining district in northwestern Alaska.

Trump Reopens Alaska's Arctic Refuge to Oil and Gas Drilling -- The Trump administration has moved to reopen the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and gas drilling, reversing one of President Biden’s signature environmental restrictions and cementing Alaska’s return to the energy map. The Interior Department said Thursday it will restore the full 1.5-million-acre Coastal Plain to leasing, along with reinstating previously canceled leases held by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority. The decision marks the most aggressive push yet to expand exploration in Alaska’s far north since the original Trump-era lease sale in 2021. The announcement forms part of a broader energy package: the administration is also pursuing new lease opportunities across 82% of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), a 23-million-acre expanse that Biden had restricted last year. Combined, the twin rollbacks could re-open more than 12 million acres to development, a move cheered by Alaska’s leadership and long sought by industry. “From day one, President Trump directed us to unlock Alaska’s energy and resource potential,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. “By reopening the Coastal Plain and advancing key infrastructure, we are strengthening energy independence and supporting Alaska’s communities.” Environmental groups called it a direct assault on one of North America’s last untouched ecosystems and warned that the move could reignite decades-old legal battles over wildlife and Indigenous rights. Still, Alaska’s economic case is hard to ignore. Oil production there peaked at 2 million barrels per day in 1988 and now accounts for barely 3% of U.S. output. High costs, aging fields, and limited leasing have stalled investment for decades. With the U.S. chasing energy security and Asian buyers showing renewed interest in long-term crude and LNG supply, Washington appears ready to bet once again on Alaska’s North Slope. The new policy is as much political as geological—a reminder that America’s oil frontier never really closed. It just waited for a friendlier administration.

Trump approves contentious drilling, mining in Alaska wildlife refuge -The Trump administration is opening up more drilling in a contentious Alaskan wildlife refuge that was restricted under the Biden administration. It’s also approving two other contentious projects in Alaska: Ambler Road, which will enable copper and cobalt mining; and Izembek Road, which will cut through a wildlife refuge to give a remote community airport access. The Interior Department said in a press release that it was issuing a final approval of a plan to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s (ANWR) 1.56 million acres of the Coastal Plain for oil and gas development. The Biden administration had limited the lands available to the 400,000 acres required by law. The Trump administration also said that this coming winter, it will plan to auction off drilling rights there. Opponents of such drilling have raised concerns about impacts to wildlife and tribal resources as the refuge is home to grizzly bears, polar bears, gray wolves, caribou and more than 200 species of birds and contains land considered sacred by the Gwich’in people. However, drilling also has native proponents, who argue that oil and gas could help support the local economy. “Developing ANWR’s Coastal Plain is vital for Kaktovik’s future,” Nathan Gordon Jr., mayor of the village of Kaktovik, said in a written statement. “Taxation of development infrastructure in our region funds essential services across the North Slope, including water and sewer systems to clinics, roads, and first responders. Today’s actions by the federal government create the conditions for these services to remain available and for continued progress for our communities.” In addition, the Trump administration said it reissued the necessary permits to approve the Ambler Road project, which would provide mining access to an area with deposits of minerals including copper, cobalt, gallium and germanium. The White House has described the project as being “in the public interest” because of the need for “domestic critical minerals.” The Biden administration had blocked the project, saying it was doing so to protect wildlife including the Western Arctic caribou herd. The Trump administration also reapproved another road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge that would connect the remote community of King Cove to an airport — which supporters argue could be important for medical evacuations. It was first approved by the Trump administration in 2019 but later rescinded by the Biden administration, which cited “procedural flaws.” The move was met with pushback by environmental advocates and others. “I worry every day about what’s going to happen to the brant and emperor geese if there’s a road in Izembek,” Chief Edgar Tall Sr. of the Native Village of Hooper Bay said in a written statement. “We need the brant and emperor geese because they’re nutritious and fatty from feeding in Izembek. … If the birds disappear because of the Izembek road, our community could disappear too.”

Pemex pipeline spill contaminates Mexican river after torrential rains - (AP) — Mexico’s state-run oil company said Tuesday that the torrential rains that left dozens dead and missing in east-central Mexico also damaged a pipeline, leading to a 5-mile (8-kilometer) spill along the Pantepec River. Petroleos Mexicanos, known as Pemex, said in a statement that its crews had reacted “immediately” to stop and contain the spill around the town of Alamo, one of the communities hit hardest by the recent flooding. The company did not say when the spill occurred or exactly what spilled. But Alamo resident Arturo de Luna said locals became aware of it over the weekend. “Sincerely, we’re very worried,” he said. At least 76 people died in heavy rains from Oct. 6 to 11 across several states in central and eastern Mexico. Some three dozen remain missing and more than 100 communities remain inaccessible by road. Alamo, along with Poza Rica, were the most affected communities in northern Veracruz state. Residents in part of Poza Rica found their homes' walls streaked with oil after waters from the Cazones River receded, though no spill was confirmed there. The Pantepec River crosses northern Veracruz and supplies water for a number of communities, including the city of Tuxpan near where the river dumps into the Gulf of Mexico. Tuxpan Mayor Jesús Fomperoza said on Facebook on Tuesday that Pemex, the navy, security forces and energy and environmental agency personnel were working with local and state officials to keep the spill from reaching municipal water systems. He said private businesses, fishermen and others had helped to install containment barriers. But the spill was affecting lives along the river. De Luna, the Alamo resident, said boat services that locals use to move across and up and down the river were suspended, cutting off some river communities. Alejandra Jiménez, an activist with Foundation Chalchi, a nongovernmental organization focused on protecting water resources, said it was too early to determine the spill’s environmental impact but that recovery of the ecosystem could take years. “The prevention phase didn’t happen, so now they have to keep it from spreading,” she said.

Tidewater Midstream Sells Sylvan Lake Gas Plant to Parallax Energy for $5.5 Million --Tidewater Midstream has sold its Sylvan Lake gas processing facility and related gathering system to Parallax Energy for $5.5 million. The non-core asset sale will help the Calgary-based company reduce debt and focus on core midstream operations. (P&GJ) — Tidewater Midstream and Infrastructure Ltd. has completed the sale of its Sylvan Lake gas processing facility and associated gathering infrastructure to Parallax Energy Operating Inc. for $5.5 million in cash, the company said Oct. 21. The Alberta-based midstream operator said the Sylvan Lake Gas Processing Facility is a non-core asset and the transaction will have an immaterial impact on its 2025 financial results. Proceeds will be used to repay amounts outstanding on Tidewater’s senior credit facility. “The sale supports our ongoing focus on core operations and disciplined balance sheet management,” the company said in its announcement. Tidewater, traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol TWM, operates a portfolio of natural gas processing, storage, and NGL infrastructure across North America, along with downstream and renewable energy assets. The company also holds a majority stake in Tidewater Renewables. The sale marks another step in Tidewater’s efforts to streamline its asset base and focus on higher-return segments of its business.

European Imports Surge Amid Weak Competition from Asia – LNG Recap -- European LNG imports are on track to reach some of their highest levels of the year this week despite persistently weak prices as Asian demand remains soft. Chart showing U.S. Gulf Coast LNG netback prices for a 12-month strip as of October 17, 2025, compiled by NGI. The table compares LNG futures settlements, estimated shipping costs, Gulf Coast netbacks, and Henry Hub differentials for destinations including Japan/Korea, NBP, and TTF. December 2025 netbacks range near $10.0-10.6/MMBtu, with average netback margins of around $6.8/MMBtu over Henry Hub. Data sourced from CSI, Fearnleys, and NGI calculations. At A Glance:
Asian spot deals at a standstill
European LNG arrivals near 2025 high
Global gas prices rangebound

EU Bans Russian LNG Imports in Long-awaited Move Targeting Kremlin’s ‘War Economy’ - The European Union (EU) has agreed to ban Russian LNG imports as part of a landmark sanctions package against the country for its war against Ukraine. Bar chart titled “Europe LNG Imports” showing annual liquefied natural gas import volumes by source region from 2020 through 2024. The United States dominates European LNG supply, exceeding 175 million metric tons in 2024, followed by Qatar and the Russian Federation. Imports from North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East show moderate volumes, while Asia and Other regions contribute minimal amounts. Data compiled by NGI using Kpler data. At A Glance:
Russian LNG imports would be phased out
Some cargoes to be banned in six months
Move comes as U.S. LNG exports surge

Gazprom chief warns of possible gas market troubles in Europe amid cold winter --Europe's energy market is entering a challenging period and could face difficulties if the continent experiences a harsh winter, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said Monday. The outlook for the coming months remains uncertain, but a severe drop in temperatures could disrupt Europe's natural gas market, Miller told the state-run Rossiya-24 TV channel. He added that the available data already indicates potential volatility. Miller said Russia plans to deliver more than 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China this year through the Power of Siberia 1 pipeline. He emphasized that Russia and China are emerging as the key players shaping the future architecture of the global gas market, with Russia as the largest producer and China as the largest consumer. Commenting on Europe's energy transition, Miller said the EU had invested heavily in renewable energy and, in some cases, achieved full reliance on renewables for electricity generation. However, he argued that natural factors had exposed vulnerabilities in this strategy. According to Miller, an Arctic anticyclone brought conditions with little sun and wind, causing renewable output to fall sharply. As a result, he said, Europe’s dependence on traditional hydrocarbons reemerged, marking a setback in its transition efforts. Miller's remarks came as the European Union has moved to further reduce its reliance on Russian energy, with EU governments agreeing on new rules to phase out imports of Russian natural gas under the bloc's "REPowerEU" strategy. The proposed regulation would introduce a legally binding, step-by-step ban on both pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas from Russia, with a full prohibition set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2028.

Global LNG Exports Hit a Record High in September - Exports of liquefied natural gas globally increased to 34.59 million tons last month, which was the highest on record, the Gas Exporting Countries Forum reported. The increase was driven by a boost in imports, at an annual 3.7%, which in turn was driven by a surge in demand in the European Union. That was up by a sizable 40% in September amid lower pipeline flows and the start of storage refill season ahead of peak demand season in the winter. The biggest rise came from non-members of the organization, whose total hit 19.36 million tons. This was up by 14% on the year. GECF LNG exports, for their part, fell by 6.3% on the year to 15.17 million tons. The change was a reversal of four consecutive months of export rises, the forum also said. Within the GEFC, LNG exports fell sharply from Russia, Algeria, Nigeria, and Peru, while LNG exports from Qatar jumped. Outside the organization, the drivers of LNG exports included the United States, Canada, and Papua New Guinea. These three offset a decline in Australian LNG shipments abroad, resulting from maintenance work at two producing facilities—APLNG and Ichthys. Over the first nine months of the year, GECF exports of liquefied natural gas ticked up modestly by 0.1% while non-GECF exports added a more robust 8.7%. The GECF total for January to September stood at 143.79 million tons, while the non-GECF total stood at 173.21 million tons. The U.S. Energy Information Administration earlier this month forecast that LNG capacity in North America could surge by more than 100% between now and 2029, to a total of 20 billion cubic feet daily, from 14 billion cubic feet daily at the moment. The projected increase will come mainly from the United States, where there are seven large LNG facilities under construction, including the Golden Pass LNG plant, Driftwood LNG, and Plaquemines LNG, which is already operating, although it has not yet been officially commissioned.

Santos Narrows Production, Keeps Year-end LNG Start in Sight Amid Steadying Global Gas Prices -- Despite technical issues that winnowed its production outlook, Santos Ltd. continues to target sending additional LNG volumes to Asia by the end of the year as global natural gas price volatility cools. Map of Australia highlighting major natural gas liquefaction facilities and market hubs, including Gorgon, Wheatstone, Pluto, North West Shelf, Prelude, Ichthys, Darwin, Gladstone, Australia Pacific, and Queensland Curtis LNG projects, with Wallumbilla marked as the key gas market hub. Source: Energy Information Administration. At A Glance:
First Barossa gas exported on Oct. 12
Santos LNG sales declined to $11.05 average
Company plans to boost production 30% by 2027

Egypt Seeks to Free Up Gas for Export - Egypt is embarking on a plan to buy more oil products for power generation as the cash-strapped North African nation frees up gas for LNG exports, as part of efforts to repay money it owes to foreign operators. State-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Corp. plans to buy more than a million tons of diesel, gasoline and butane gas for delivery in November, up 60 percent from the same period last year, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as they’re not authorized to speak to the media. Egypt's energy ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment. Egypt is seeking to encourage renewed investment by foreign energy companies, which have reduced financing in the country after years of waiting for the government to repay money it owes them. Declining domestic gas output amid surging local demand led Egypt to become a net importer of liquefied natural gas last year in order to avoid blackouts. That has added new financing strains on the government which is emerging from its worst economic crisis in decades. To break this cycle, Cairo decided to allow foreign energy operators to export their share of local gas production as LNG as a way to get their arrears paid and to go ahead with investments in Egypt's gas output. Three LNG cargoes have been exported since September, including one that the government said was shipped from Egypt’s Idku terminal on behalf of Shell Plc. The government is now in talks with the foreign energy companies to allow them to produce volumes for two shipments every month for loading between November and March from Idku, according to the people. Egypt’s production of crude oil and condensate fell to 486,000 barrels a day in July, the lowest in decades, according to data from Joint Oil Data Initiative. In contrast, the country’s import expenses for petroleum products and LNG are projected to rise to about $20 billion this year from $12.5 billion in 2024, according to official data.

Türkiye paves way for Black Sea gas exports as LNG with regulatory overhaul - Türkiye has cleared the legal path for exporting natural gas from its Black Sea fields as liquefied natural gas (LNG) following a regulatory change by the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA). The amendment to the Natural Gas Market Law formally defines gas liquefaction and allows production from the Sakarya field to be converted and sold to international markets. Industry representatives say the move marks a milestone in Türkiye’s plan to commercialize domestic gas and reduce import dependence by attracting private investment into LNG infrastructure and trade. “This is a turning point that creates the legal basis for converting Black Sea gas into LNG and exporting it,” said Petroleum and Natural Gas Platform Association (PETFORM) Chairman Cagatay Beydogan. “It gives Türkiye flexibility in both supply and trade and enables it to enter the global LNG market with its own resources.” The regulation also enables floating LNG terminals to operate across multiple regions, allowing investors to relocate assets according to market conditions. “Floating terminals offer the speed and flexibility we need,” Beydogan said, adding that such facilities can respond faster to demand shifts than traditional onshore terminals. Industry experts say this flexibility will strengthen Türkiye’s hand in managing its gas balance and expand export opportunities while supporting domestic supply security. Floating LNG infrastructure can serve both as a domestic buffer and as an export tool. The amendment also provides incentives for gas storage projects by exempting certain facilities from mandatory third-party access during their early stages. This measure is designed to lower the financial burden on investors in capital-intensive projects. According to Beydogan, easing access requirements will “encourage new investments in storage capacity and improve the financial sustainability of large-scale projects.” The development of additional storage facilities is expected to help balance seasonal fluctuations and expand liquidity in Türkiye’s spot gas market. Another key feature of the reform is a simplified export licensing system that allows companies to operate with a single license for multiple countries. This change is aimed at reducing bureaucracy and accelerating the entry of private operators into foreign markets. The regulation also enhances system efficiency by optimizing transmission capacity and introducing a mechanism to temporarily suspend underperforming operators. These steps, according to sector observers, will help improve reliability and transparency in Türkiye’s growing gas market.

Libya's Zueitina oil company contains 'limited' pipeline leak, statement says (Reuters) - Libya's Zueitina Oil Company has contained a 'limited' leak on a 16-inch line connecting the Sabah and Zella oilfields, with no environmental impact reported, Libya's state-run National Oil Corp (NOC) said in a statement on Monday. "Technical teams repaired the leak site without recording any environmental impact or damage to nearby agricultural areas", the statement added. The NOC posted a video showing a stream of leaked oil in the desert, while a bulldozer digging in the area of the leaking oil. Oil flow was being gradually restored to the line between the two fields, while field teams continue on-site monitoring to ensure the integrity of the pipeline and prevent any future leaks, NOC said. Libya is one of Africa's biggest oil producers but output has been disrupted repeatedly in the chaotic decade since 2014, when the country split between rival authorities in the east and west following the NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

Sanctions Halt Oil Flows to Serbia as Russian-Owned NIS Faces Refinery Shutdown - Russia-owned Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) has halted crude processing as U.S. sanctions choke oil flows to Serbia, triggering fears of a fuel shortage ahead of winter. A shipment of roughly one million barrels of Kazakh KEBCO crude that arrived at Croatia’s Omisalj terminal on 9 October remains blocked after deliveries through the JANAF pipeline were suspended on 8 October, according to multiple industry sources cited by Reuters on Friday. The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control allowed a sanctions waiver on NIS to expire on 9 October, formally cutting the company off from international crude purchases. NIS, 56 percent owned by Gazprom Neft, runs Serbia’s only refinery at Pan?evo, which processes about 4.8 million tonnes of crude per year and supplies over 80 percent of the country’s gasoline and diesel demand. Without new cargoes, refining operations could stop by early November, officials and traders said.Serbia’s government has downplayed the immediate risk. President Aleksandar Vu?i? said current inventories are sufficient through the end of the year, but analysts warned that prolonged disruption would force the country to depend on product imports through neighboring EU states.The JANAF pipeline from Croatia had been Serbia’s primary supply line for Russian and Kazakh crude since 2022. Its closure underscores the limited flexibility of Balkan energy logistics, where few alternative routes exist and domestic storage capacity remains constrained.Earlier this month, regional analysts said the U.S. measures were likely to hit Serbia’s downstream sector hard, calling NIS’s exposure “a critical vulnerability” for the Balkan state. Serbia is now seeking replacement cargoes via Hungary and exploring temporary swaps through regional refiners. Whether those can arrive fast enough to keep Pan?evo running will determine if Serbia avoids a full-blown fuel crunch.

India May Reduce Russian Oil Imports for Trade Deal - The United States and India are nearing a trade deal that could slash U.S. tariffs on Indian imports from the massive 50% to 15-16% and possibly entail India agreeing to gradually reduce Russian oil imports, Indian newspaper Mint reported on Wednesday, citing three anonymous sources familiar with the talks. A potential deal could be announced as early as at next week’s summit of the ASEAN Southeast Asian bloc in Malaysia, according to the report. Indian officials did not respond to Mint’s request to comment on the report. The United States and India have been locked in difficult trade talks for months, with the Trump Administration looking to slash its massive trade deficit with Asia’s second-biggest economy. Amid these difficult talks, U.S. President Donald Trump has singled out India as a target to punish for buying large volumes of Russian crude oil and supporting the Kremlin’s energy revenues. President Trump doubled the 25% tariff on India to 50% as of August, to punish it for continued purchase of Russian oil. In an X message on Wednesday, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked President Trump for a recent phone call, but did not reference either trade talks or India’s purchases of Russian oil. “May our two great democracies continue to illuminate the world with hope and stand united against terrorism in all its forms,” Modi wrote. President Trump on Sunday reiterated his threat to make India pay “massive” tariffs unless it stops buying Russian oil, repeating that Modi had assured him those purchases would stop. Last week, India neither confirmed nor denied that it would indeed cut or halt imports of Russian crude and said its key energy policy driver is “to safeguard the interests of the Indian consumer.” Randhir Jaiswal, an official spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, said “India is a significant importer of oil and gas. It has been our consistent priority to safeguard the interests of the Indian consumer in a volatile energy scenario. Our import policies are guided entirely by this objective.”

Supply and Demand Fears Continue to Drag Oil Prices Lower -- Oil prices slipped in early Asian trade on Monday, as a combination of burgeoning supply concerns and escalating U.S.–China trade tensions weighed on sentiment. At the time of writing, Brent crude futures had dropped 0.29% to $61.11 while WTI was down 0.35% at $57.34. The continued drop comes on the heels of a third consecutive weekly decline for both benchmarks, with more than a 2% fall in each last week. Concerns about demand softening and a looming supply overhang are the key factors dragging prices lower, with easing geopolitical risk also weighing on oil. The International Energy Agency recently raised its forecast for global oil supply growth and warned of a supply surplus in 2026. At the same time, OPEC+ has been unwinding its output cuts and the Gaza ceasefire has reduced concerns of a major supply disruption in the Middle East. One Tokyo-based analyst, Toshitaka Tazawa of Fujitomi Securities, summed up the situation saying, “Concerns about oversupply from increased production by oil-producing nations, coupled with fears of an economic slowdown stemming from escalating U.S.–China trade tensions, are fuelling selling pressure.”. Tensions between the U.S. and China have flared recently, with each side imposing extra port fees on cargo shipments - moves that could slow freight flows and undermine global growth. A prolonged decoupling of the two largest energy consumers could sharply reduce oil demand. At the same time, U.S. oil output ticked up last week to hit another record high, showing even more supply coming online. While U.S. pressure on countries buying Russian crude could push prices lower, there is plenty of uncertainty over whether that buying will slow down or not.

The Market Was Weighed Down by the Prospects of a Surplus -- The oil market posted an outside trading day after the market erased its overnight gains as the market was weighed down by the prospects of a market surplus. The U.S.-China trade tensions are adding to concerns about an economic slowdown and weaker energy demand. Meanwhile, uncertainty remains over what may happen to Russian oil supply, with U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday reiterating a warning that Washington would maintain “massive” tariffs on India unless it stopped buying Russian oil. The oil market rallied to a high of $57.81 in overnight trading before it erased its gains and sold off to a low of $56.35 by mid-morning. The market continued to lose ground following three consecutive weeks of losses. Last week, the IEA increased its estimates for a market surplus and oil stocks on the water are near levels last seen during the pandemic. The market later bounced off its low and settled in a sideways trading pattern during the remainder of the session. The November WTI contract ended the session down 2 cents at $57.52, while the December Brent contract settled down 28 cents at $61.01. The product markets ended the session lower, with the heating oil market settling up 1.21 cents at $2.1921 and the RB market settling down 75 points at $1.8302. On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated that India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi told him India will stop buying Russian oil, while warning that India would continue paying “massive” tariffs if it did not do so. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Andrey Rudenko, said that Russian oil companies continue to ship oil to India. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that any peace deal for Ukraine should address the root causes of the conflict to ensure a fundamental and long-term peace. U.S. President Donald Trump said that he expects to work out a fair trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping and plans to expedite the delivery of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, signaling both a willingness to ease tensions with Beijing and a push to strengthen defense ties with a key ally in the Indo-Pacific. He made the comments ahead of bilateral talks in Washington with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected an offer of renewed talks from U.S. President Donald Trump and denied his assertion that the United States has destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Vortexa reported today that crude oil stored on tankers that have been stationary for at least seven days fell by -12% w/w to 78.44 million bbl in the week ended October 17th. IIR Energy said U.S. oil refiners are expected to shut in about 1.1 million bpd of capacity in the week ending October 24th, increasing available refining capacity by 196,000 bpd. Offline capacity is expected to fall to 981,000 bpd in the week ending October 31st.

Oil settles at 5-month low as supply glut fears mount (Reuters) - Oil prices settled at their lowest since early May on Monday as investors weighed a potential global glut, with U.S.-China trade tensions adding to concerns about an economic slowdown and weaker energy demand. Brent crude futures settled down 28 cents, or 0.46%, at $61.01 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures settled down 2 cents, or 0.03%, to $57.52. Both benchmarks fell more than $1 earlier in the session, and both closed at their weakest levels since early May. Oil traders' concerns have shifted from under-supply to over-supply, the futures contract structure of the global benchmark Brent showed. The six-month spreads for Brent and U.S. crude futures both show contracts for earlier loading are trading below those for later loading, a structure known as contango, which encourages traders to pay for storing oil so it can be sold at higher prices when supplies are expected to have shrunk in the future. The Brent contango, which emerged on Thursday for the first time since a brief appearance in May, was trading at its widest since December 2023. The U.S. crude futures contango emerged on Friday for the first time since January 2024. "These glut fears are now descending onto the market, particularly looking forward into 2026. We will start to see floating storage pick up and inland tanks get filled," "This is a real bearish narrative that we have not seen in some time," Both benchmarks declined more than 2% last week, marking their third consecutive weekly decline, partly due to the International Energy Agency's outlook for a growing supply glut in 2026. Both futures contracts spent much of the year in the opposite structure, called backwardation, where prompt prices trade at a premium to later supply. That reflects a perception of tight near-term supply and solid demand. The two top oil consumers, the United States and China, have renewed their trade war, imposing additional port fees on ships carrying cargo between them - tit-for-tat moves that could disrupt global freight flows. Last week, the head of the World Trade Organization said she had urged the United States and China to de-escalate trade tensions, warning that a decoupling by the world's two largest economies could reduce global economic output by 7% over the longer term. Curbing some of oil's losses on Monday was news that a lobbying group whose board includes U.S. firms such as Oracle, Amazon.com, and Exxon Mobil is urging President Donald Trump's administration to immediately suspend a rule it says halted billions of dollars' worth of U.S. exports and will prompt China and other countries to drop U.S. firms from their supply chains. Uncertainty remains over what may happen with Russian oil supply, with Trump saying again on Sunday that the United States would maintain "massive" tariffs on India unless it stops buying Russian oil. On the supply side, U.S. energy firms last week added rigs for the first time in three weeks, energy services firm Baker Hughes said. "Near term, the market is sitting in a classic shoulder-season mix of refinery maintenance, softer product cracks and a watchful eye on weekly U.S. inventory data," analysts at energy consulting firm Gelber and Associates said in a note. Adding further pressure, U.S. crude oil stockpiles were expected to have risen last week, a preliminary Reuters poll on Monday showed. Five analysts polled by Reuters ahead of weekly inventory data estimated on average that crude inventories rose by about 1.5 million barrels in the week to October 17.

Oil rises in choppy trade as investors focus on supply signals --Brent crude futures rose 23 cents, or 0.4%, to $61.24 a barrel at 11:38 a.m. ET (1538 GMT). The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude contract for November delivery, set to expire on Tuesday, was up 22 cents, or also 0.4%, to $57.74. Both contracts had hit their lowest since early May on Monday, as record U.S. oil production and the decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies to press ahead with planned supply hikes raised expectations of oversupply. The U.S.-China trade dispute has also increased anticipation that a slowdown of global economic growth will curb demand for oil. Both sides have, however, made some efforts to downplay the disagreement. U.S. President Donald Trump, who is set to meet China’s Xi Jinping in South Korea next week, said on Monday he expects to reach a fair trade deal with his counterpart. The structure of both WTI and Brent futures curves has started to shift to a contango, where prices for immediate supply are lower than for later delivery. That typically indicates that near-term supply is abundant and demand is declining. Market participants are debating how deep that contango is likely to be. The International Energy Agency earlier this month forecast that a surplus next year would lead to a strongly upward-sloped futures curve, called super contango. However, that has not emerged so far, UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said in a note. “While supply concerns have increased in recent weeks again, we believe the oil market is oversupplied but not in a glut,” Staunovo noted. “We expect oil prices to stabilize around current levels,” he said, adding that prices could come under pressure if trade tensions escalate. A preliminary Reuters poll released on Monday showed that U.S. crude oil stockpiles likely rose last week. “The reality of stock builds appears to be finally here and prices should head lower to put a deeper contango in the market,” said Scott Shelton, energy specialist at TP ICAP Group.

Easing Concerns About an Oversupplied Market and Slowed Economic Growth -- The oil market retraced some of its previous losses and ended the session higher, with the November WTI contract going off the board at the close. The market traded higher on easing concerns about an oversupplied market and slowing economic growth resulting from an escalation in the U.S.-China trade dispute. The crude market traded mostly sideways in overnight trading before some short covering pushed the market to $58.27, where it held some resistance before it erased its gains and sold off to a low of $56.99 by mid-morning. The market later bounced off its low and traded back over the $58.00 level and posted a high of $58.28. The oil market later erased some of its gains and traded sideways ahead of the close. The November WTI contract settled up 30 cents at $57.82, while the December WTI contract settled up 22 cents at $57.24. The December Brent contract settled up 31 cents at $61.32. The product markets ended the session in mixed territory, with the heating oil market settling up 1.37 cents at $2.2058 and the RB market settling down 49 points at $1.8253. The U.S. Department of Energy said it is looking to buy 1 million barrels of crude oil for delivery to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as it seeks to take advantage of relatively low oil prices to help replenish the stockpile. Bloomberg News reported European nations are working with Ukraine on a 12-point proposal to end Russia’s war along current battle lines. The report said a peace board chaired by U.S. President Donald Trump would oversee the implementation of the proposed plan. The Kremlin said that the timing of a potential summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump was unclear and that no dates had been mentioned. Earlier, CNN reported that U.S. President Donald Trump’s hopes for a quick summit in Budapest with Russian President Vladimir Putin may be stalled after a preparatory session between the leaders’ top foreign-policy aides this week was put on hold. S&P Global Commodities at Sea estimates that for the week ending October 19th some 688,200 mt of gasoil/diesel was exported from India, up 42% from the previous week. Some 35% of these exports were headed to Europe. Goldman Sachs expects Brent crude prices to decline further next year, reaching $52/barrel in the fourth quarter. It said the next substantial decline in prices may take time to materialize for two reasons. It said first, larger than seasonal OECD commercial builds in November are likely already priced in and it expects January to be the next month with accelerating OECD commercial stocks builds of 1.7 million bpd and second, continuing strength in diesel refining margins supports refining runs and crude demand. Goldman Sachs said they still see more downside risks to Russian production from internal challenges and from Ukraine attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure than from increasing pressure on global demand for Russian oil. UBS expects oil prices to stabilize around current levels. However, it added that prices could come under pressure if trade tensions escalate further. It believes the oil market is oversupplied but not to the extreme that IEA is currently forecasting.

Oil rises more than 1% on supply risk, US-China trade talks -- Oil prices pushed higher for a second day on Wednesday, by more than 1%, buoyed by sanctions-related supply risk and hope of a US-China trade deal while investors also digested news of the U.S. seeking oil for delivery to its strategic reserves. Brent crude futures rose 94 cents, or 1.5 per cent, to $62.26 a barrel as of 0400 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed 92 cents, or 1.6 per cent, to $58.16. Oil has bounced off a five-month low that was hit on Monday as producers pumped more supply while trade tension blunted demand. Supply risk arose from news overnight that a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was put on hold as well as disruption fear fuelled by Western pressure on Asian buying of Russian oil. “Despite the overall bearish sentiment driven by an oil supply glut and weak demand, the risk of supply disruption in hotspots like Russia, Venezuela, Colombia and the Middle East remains in place and prevents oil price staying below the $60 handle,” said Mukesh Sahdev, founder and CEO of energy market consultancy XAnalysts. Investors also monitored tension between the U.S. and Venezuela, a key oil producer. US strikes against Venezuela in international waters are a dangerous escalation and amount to “extrajudicial executions,” a group of independent United Nations experts said on Tuesday. In recent months, U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered strikes on at least six vessels in the Caribbean that the U.S. suspected of transporting narcotics, as part of a campaign against a “narcoterrorist” threat emanating from Venezuela. Investors are also closely watching the progress of U.S.-China trade talks as officials from both countries are set to meet this week in Malaysia. Trump said on Monday he expects to work out a fair trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he plans to meet in South Korea next week. “Trump’s trade negotiation comments are likely providing some support to the market. Further support is likely coming from the cancellation of the Trump-Putin summit,” said ING commodities strategists on Wednesday. US crude, gasoline and distillate stocks fell last week, market sources said, citing American Petroleum Institute figures on Tuesday. Oil also found support on a U.S. plan to refill strategic reserves, ANZ research analysts said in a client note on Wednesday. The US Department of Energy said on Tuesday it aims to buy 1 million barrels of crude oil for delivery to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as it seeks to take advantage of relatively low oil prices to help replenish its stockpile.

India poised to sharply cut Russian oil purchases after sanctions, sources say(Reuters) - Indian refiners are poised to sharply curtail imports of Russian oil, industry sources said on Thursday, following new U.S. sanctions on two major Russian producers aimed at squeezing Moscow's revenue to fund its war in Ukraine. India has become the biggest buyer of discounted seaborne Russian crude in the aftermath of Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, importing about 1.7 million barrels per day in the first nine months of this year. Russian oil is a main irritant for U.S. President Donald Trump in prolonged trade talks with India. Half of his 50% tariffs on Indian goods are in retaliation for those purchases. Privately-owned Reliance Industries (RELI.NS), opens new tab, the top Indian buyer of Russian crude, plans to reduce or halt completely its import of Russian oil, according to two sources familiar with the matter. "Recalibration of Russian oil imports is ongoing and Reliance will be fully aligned to GOI (Government of India) guidelines," a Reliance spokesman said in response to a query on whether the company plans to cut its crude imports from Russia. India's oil ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Indian state refiners are also reviewing their Russian oil trade documents to ensure no supply will be coming directly from Rosneft and Lukoil after the U.S. sanctioned the oil companies, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Thursday. President Trump on Wednesday imposed Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia for the first time in his second term, targeting Lukoil and Rosneft as his frustration grows with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The U.S. Treasury has given companies until November 21 to wind down their transactions with the Russian oil producers, according to a release on the sanctions on Wednesday. "There will be massive cut. We don't anticipate it will go to zero immediately as there will be some barrels coming into market" before the deadline, a refinery source said. State refiners including Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp, Hindustan Petroleum Corp and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals are reviewing bills of lading for Russian crude arriving after November 21 to make sure it is not coming directly from Rosneft or Lukoil, one of the sources said. The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Indian state refiners rarely buy Russian oil directly from Rosneft and Lukoil as their purchases are typically done through intermediaries, trade sources said. Reliance, which operates the world's biggest refining complex at Jamnagar in western Gujarat state, has a long-term deal to buy nearly 500,000 bpd of crude oil from Russian oil major Rosneft. The refiner also buys Russian oil from intermediaries. Nayara Energy, whose biggest shareholder is Rosneft, also buys oil from the company. Nayara did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"They've Cut It Way Back" - WTI Holds Gains After Trump Comments On Indian Imports, Record US Crude Production Oil prices are higher this morning (extending yesterday's gains) on a report the US and India are nearing a trade deal that could see the South Asian nation gradually reduce imports of Russian crude, which would boost demand for alternative supplies. President Trump said on Oct. 21 that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has agreed to scale back India’s imports of Russian oil in response to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.As Aldgra Fredly reports for The Epoch Times, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he spoke with Modi about the matter during a phone call on Tuesday. He said that their conversation primarily focused on U.S.–India trade relations.“We just have a good relationship, and he’s not going to buy much oil from Russia. He wants to see that war end as much as I do. He wants to see the war end with Russia–Ukraine,” he said.“And, as you know, they’re not going to be buying too much oil. So they’ve cut it way back and they’re continuing to cut it way back.” Modi took to social media to thank Trump for his warm Diwali greetings and the phone call, but provided no details about what was discussed during their call.“On this festival of lights, may our two great democracies continue to illuminate the world with hope and stand united against terrorism in all its forms,” Modi stated in a post on X.Trump said last week that he had received assurances from Modi that India would stop purchasing oil from Russia.“That’s a big stop,” he told reporters in the Oval Office during a press conference on Oct. 15.“Now [I’ve] got to get China to do the same thing.”Experts at the Observer Research Foundation think tank estimate that India accounts for more than one-third of Russia’s crude exports, behind China’s 50 percent share. Meanwhile, European Union leaders are expected to greenlight a 19th Russia sanctions package at a summit on Thursday, after Slovakia dropped its objections. Crude inventories fell (and gasoline stocks dipped) according to a report from API overnight. Traders will now focus on the official data. API”

• Crude -2.98mm
• Cushing
• Gasoline -236k
• Distillates -974k

DOE:

• Crude -961k
• Cushing -770k
• Gasoline -2.147mm
• Distillates -1.479mm

Official inventory data confirmed the trend of API overnight with across the board drawdowns (though smaller than API). This is the3rd straight week of drawdowns for products and at the Cushing hub...Graphics Source: Bloomberg As we detailed yesterday, the Trump administration announced plans to buy 1 million barrels of crude to add to the SPR. As the chart below shows, that's not exactly 'unprecedented' as weekly additions have been around 500k barrels all year. The 819k barrel addition last week was not quite enough to offset the961k barrel decline from DOE... US crude production hovered near record highs (as the rig count started to decline again)...

Oil Rises as EIA Reports Across the Board Inventory Draw - Crude oil inventories in the United States decreased by 1 million barrels during the week ending October 17, after gaining 3.5 million barrels in the week prior, according to new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Wednesday. The increase brings commercial stockpiles to 422.8 million barrels according to government data, which is still 4% below the five-year average for this time of year. The EIA’s data release follows API’s figures that were released a day earlier, which suggested that crude oil inventories saw a surprise decline in inventory of 2.980 million barrels. Crude prices were trading up on Wednesday morning in the run-up to the EIA data release. At 10:12 a.m. in New York, Brent was trading at $62.74 per barrel—up $1.42 (+2.32%) on the day and a roughly $1.20 per barrel increase over last week’s level. WTI was also trading up, by $1.41 per barrel (+2.46%) in mid-morning trade. For total motor gasoline, the EIA reported that inventories had contracted by 2.1 million barrels, after the week prior’s 300,000-barrel decrease. The most recent figures showed average daily gasoline production increasing to 9.6 million barrels. For middle distillates, inventories decreased by another 1.5 million barrels, despite production increasing by 40,000 barrels daily to an average of 4.6 million barrels daily. Distillate inventories drew down by 4.5 million barrels in the week prior and are now 7% below the five-year average for this time of year. Total products supplied over the last four weeks slipped to 20.5 million barrels per day, down 0.1% compared to the same period last year. Gasoline demand averaged 8.6 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, while the distillate four-week average supplied hovered 4.0 million barrels—up 0.2 percent year over year.

Oil rises about 2% on higher U.S. demand - Oil prices pushed higher for a second day on Wednesday, rising about 2%, buoyed by growing U.S. energy consumption and hopes of progress for a U.S. trade deal with and India. Brent crude futures rose $1.27, or 2%, to $62.59 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed $1.26, or 2.2%, to $58.50. U.S. crude oil, gasoline and distillate inventories fell last week as refining activity and demand strengthened, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Crude stocks fell by 961,000 barrels to 422.8 million barrels last week, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.2 million-barrel rise. "Very impressive for shoulder season," said Phil Flynn, senior analyst with Price Futures Group. "It shows the demand side of the equation of oil is robust, and the supply numbers are not suggesting this oil glut, at least here in the U.S." Investors were also closely watching the progress of U.S.-China trade talks as officials from both countries are set to meet this week in Malaysia. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he expected to work out a fair trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he was due to meet in South Korea next week. On Tuesday, however, Trump again added to uncertainty over the meeting, saying it might not happen. Supply concerns flared on news that a summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had been put on hold, and on disruption fears as Western governments pressured Asian buyers to reduce their purchases of Russian oil. Trump said he spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, adding that Modi assured him India would be limiting its oil purchases from Russia. "Oil prices climbed after reports suggested the U.S. and India are close to finalising a trade deal that could see India gradually cut imports of Russian crude, potentially lifting demand for other grades," MUFG analyst Soojin Kim said. India's Mint newspaper reported on Wednesday that the two countries were nearing a long-stalled trade agreement that would reduce U.S. tariffs on Indian imports to 15-16% from 50%.

US hits top Russian oil companies with sanctions, EU bans Russian LNG - (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday imposed Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia for the first time in his second term, targeting oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft as his frustration grows with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war. The move came after EU countries on Wednesday approved a 19th package of sanctions on Moscow for its war against Ukraine that included a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas imports. Trump's measures also followed Britain's sanctioning last week of Rosneft and Lukoil. The U.S. Treasury Department said it was prepared to take further action as it called on Moscow to agree immediately to a ceasefire in Russia's war in Ukraine, which began in February 2022. "Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. "We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions." Oil prices jumped more than $2 a barrel after the U.S. measures, with Brent crude futures extending gains after settlement, rising to about $64. The sanctions are a major policy shift for Trump, who had not put sanctions on Russia over the war and instead relied on trade measures. Trump earlier this year imposed additional 25% tariffs on goods from India in retaliation for its purchasing discounted Russian oil. The U.S. has not imposed the tariffs on China, another major buyer of Russian oil. A $60 price cap on Russian oil imposed by Western countries after Russia's invasion has shifted Russia's oil customers in recent years from Europe to Asia. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday he had canceled a planned summit in Hungary with Putin because it didn't feel like it was the right time. Trump also said he hopes the sanctions on Russian oil companies will not need to be in place for a long time. Trump said last year that he likes to remove sanctions quickly because of the risks to the dominance of the dollar in global transactions that the measures can bring. Russia has often asked for payments for oil in other currencies. ' Analysts said the measures were a big step and long overdue. "This can't just be one and done," said Edward Fishman, a former U.S. official who is now a senior research scholar at Columbia University. He said the question was whether the U.S. now threatens sanctions on anyone doing business with Rosneft and Lukoil. Jeremy Paner, a former sanctions investigator at the Treasury Department and now a partner at law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed, said the absence of banks and Indian or Chinese oil purchasers in Wednesday's sanctions means they "will not get Putin’s attention." A senior Ukrainian official, however, said the step was “great news” and that the two Russian energy companies were among U.S. sanctions targets proposed by Kyiv in the past. The Treasury also sanctioned dozens of Rosneft and Lukoil subsidiaries. The measures block U.S. assets of those designated and prevent Americans from doing business with them. The EU's LNG ban will take effect in two stages: short-term contracts will end after six months and long-term contracts from January 1, 2027. The full ban comes a year earlier than the Commission's proposed roadmap to end the bloc's reliance on Russian fossil fuels. The new EU package also adds new travel restrictions on Russian diplomats and lists 117 more vessels from Moscow's shadow fleet, mostly tankers, bringing the total to 558. The listings include banks in Kazakhstan and Belarus, the presidency said. EU diplomatic sources told Reuters that four entities linked to China's oil industry will be listed but the names will not be made public until the official adoption on Thursday. These include two oil refineries, a trading company and an entity which helps in the circumvention in oil and other sectors.

Oil Prices Rally Over 2% After US Sanctions Hit Russia’s Energy Giants -- Global oil prices climbed sharply on Thursday, rising more than 2% in early trading as new US sanctions against Russia’s two largest oil producers — Rosneft and Lukoil — fueled fresh concerns about supply disruptions. Brent crude surged 2.12% to trade at $64.29 per barrel, up from $62.95 in the previous session. Similarly, the US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate (WTI), gained 2.3% to reach $60.53 per barrel, compared to $59.15 a day earlier. The United States Treasury Department announced sanctions against Rosneft, Lukoil, and several of their subsidiaries, citing Moscow’s continued lack of commitment to peace talks aimed at ending the ongoing war in Ukraine. The sanctions are designed to restrict Russia’s ability to generate oil revenue that funds its military operations. In a statement, the Treasury reiterated that Washington remains committed to promoting peace and will continue to use all available tools to pressure Russia into constructive negotiations. The latest sanctions target dozens of subsidiaries involved in exploration, refining, and natural gas operations, including Rosneft units such as Bashneft Dobycha, RN Tuapse Oil Refinery, and Yuganskneftegaz, as well as Lukoil’s Perm and Kaliningradmorneft divisions. Under the measures enforced by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), all assets of these entities under US jurisdiction are frozen, and American individuals or businesses are prohibited from conducting transactions with them. Any company in which sanctioned entities hold a 50% or greater interest will automatically fall under the restrictions. OFAC clarified that the sanctions are intended to influence Russia’s actions, not to punish ordinary citizens, emphasizing that the ultimate goal is to drive behavioral change within Moscow’s leadership. Market analysts have warned that the sanctions could tighten global oil supply, particularly if major buyers like India reduce imports from Russia under diplomatic pressure. Such a shift could redirect demand toward US and Middle Eastern crude, pushing prices higher in the Atlantic basin. Indian refiners have reportedly begun reviewing their procurement plans to avoid potential exposure to sanctioned entities. Meanwhile, new data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed declining inventories, further supporting the upward trend in prices. According to the EIA, US commercial crude stockpiles dropped by 1 million barrels last week to 422.8 million, contrary to market expectations of a 2.2 million-barrel increase. Gasoline inventories also fell by 2.1 million barrels to 216.7 million, while domestic oil output slipped by 7,000 barrels per day to 13.62 million bpd. The combined impact of tightening supply, falling inventories, and geopolitical tensions has reinforced bullish sentiment in the oil market, keeping investors on alert for further price volatility.

New Sanctions on Russia’s Two Largest Oil Companies - The oil market on Thursday added to its sharp gains posted on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump introduced new sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil over Russia’s war in Ukraine. The U.S. also threatened to take further action if Russia did not agree immediately to a ceasefire in Ukraine. The European Union sanctioned the two Russian oil companies last week as well. The crude market surged higher as the sanctions are leading India and China to stop buying Russian oil and seek alternative supplies. The crude market gapped higher on the opening from $59.83 to $59.94 but quickly backfilled that gap as it posted a low of $59.64. However, the market continued to rally higher on reports that Indian refiners plan to reduce or completely halt its import of Russian oil. The market extended its gains to over $3.60 as it posted a high of $62.20 by mid-day in light of the news that Chinese state oil majors are suspending their Russian oil purchases due to concerns over the sanctions. The market’s gains seemed to have been limited by comments made by Kuwait’s Oil Minister that OPEC is ready to offset any shortage in the market by rolling back their output cuts further. The market later settled in a sideways trading range. The December WTI contract settled up $3.29 at $61.79 and the December Brent contract settled up $3.40 at $65.99. The product markets ended the session sharply higher, led by the heating oil market, which settled up 15.34 cents at $2.4030, while the RB market settled up 6.19 cents at $1.9269. Industry sources said Indian refiners are poised to sharply curtail imports of Russian oil to comply with new U.S. sanctions on Russia’s Rosneft and Lukoil, potentially removing a major hurdle to a trade deal with the United States. Privately-owned Reliance Industries, the top Indian buyer of Russian crude, plans to reduce or halt completely its import of Russian oil. Indian state refiners including Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp and Hindustan Petroleum Corp are also reviewing their Russian oil trade documents to ensure no supply will be coming directly from Rosneft and Lukoil after the U.S. sanctioned the oil companies. Trade sources said Chinese state oil majors have suspended purchases of seaborne Russian oil after the United States imposed sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil. Chinese national oil companies PetroChina, Sinopec, CNOOC and Zhenhua Oil will refrain from dealing in seaborne Russian oil at least in the short-term due to concern over sanctions. White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt said a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin is not completely off the table. On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he canceled a planned summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing a lack of progress in diplomatic efforts and a sense that the timing was off. President Trump expressed frustration with the stalled negotiations. The Trump administration announced a series of steps to open up Alaskan wilderness to energy and infrastructure development, including by resuming oil and gas leasing in the remote Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Oil surges 5% after US sanctions Russian firms Rosneft, Lukoil (Reuters) - Oil prices surged around 5% to a two-week high on Thursday after the U.S. imposed sanctions on major Russian suppliers Rosneft and Lukoil over Moscow's war in Ukraine, prompting energy firms in China and India to consider cutting Russian imports. Brent futures rose $3.40, or 5.4%, to settle at $65.99 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose $3.29, or 5.6%, to settle at $61.79. Those were the biggest daily percentage gains for both crude contracts since mid-June and their highest closes since October 8. "The announcement of sanctions by the U.S. on Rosneft and Lukoil is a major escalation in the targeting of Russia’s energy sector and could be a big enough shock to flip the global oil market into a deficit next year," Russia was the world's second-biggest crude oil producer in 2024 after the U.S., according to U.S. energy data. In addition to soaring crude prices, U.S. diesel futures jumped almost 7%, boosting the diesel crack spread to its highest since February 2024. Crack spreads measure refining profit margins. The U.S. sanctions mean refineries in China and India, major buyers of Russian oil, will need to seek alternative suppliers to avoid exclusion from the Western banking system, said Saxo Bank analyst Ole Hansen. Multiple trade sources told Reuters that Chinese state oil majors have suspended purchases of seaborne Russian oil from the two companies now under U.S. sanctions, providing a further boost to prices. Kuwait's oil minister said that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would be ready to offset any shortage in the market by rolling back output cuts. Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, said it will take time for the global market to replace Russian oil. "This is, of course, an attempt to put pressure on Russia," Putin added. "But no self-respecting country and no self-respecting people ever decides anything under pressure. The U.S. said it was prepared to take further action as it called on Moscow to agree immediately to a ceasefire in Ukraine. "The various U.S. and EU sanctions thus far have had essentially no effect on Russia’s ability to export oil, so we doubt that this latest round will be game-changing. That said, the Kremlin may need to use more intricate methods to ship its oil covertly, thereby increasing costs," Molchanov noted the U.S. investment bank would "continue keeping an eye on this issue" since Russian exports account for about 7% of global oil supply. Britain sanctioned Rosneft and Lukoil last week and the European Union has approved a 19th package of sanctions against Russia that includes a ban on imports of Russian liquefied natural gas.The EU also added two Chinese refiners with combined capacity of 600,000 barrels per day (bpd), as well as Chinaoil Hong Kong, a trading arm of PetroChina to its Russia sanctions list, its Official Journal showed on Thursday. The impact of sanctions on oil markets will depend on how India reacts and whether Russia finds alternative buyers. Refiners in India, which became the largest buyer of discounted seaborne Russian crude in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine, were poised to sharply curtail imports of Russian oil to comply with new U.S. sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft, industry sources said on Thursday, potentially removing a major hurdle to a trade deal with the U.S. Privately owned Reliance Industries, the top Indian buyer of Russian crude, plans to reduce or halt such imports completely, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

EU Imposes Fresh Russian Sanctions, Sending Oil Prices Higher - The European Union (EU) has imposed fresh sanctions against Russia, targeting its energy, finance, and military industrial base to put pressure on Moscow to end its war in Ukraine.The 19th package of sanctions puts in place complete transaction ban on Russian energy producers Rosneft Oil Co. and Gazprom Neft. The new measures eliminated the exemption for Rosneft's and Gazprom Neft's oil and gas imports into the EU.Brussels will implement a total ban on Russian Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from January 2027. It clamped down on its "shadow fleet" of 557 tankers, the European Commission (EC) said on Thursday.The new sanctions have targeted "enablers and profiteers of its war of aggression," the commission said. EC President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc's sanctions kept "the pressure high on the aggressor" of the war. "For the first time we are hitting Russia's gas sector — the heart of its war economy," von der Leyen said on Thursday. "We will not relent until the people of Ukraine have a just and lasting peace." The EU also took measures against third-country operators enabling Russia's revenue streams.These included sanctions against two Chinese refineries and an oil trader. Oil from third countries and the transport of oil compliant with the Oil Price Cap to third countries are exempted."The sanctions are fairly strong against two of Russia's major energy companies, and their subsidiaries," Theodore Karasik, a Non-Resident Fellow, Jamestown Foundation, Washington, DC, told European Capital Insights. "The key here is the subsidiaries, and how quickly Moscow and its black market partners can adjust to enforcement measures."Brent crude gained about 3.1% to $64.54, and WTI surged around 5.6% to $60.43. Both hit two‑week highs, as traders priced in risks of disruptions to Russian oil exports and LNG flows.Brent looks set to close about 9% higher for the week.The EU aligned its policies with the US after Washington announced additional sanctions against Moscow. The Trump administration imposed on Wednesday restrictions on Russian energy majors for the first time. It cited Moscow's "lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war." The US Treasury Department targeted Russia's two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil OAO, and their subsidiaries.."US sanctions aim to squeeze Russia's export revenues, which still provide ≈ 35% of its federal budget," Velina Tchakarova, a Geopolitical Strategist, wrote on X on Thursday. "Washington is signaling a total-energy pressure strategy, cutting Russia off from Western capital, insurance, and maritime services next to squeezing a major lifeline for its war economy."The US wants the Kremlin to accept an immediate ceasefire to end the Ukraine war. President Donald Trump proposed on Tuesday to establish a truce along the current line of fighting. EU leaders have backed the plan.Trump made the proposal after speaking with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin by phone and meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House. After meeting Zelenskyy on October 17, Trump said, "It is time to stop the killing, and make a deal.”Zelenskyy failed to convince Trump to supply Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine during the talks.In the meantime, Russia's top economic envoy arrived in Washington for "official" talks today, CNN reported, citing sources with knowledge of the visit.Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund and a Kremlin special envoy, will meet Trump officials "to continue discussions about the US-Russia relationship," CNN reported the sources as saying.Before Dmitriev’s visit, Putin said on Thursday that "no self-respecting country and no self-respecting people ever decide anything under pressure. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has also dismissed appeals for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, arguing it would "preserve the Nazi regime."For the EU, the new round of sanctions aims to hit Moscow where it hurts.Kaja Kallas, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said on X that the sanctions made it "increasingly harder for Putin to fund this war." She told CNBC that the new US measures against Russia were a "signal of strength." The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that the country had developed "immunity" to Western sanctions.However, Russia's gross domestic product has steadily declined since the first quarter of 2024, according to data from Trading Economics.The International Monetary Fund downgraded its forecast for Russia's gross domestic product growth in 2025 to 0.6% from 0.9%.The Russian economy will slow sharply from 4.3% growth in 2024, Reuters reported on October 14."So we downgraded growth in Russia for 2025 and 2026, and growth has been significantly slowing since last year," Alfred Kammer, Director, European Department, International Monetary Fund, said on October 17."We are forecasting very low growth rates for Russia in the medium-term, reflecting the impact of sanctions and the war."

Oil prices dip after surge, remain on track for weekly gain amid supply fears - U.S. crude futures eased in early trade on Friday, trimming part of the previous day's surge but remaining on track for a weekly gain, as fresh U.S. sanctions on Russia's two biggest oil companies over the war in Ukraine fuelled supply concerns.Brent crude futures fell 17 cents, or 0.3%, to $65.82 by 0024 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were down 17 cents, or 0.3%, at $61.62.Both benchmarks jumped more than 5% on Thursday and were set for about a 7% weekly gain, the biggest since mid-June. Russian President Vladimir Putin remained defiant on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump hit Russia's Rosneft and Lukoil with sanctions to pressure the Kremlin leader to end the war in Ukraine. Rosneft and Lukoil together account for more than 5% of global oil output. The U.S. sanctions prompted Chinese state oil majors to suspend Russian oil purchases in the short term, trade sources told Reuters. Refiners in India, the largest buyer of seaborne Russian oil, are set to sharply cut their crude imports, according to industry sources."Buying driven by supply tightness concerns over U.S. sanctions on Russia has subsided," said Satoru Yoshida, a commodity analyst with Rakuten Securities."With OPEC holding spare capacity, a one-sided rally is unlikely," he said, predicting that WTI is expected to trade within about $5 above or below $65. Kuwait's oil minister said that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would be ready to offset any shortage in the market by rolling back output cuts.The U.S. said it was prepared to take further action, while Putin derided the sanctions as an unfriendly act, saying they would not significantly affect the Russian economy and talked up Russia's importance to the global market.European Union countries also approved a 19th package of sanctions on Moscow that included a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas imports, while Britain hit Rosneft and Lukoil with sanctions last week.Russia was the world's second-biggest crude oil producer in 2024 after the U.S., according to U.S. energy data. Investors are also focusing on a planned meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping next week.Trade tensions between Washington and Beijing have been escalating, marked by tit-for-tat retaliatory measures announced by both sides. Confirmation that the two leaders would meet next week appeared to ease those tensions.

Oil slips on skepticism about US commitment to Russian oil sanctions (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Friday as skepticism crept into the market about the Trump administration's commitment to sanctions on Russia's two biggest oil companies over the war in Ukraine. Brent crude futures settled 5 cents, or 0.1%, lower at $65.94 a barrel, while U.S. crude futures finished at $61.50 a barrel, down 29 cents, or 0.5%. Both benchmarks had risen earlier in the session, extending gains of more than 5% made on Thursday after the sanctions were announced, but retreated in the last two hours of trading. They still ended the week over 7% higher, the biggest weekly rise since mid-June."There is renewed skepticism these sanctions will be as harsh as they are said to be," U.S. President Donald Trump hit Russia's Rosneft and Lukoil with sanctions to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the Ukraine war.The two companies together account for more than 5% of global oil output, and Russia was the world's second-biggest crude oil producer in 2024 after the U.S.The sanctions prompted Chinese state oil majors to suspend Russian oil purchases in the short term, trade sources told Reuters. Refiners in India, the largest buyer of seaborne Russian oil, were set to sharply cut Russian crude imports, industry sources said."Flows to India are at risk in particular," Janiv Shah, a vice president of oil markets analysis at Rystad Energy, said in a client note. "Challenges to Chinese refiners would be more muted, considering the diversification of crude sources and stock availability."Kuwait's oil minister said the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would be ready to offset any shortage in the market by raising production.The U.S. said it was prepared to take further action, while Putin derided the sanctions as an unfriendly act, saying they would not significantly affect the Russian economy and talking up Russia's importance to the global market.Britain imposed sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil last week and the European Union approved a 19th package of sanctions against Russia that includes a ban on imports of Russian liquefied natural gas.The EU also added two Chinese refiners with a combined capacity of 600,000 barrels per day, as well as Chinaoil Hong Kong, a trading arm of PetroChina to its Russian sanctions list, its official journal showed on Thursday.Looking ahead, investors were also focusing on a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping next week as the pair work to defuse long-standing trade tensions and end a spate of tit-for-tat retaliatory measures.

Israel Launches Wave of Heavy Airstrikes Across Gaza, Killing at Least 45 - The Israeli military launched heavy airstrikes across Gaza on Sunday, killing at least 45 Palestinians, marking the deadliest day of Israeli attacks in the Strip since the ceasefire went into effect on October 10. The IDF stepped up its attacks on Gaza after alleging its troops were attacked by Palestinian militants in Rafah, southern Gaza, though some reports indicate an explosion was caused by an Israeli vehicle running over an unexploded bomb. Hamas denied responsibility for the incident in Rafah on Sunday, saying it hasn’t been in contact with its fighters in the area. “We confirm our full commitment to carrying out everything that was agreed, first and foremost the ceasefire in all areas of the Gaza Strip,” Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement. “We have no knowledge of any incidents or clashes taking place in the Rafah area, since these are red zones under occupation control, and contact with what remains of our groups there has been cut off since the war resumed in March of this year. We have no information on whether they have been killed or are still alive since that date,” al-Qassam added. Israeli officials said later in the day that two IDF soldiers were killed in the attack. According toHaaretz, Israeli military officials said they thought militants fired on Israeli troops after exiting a tunnel, but other reports contradict the claim.

Gaza Health Ministry Says at Least 80 Palestinians Killed by the IDF Since Ceasefire Went Into Effect - Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Monday that Israeli forces have killed at least 80 Palestinians and wounded 303 since October 11, the day after the ceasefire went into effect.The Health Ministry said that a total of 45 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks were brought to hospitals over the previous 24-hour period.The IDF unleashed a heavy wave of airstrikes across Gaza on Sunday after alleging its troops in Rafah came under attack by Palestinian militants, though a White House official told The American Conservative that Hamas didn’t violate the truce and that an Israeli “tank hit an unexploded IED that has probably been there for months.” A man carries the body of a Palestinian child killed in Sunday’s Israeli strikes, according to medics, during the funeral at al-Awda Hospital in the central Gaza Strip, October 20, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud IssaThe IDF announced on Sunday night that the heavy bombardment was over, but it killed at leasttwo more Palestinians on Monday. According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, they were killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza City. The IDF claimed its forces fired on two “terrorists” who allegedly crossed the “yellow line,” referring to the line Israeli troops withdrew to when the ceasefire went into effect, but the statement didn’t allege the Palestinians were armed.There have been several incidents of the IDF firing on Palestinians who allegedly crossed the yellow line, which has not been marked, meaning people on the ground are unaware they’re crossing it. The Israeli military said on Monday that it had started marking the boundary by placing large yellow concrete blocks along the line every 200 meters.In one attack on Friday, the IDF massacred 11 people, including seven young children and three women, who were traveling in a vehicle that allegedly crossed the yellow line. “The family could have been warned or dealt with in a way that did not lead to murder,” said Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defense. “What happened confirms that the occupation remains thirsty for blood and determined to commit crimes against innocent civilians.”Palestinians in Gaza have also been working to recover bodies that are under the rubble, as around 10,000 people have been reported missing. The Health Ministry said that since October 11, 426 bodies have been recovered. The ministry’s violent death toll since October 7, 2023, has climbed to 68,216, and the number of wounded has reached 170,361. Studies have found that the ministry’s numbers are likely a significant undercount.

Israel Has Allowed Only a Fraction of the Agreed Upon Aid To Enter Gaza - Israel has allowed just a fraction of the agreed-upon number of aid trucks to enter Gaza under the ceasefire deal, according to officials in the Strip.Under the ceasefire agreement, Israel pledged to immediately allow the “commencement of full entry of humanitarian aid and relief” at a minimum consistent with the January 2025 ceasefire deal, under which Israel agreed to allow 600 aid trucks to enter Gaza per day. According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, Israel has allowed just 15% of the trucks to enter Gaza. “We confirm that the total number of humanitarian aid trucks that have entered the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire began has reached 986 trucks out of 6,600 trucks that were supposed to enter until Monday evening, October 20, 2025, according to what was agreed upon in the text of the resolution,” the Media Office said in a post on Telegram.Data from the UN2720 Monitoring and Tracking Dashboard, a mechanism created in 2024 to monitor aid shipments into Gaza, shows that from October 10 to October 21, only 853 aid truckshave reached their intended destination in Gaza.The Media Office added that, on average, 89 trucks were entering Gaza per day, saying it reflected “the continued policy of strangulation, starvation and humanitarian blackmail practiced by the occupation.”The UN’s World Food Program has also said that food supplies to Gaza have ramped up since the ceasefire, but are still well below the target. The WFP said its target was for 2,000 tonnes of food to enter Gaza per day, but only 750 tonnes are entering daily.“To be able to get to this scale-up, we have to use every border crossing point right now,” said WFP spokeswoman Abeer Etefa, according to Al Jazeera. She said just two of the Israeli-controlled border crossings were operational, one in central Gaza and one in the south, and Israel still has yet to open the Rafah border crossing that connects Gaza and Egypt. Etefa added that the food supplies that have entered Gaza are enough to feed half a million people, or about a quarter of Gaza’s population, for two weeks, and that many people are rationing because they fear the supplies will be cut off. “They eat part of it, and they ration and keep some of the supplies for an emergency, because they are not very confident how long the ceasefire will last and what will happen next,” she said.