Contents: US court seizes Socialist Venezuela’s Citgo as compensation for mine nationalization; Argentina’s peso collapses after central bank raises interest rate to 60%; Turkey and Argentina lead the world’s developing countries in falling currencies
The City Council of Los Angeles voted Tuesday to rename Rodeo Road — not to be confused with the more famous and posh Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills — after former President Barack Obama.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday evening dismissed Iran’s claim to control the Strait of Hormuz and the entire Persian Gulf. Pompeo promised that the United States would continue to protect freedom of navigation in those international waterways.
Brian Hook, State Department director of policy planning and head of a special action group on Iran created this week, told a press conference on Thursday that China will not be exempt from penalties if it continues buying Iranian oil after the second, and much more strict, rounds of renewed U.S. sanctions on Iran go into effect in November.
The Chinese economy continues to show signs of cooling as the trade war between the nation and the United States heats up.
Leaders of five Caspian Sea nations — Russia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan — reportedly signed a historic agreement on Sunday that aims to settle a longstanding dispute over ownership of oil and gas reserves on the landlocked body of water.
The latest broadside fired by China in its trade war with the United States was a list of $16 billion in American imports subjected to a 25 percent retaliatory tariff. One major item that was supposed to be on the list was quietly removed: oil. Analysts wonder if this conspicuous omission is a sign China is blinking in its economic staredown against the Trump administration.
China’s aggressive territorial claims in the South China Sea are generally viewed in the context of a security threat to the freedom of navigation and political warfare against Asian nations with competing territorial claims, but a report published this week by the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute of Singapore reveals a massive cash grab as well. China’s state-controlled industries are planning to make a great deal of money from those disputed islands and reefs.
Contents: Attacks on Saudi tankers expose twin Iran military threats to international oil shipments; US considers military options for Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi threatened on Tuesday that Iran will respond to the United States with “equal countermeasures from Iran” if America moves to block the Islamic Republic’s oil exports by the Trump administration’s promised November 4 deadline.
Iran filed a lawsuit against the United States on Monday at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over Washington’s reimposition of sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday the United States will consider waivers for some countries that need more time to stop importing Iranian oil to avoid disrupting global oil markets. Reuters, which reported his remarks, said they were embargoed for release until Monday.
Iran’s special envoy Ali Akbar Velayati said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Kremlin plans to invest up to $50 billion in Iran’s oil and gas sector, and noted that Russian firms could replace Western oil companies that have left or are leaving Iran to comply with President Donald Trump’s demands that nations stop importing Iranian oil by November 4 or face sanctions.
The United States asked the U.N. Security Council on Thursday to halt the delivery of all refined oil products to North Korea because the North Koreans were caught smuggling a huge amount of oil during the first half of this year in defiance of sanctions.
Saudi Arabia met Donald Trump’s demands for more oil, hiking its output in June to the highest level since 2016.
Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz – a key Gulf passage for shipments of commodities – over Washington threatening to sanction any country that fails to stop importing oil from the Islamic Republic by November 4.
Just in time for the height of the summer driving season, Saudi Arabia’s government said Tuesday that it will is ready to pump more oil.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) sold illegally obtained gas and oil to the Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian regime as well as to Turkey while it ruled Iraq and Syria, Kurdistan 24 learned from a jailed senior commander from the jihadist group.
Middle East oil supplies could be cut off if the United States continues to work with allies to isolate Tehran’s oil from the global market, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned Tuesday.
The Eagle Ford shale formation, a Texas oil and natural gas powerhouse, appears primed for another energy boom. According to the latest report from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the land sits on billions of barrels of untapped oil and natural gas.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed source in the Trump administration, that the United States would issue sanctions on countries that fail to cut oil imports from Iran by November 4th.
On June 13, Trump tweeted, “Oil prices are too high, OPEC is at it again. Not good!” Nine days later, OPEC agreed to produce hundreds of thousands of additional barrels of oil per day.
The Libyan government launched airstrikes on Sunday against a militia group that was attempting to seize the oil terminals at Ras Lanuf and el-Sidr, two key port cities for the Libyan oil industry.
The Permian Basin, already considered a major force among the world’s oil producers, will double its output to reach 5.4 million barrels per day (mbd) by 2023, according to a report released Wednesday.
Donald Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday morning in an apparent attempt to talk down the price of oil.
Trump is one of the few politicians in Washington, D.C. who has exhibited an understanding of how global oil prices are set. The Saudis do not sell at spot prices like the rest of the world’s oil producers. Instead, they post their prices to refiners and then fill all orders at the set price.
Venezuela’s state oil company Petroleum of Venezuela (PDSVA) is facing a lawsuit in the United States for failing to pay $25 million owed to Canadian energy contractor SNC-Lavalin.
China’s state-run Global Times urged Europeans to help Beijing “defend global order” as U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday.
When Trump said he was considering ending the Iran nuclear deal and reimposing sanctions, many said he would cause an unwanted spike in oil. When he finally ended the nuke deal Tuesday, that didn’t happen at all.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has filed the state’s thirty-first lawsuit against the Trump administration, joining 16 other states to stop the rollback of Obama-era rules requiring car manufacturers to double auto mileage.
Marathon Petroleum Corporation (MPC), the second largest oil company in the United States, will buy Texas petroleum refiner and pipeline owner Andeavor for more than $23 billion, creating the largest independent oil refinery in the nation, the companies announced jointly on Monday.
Contents: Socialist Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA oil company near total collapse; Will China or Russia save Venezuela?
Thousands of Venezuelan workers quit the country’s state-run oil company Petroleum of Venezuela (PDSVA) following the installation of Major General Manuel Quevedo as its head this month.
Saudi oil executives inked multi-billion dollar deals with companies to explore building petrochemical facilities along the Texas Gulf Coast. Essentially, they hope to capitalize on the U.S. oil and gas boom, largely fueled by shale drilling in the Permian Basin.
The rising U.S. production means the U.S. will become close to being energy self-sufficient, a huge shift from the era not so long ago when the U.S. was the world’s largest oil importer.
Venezuela’s state-run oil company Petroleum of Venezuela (PDSVA) is reportedly experiencing a mass labor shortage following the resignation of thousands of employees.
TEHRAN – Iran’s oil minister lashed out at the United States on Sunday, saying that hostile comments by President Donald Trump had torpedoed new oil and gas contracts for the Islamic republic.
Anti-American leftist ex-president Rafael Correa will testify before Ecuadorian courts on Monday regarding his decision to sell almost half of the OPEC nation’s oil supply to China in exchange for low-price loans.
The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is hailing the increase in oil and gas lease sales in 2017, making it the most lucrative year in almost a decade.
The latest report from the International Energy Agency finds American oil production at its highest level in 50 years and projects that it will surpass that of Saudi Arabia and Russia in 2018.