U.S. Blockade Tightens, and Treasury Targets Iran’s Rail and Shadow Banking Networks

Washington expanded its economic campaign against Iran on October 1, designating the country’s rail system, major industrial firms, and a Russia-linked shadow banking network on the same day the U.S. military blockade continues to choke seaborne oil exports. The Treasury actions, issued under Operation Economic Outcast, come as three shadow-fleet tankers seized earlier this year […]

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Tankers burning in Hormuz, and Secretary Wright is highly confident Europe will dump emergency diesel stocks

Tankers are burning in the Strait of Hormuz, visible traffic through the waterway has collapsed to a fraction of normal levels, and U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright says he is “highly confident” Europe will draw down emergency diesel stocks to ease a global shortage. The combination is keeping a firm geopolitical premium in crude while […]

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Alaska to Get $54 Billion Korean LNG Investment: The Long-Stalled Project, Who’s Involved, and Why It Matters for Midterms, Energy Security, and the Entire United States

President Donald Trump is set to unveil a major South Korean investment package that includes roughly $54 billion directed at Alaska’s long-planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, according to White House officials and multiple reports. The announcement, expected in the Oval Office, is the first major tranche from South Korea’s broader $200 billion in U.S. […]

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President Trump’s 2026 Jones Act waivers moved tens of millions of barrels of U.S. energy that the domestic fleet could not carry. Freight savings are real but modest on a national scale; the larger story is avoided shortages, reopened domestic routes, and a live stress test of a 1920 law that left the United States with too few ships.

On March 17, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security issued the longest and broadest Jones Act waiver since at least 1950, covering energy commodities and fertilizer inputs. The waiver was extended twice and now runs through November 15, 2026, with a narrower product list and voyage-by-voyage review after August 17. The Cato Institute’s Jones Act […]

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ExxonMobil and SOCAR have moved from study agreements to a 50/50 production-sharing contract for unconventional oil and gas in Azerbaijan’s Middle Kura Basin.

The deal, exchanged on September 26, 2026, at the Second Azerbaijan International Investment Forum in the presence of President Ilham Aliyev, makes ExxonMobil the operator and still needs parliamentary ratification. It is the first time a U.S. supermajor has taken operatorship of an onshore unconventional program in Azerbaijan. The country has spent three decades built […]

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Iran-Linked Oil Tankers Seized by US Navy Now Headed to U.S. Coast

Three sanctioned tankers carrying nearly six million barrels of Iranian crude—valued at roughly $600 million—are crossing the Atlantic toward the United States, according to vessel-tracking data from TankerTrackers and Kpler. The ships, Majestic X, Tifani, and Lenore, were seized months ago in the Indian Ocean as part of a broader U.S. campaign against Iran’s sanctions-evading […]

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