Chinese refiners are set to slow the pace of inventory drawdowns this month as crude imports recover, according to Energy Aspects. More overseas crude is expected to arrive from November, allowing China to preserve its substantial stockpile buffer against further supply disruptions. Analyst Jianan Sun of Energy Aspects noted that recent purchases of Iraqi and […]
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Crude moving through the Strait of Hormuz fell 27% in a week, to at least 10.1 million barrels a day, as tanker attacks picked up and Yemen’s Houthis warned everyone who works at a Saudi oil site. Here is what has actually been hit, what is only claimed, and how much oil can still get […]
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Supertankers are racing into the Persian Gulf for record fees, and that single migration is redrawing how crude moves. More than 40 percent of the world’s roughly 850 very large crude carriers are now inside the Gulf or within a couple of days’ sail of it, according to Signal Ocean data cited by Bloomberg. Empty […]
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A Ukrainian drone strike on Friday forced Russia’s Novoshakhtinsk refinery in the Rostov region offline, according to regional governor Yury Slyusar. The plant, which processes about 110,000 barrels per day (roughly 5–5.6 million tons per year), is not one of Russia’s giants. It is, however, a clean illustration of why diesel—the workhorse fuel for trucking, […]
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The remark, given to Nikkei Asia in Tokyo on September 24, is the clearest signal yet that Riyadh no longer treats three outlets as enough insurance against a two-front maritime crisis. Nasser said engineering and feasibility work is already underway. He did not name destinations, capacities, or dates. He did say Aramco can restore interrupted […]
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That is the argument Javier Blas is making in his September 23 Bloomberg Opinion column, China Isn’t Buying More Oil, It’s Buying From Different Markets (also framed as “Don’t Believe the Hype About China’s Oil Buying”). The global market treated China’s pre-war appetite as a floor. In 2026 it became a valve. The Blas thesis: […]
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On paper, this looks like an org chart. In practice, it is a financing and accountability decision. Gulf national oil companies have spent the last several years listing or monetizing everything except the core oil barrel. ADNOC listed pieces of gas, drilling, and retail. Aramco already listed SABIC and has raised billions against pipelines and […]
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The oil market is no longer one price. It is a map. Javier Blas put the new arithmetic on the table in Bloomberg Opinion on September 21: hiring a Very Large Crude Carrier from the Persian Gulf to Asia has jumped twelvefold in a few months to a record $1.1 million a day. Translate that […]
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Saudi Arabia’s capital came under direct threat early Saturday as air-raid alerts sounded over Riyadh and explosions were heard, followed by a large plume of black smoke rising from a fuel storage depot at King Khalid International Airport. The incident marks the first time Houthi attacks have visibly affected the Saudi capital since fighting with […]
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Aramco’s East-West pipeline outage leaves European term buyers with a zero allocation for October. Crude is being rerouted to Asia. Products, not barrels, remain the tighter market. Saudi Aramco has told European term customers they will receive no crude in October under long-term contracts, according to people familiar with the decision cited by Bloomberg and […]
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