Argentina’s Oil Production Soars as Vaca Muerta Breaks New Records

Chinese buyers that received the first U.S. LNG cargo in over a year plan to resell it on another market to profit from higher prices elsewhere and avoid paying a 25% tariff, sources familiar with the plans told Bloomberg on Monday. The Yangpu port in south China earlier this month received a cargo of U.S. LNG from the Plaquemines LNG export terminal operated by Venture Global in Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish. This was the first U.S. shipment of gas to China in more than a year. But the gas...

The world isn't just staring down another weather event. It's staring down a weather event colliding with a supply-driven oil shock. JPMorgan warned Friday that a "super" El Niño combined with higher energy prices from the Middle East conflict could slow the decline in global inflation next year, adding roughly 0.3 percentage points to headline inflation worldwide. The bank puts the odds of the current El Niño strengthening into a "very strong" or "super" event at 81% by the end of the year,...

The dual disruption of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb is tightening global oil flows, raising transport costs and fueling expectations of $100 oil. Friday, July 24, 2026 The double blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb has turbo-boosted oil prices this week, with both ICE Brent and WTI gaining $10 per barrel on the week. Whilst technically the Bab el-Mandeb could be bypassed through the Suez Canal, resulting in longer routes and higher costs, the dramatic decline in transits via the...

Oil prices continued to trend lower in early Asian trade on Tuesday as a fourth night passed without any attacks from either Iran or the United States. At the time of writing, WTI crude was trading at $81.55 per barrel, down 1.28% on the session, while Brent crude had slipped to $87.36 per barrel, a decline of 1.13%. On Monday, President Trump sought to boost hopes of a diplomatic resolution between Washington and Tehran by claiming that the U.S. was engaged in "good talks" with Iran. Iranian...

In 1937, the Army guarded the first shipments of a critical resource, U.S. gold, as it was transferred into Fort Knox. Nearly 90 years later, Washington faces a similar situation with a very different resource. The Army picked REalloys (NASDAQ: ALOY) to build a facility to process dysprosium and terbium at Utah’s Tooele Army Depot - two rare earths that keep high-performance magnets working in weapons, radar, sonar and electric motors. Gold went to Fort Knox because America was unsure they...

The Houthi threats to shipping in the Red Sea and its chokepoint, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, have forced at least one oil tanker carrying Saudi crude to Asia to choose the much longer route through the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, and around Africa. The supertanker Olympic Luck, partially laden with Saudi crude at Yanbu on the Red Sea, transited the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean late on Sunday, according to shipping data monitored by Bloomberg. The U-turn from Bab el-Mandeb indicates that...

Irish energy distributor DCC Energy has agreed to be taken over by a consortium led by private equity heavyweight KKR and Energy Capital Partners. The deal values the company at close to $7.7 billion and is about $1 billion higher than KKR’s original offer, which was made in June. The Irish company is among Europe’s largest energy distribution businesses, supplying LPG, fuel oils, and other energy products across multiple international markets. The company has spent recent years reshaping its...

Tanker traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait slumped to a multi-month low on Sunday amid Houthi attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure on the Red Sea coast. Only 11 tankers carrying commodities transited the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea on Sunday, the lowest in months, according to Kpler’s shipping data cited by Reuters. Tanker traffic at the Red Sea started to slow a week ago after the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen announced a blockade on Saudi shipments and...

European natural gas prices plunged by 8.6% at the open in Amsterdam on Monday as the United States paused strikes on Iran over the weekend and Tehran signaled a halt to retaliatory attacks across the Middle East. Hopes of de-escalation sank oil prices on Monday in Asian trade, too, with Brent Crude dropping to $90 per barrel. Europe’s benchmark natural gas prices, which had surged in the past two weeks amid the renewed hostilities, retreated on Monday from the multi-month highs of last week,...

The Japanese government may approach foreign banks to help finance pledged investments in U.S. natural gas production that are part of Tokyo’s trade deal with the Trump administration, agreed last year. “If financing from foreign banks materialises, it should further facilitate the procurement of foreign-currency funding needed to implement the investment initiative,” the Japanese finance ministry said in an X post, as quoted by Reuters. The publication reported earlier this month that JP...

China is likely to have increased its crude oil imports this month, with the daily average at 7.8 million barrels, according to calculations by Kpler, as cited by Bloomberg. Refiners have been buying more Russian crude and have seen more tankers arrive from the Middle East, the report noted. The figure could add fuel to oil’s rally, as the July average would be a solid increase from the 6.2 million barrels daily that Chinese refiners imported in June. That was the lowest import rate for China...

Oil prices plunged by more than 5% in early Asian trade on Monday as the U.S. and Iran halted attacks after two weeks of escalation that had driven Brent above $100. At the time of writing, WTI crude was trading at $84.47, down 5.39%, while Brent crude had fallen to $91.80, a decline of 5.15%. The retreat came after Washington signaled on Friday that it would temporarily halt its bombing campaign against Iran. Talking to Face the Nation on Sunday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike...