Qatar Races to Restore LNG Exports Despite Ras Laffan Setback

More than fifty people were injured, and 18 were still unaccounted for as of early Monday following an explosion and a fire at Qatar’s key LNG site, Ras Laffan, due to a technical malfunction.    State firm QatarEnergy said on Monday that there was an operational incident during the start-up of operations at Ras Laffan Industrial City, which resulted in an explosion and fire at the Barzan local gas supply facility in the evening hours of Sunday, June 21, 2026.   Early on Monday local time, the...

China is preparing  a second terminal to receive sanctioned Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), as the country’s gas imports surge. According to an exclusive report by Reuters, the newly built Longkou LNG terminal in eastern China's Shandong province is being lined up to receive LNG from Russia’s $21-billion Arctic LNG 2 project. Operated by the state-owned pipeline monopoly PipeChina, the Longkou terminal has completed its mechanical building phase and is expected to be fully operational...

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the stranding of more than 10 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in the Persian Gulf was a wake-up call for import-dependent countries to expand their capacity to hold strategic and commercial reserves. Many countries, especially in the Asia Pacific, are looking to build new reserve capacity to boost their energy security and never again be caught off-guard by a massive supply disruption like the one triggered by the closure of the most important...

Rory Green, TS Lombard's chief China economist, is the latest Wall Street strategist to warn of the mounting macro and food inflation risks that a super El Niño could release on certain regions of the world. In a note titled "Super El Niño: Famine Follows War?" Green warns that war-related disruptions to energy and fertilizer markets, compounded by adverse weather conditions, could create a perfect storm for global food prices. Green said, "In general, El Niño raises temperatures and...

Since the replacement of Russia by China as the primary would-be superpower rival to the U.S., Saudi Arabia has sought to balance its relationships with Beijing and Washington -- sometimes leaning more one way, and sometimes the other. Until the 2014-2016 Oil Price War, the U.S. was the core relationship; after the war had finished, it was China and Russia; and then, from the start of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term in office, it was the U.S. again. However, in the aftermath of...

The UK will have sufficient electricity supply this winter despite the Strait of Hormuz crisis, NESO, the country’s grid operator, said today. “While we will continue to monitor global energy markets, households and businesses can be confident that electricity supplies remain secure,” NESO’s head of whole energy system resilience, Deborah Petterson, said in a statement, as quoted by Reuters. The UK has, in recent years, become increasingly dependent on imported oil and gas as several successive...

President Trump has ordered an investigation into possible price gouging at fuel stations, an investigation he announced in a social media post. “The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil. Those prices are dropping ‌like a rock! In other words, customers are being "gouged",” Trump wrote. “I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster...

Italian gas distributor Italgas plans to invest nearly $15 billion by 2032 as it accelerates the use of AI in increasingly smarter and flexible networks, Europe’s largest natural gas distributor said on Tuesday. Total planned investments under the company’s Strategic Plan 2026-2032 unveiled today will be 13 billion euros, or $14.8 billion, through 2032. This would be a 14.6% increase compared to the previous strategic plan. A total of $9.5 billion (8.3 billion euros) is earmarked for the...

US-Iran talks and a 60-day sanctions waiver have eased supply fears, but traders remain cautious on the outlook for Iranian oil exports. From War Shock to Weather Shock: Super El Niño Threatens Fresh Commodity Chaos - Record high sea temperatures in the Pacific Ocean are paving the way for an unprecedentedly severe ‘Super’ El Niño, with equatorial temperatures currently 1.7C above the 30-year average. - This summer would witness the largest temperature deviation from the historical average for...

further accelerate through 2030 as utility-scale projects lead growth, the SolarPower Europe association said in a new report on Tuesday. Last year, the European battery storage market saw 36 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of new installations, up by 48% from 2024, when growth had slowed. Installations rebounded strongly in 2025, and are set to continue accelerating. This year, annual installations are expected to top 50 GWh, SolarPower Europe said. The annual pace of new additions is then projected to...

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the biggest refiner in the country, did not receive any bids in a tender to charter three tankers to pick up crude and gas from the Persian Gulf and ship the volumes through the Strait of Hormuz, trade sources with knowledge of the development told Reuters on Tuesday. Since the Strait of Hormuz tentatively reopened at the end of last week, vessel traffic has picked up, especially for outbound tankers that have been stuck for months in the Gulf. But many shipowners...

Iran is pitching its oil to Asian buyers outside China, contacting India, South Korea, and Japan, as the United States issued a temporary two-month waiver allowing Iranian oil sales, including in U.S. dollars, until August 21. As part of the 14-point memorandum of understanding with Iran, the United States on Sunday authorized the production, delivery, and sale of crude oil, petrochemical products, and refined oil products of Iranian origin through August 21, 2026. Representatives of the...