Houthi missiles strike Saudi-led forces HQ at presidential palace in Aden https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/15/houthi-missiles-strike-aden-yemen?CMP=share_btn_url

The US is considering moves to ease restrictions on “shadow fleet” tankers linked to Russia and Iran as it struggles to bring down soaring diesel prices ahead of November’s midterm elections.

The moves include potentially allowing the sale of blacklisted vessels to legitimate operators and lifting sanctions that would allow them to operate without restriction, people familiar with the matter told the FT.

The controversial move to lift sanctions on the vessels, designed to increase shipping capacity for oil and refined fuels and lower record-high freight rates that are adding to soaring fuel costs, was raised earlier this week by Chris Wright, US energy secretary, at the World Petroleum Conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

A Treasury department official said the Office of Foreign Assets Control may consider authorising the sale of shadow fleet vessels to “legitimate buyers” and allowing them to operate in the global market “on a case-by-case basis”.

It marks the latest effort by Donald Trump’s administration to douse fuel prices before the midterm vote, which will decide control of Congress. Polls suggest elevated inflation triggered by the Iran war has turned many voters against Trump’s Republican Party.

It also marks an abrupt turn in US policy more favourable to Moscow as it seeks to unfreeze sovereign assets and apparently throttled Ukraine’s access to Starlink satellites crucial to its defence in the war with Russia. Last week, Trump said he would temporarily lift sanctions on Russian diesel fuel, which provoked criticism from European allies and a bipartisan group of US senators who called it a “gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our allies”.

Wright told the forum in Riyadh via video link on Monday that a shortage of tankers is a crucial choke point that is pushing up freight prices on global markets and removing sanctions from vessels could provide some relief, said three people present at the event.

“The administration is looking under every rock it can to try to force down fuel prices ahead of the elections, even if these policies would only have a marginal effect,” said Bob McNally, a former energy adviser to George W Bush and president of Rapidan Energy, who attended the event.

The Treasury department official said: “If legitimate buyers are interested in purchasing shadow fleet vessels, restoring them for legitimate use by the global commercial shipping industry, Ofac may consider authorising those transactions and removing sanctions on those vessels on a case-by-case basis.”

“These removals would not benefit the shadow fleet, but would remove those vessels from the shadow fleet for use in legitimate global commerce,” they added, noting Ofac “undertakes a thorough review process before removing sanctions on any entity”.

Jeremy Paner, partner at Hughes Hubbard, a Washington-based law firm, said by facilitating the purchase of sanctioned tankers in the shadow fleet the administration could potentially remove the “bad look” of issuing new authorisations linked to Russia.

The move comes as data this week showed US consumer inflation jumped to 3.7 per cent in September as a rebound in fuel prices washed over the economy.

The White House has raced to counter the surge, leaning on allies to release more diesel on to the market and threatening to impose an export ban. Trump also signed an executive order to allow tax-free red diesel to be used on public roads.

But diesel prices remain stubbornly high, averaging $6.31 a gallon at the pump on Thursday, just below a record high of $6.53 in recent weeks. The International Energy Agency this week warned there will be a global shortage of the fuel until the middle of 2027.

Daniel Yergin, vice-chair of S&P Global, said the focus of policymakers had shifted from crude oil, at least for now, to a shortage of tankers as a major constraint on these supplies.

But analysts said an easing of tanker sanctions would have only a marginal impact on fuel prices.

Between 13 per cent and 19 per cent of the world’s tanker fleet is under US sanctions, according to Energy Aspects, a consultancy. But it said the old age and poor condition of those vessels would limit the benefits from easing sanctions.

“Lifting sanctions on predominantly old and likely under-maintained vessels is therefore unlikely to add meaningful mainstream fleet capacity overnight,” it said. “Moreover, most tankers sanctioned over Russian or Venezuelan links have continued trading over the past three months.”

Research group Kpler said it expected the measure would have virtually no impact on the current tanker crisis because higher fuel prices are driven primarily by heightened war risk in the Middle East rather than a shortage of vessels alone.

But the administration’s eagerness to lift sanctions on Russian fuel and the fleet of shadow tankers that it uses to transport crude and other products has alarmed politicians in the US and Europe.

On Wednesday Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni criticised Trump’s plan to buy diesel from Russia, calling it a “very risky choice” that undermines international pressure on Vladimir Putin to end his war in Ukraine.

As I’ve reported, prices for oil delivery have skyrocketed. Last week, a VLCC (aka a “supertanker” in non-shipper parlance) was chartered from the U.S. Gulf Coast to China for $76 million. Another very large crude carrier went for $77 million from the U.S. to South Korea. That’s 10 times more than the price of the same trip less than one year ago.

Assuming these ships hold about 2 million barrels of oil, that charter price means each barrel on the ship costs about $38 over the price of the oil itself.

The Iran war has pushed fuel prices to record highs, and the head of America’s second-largest oil company says the world has run out of easy ways to absorb the shock.

“Those are all buffers in the system that have bought us time, but they’ve been drained,” Chevron CEO Mike Wirth told CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe on Oct. 7. “And so we’re at much lower levels of inventory right now, and it makes the system more vulnerable to disruption.”

Wirth said the world entered 2026 well supplied. “We came into this year with high inventories,” he said, pointing to commercial stocks held by companies and strategic reserves held by governments worldwide. Since the war began in late February, those cushions have been steadily depleted: Companies have drawn down commercial inventories, governments have released emergency stocks, and sanctioned barrels have been allowed to reach buyers.

Nowhere is the squeeze sharper than diesel, the fuel that moves trucks, trains, and farm equipment. The U.S. average hit a record $6.53 a gallon on Sept. 22, according to AAA data cited by CBS News, up from about $3.76 before the U.S. and Israel launched the war in late February. In California, the statewide average has topped $8 a gallon.

Don’t expect that to change quickly. In its October Oil Market Report, released Wednesday, the International Energy Agency said the diesel market will stay tight well into 2027 and hinges on a recovery of fuel supply from the Middle East. 

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/10/15/chevron-ceo-mike-wirth-oil-buffers-drained-diesel-prices-iran-war/?utm_source=reddit/

Bloomberg AI:

• The IEA’s October Oil Market Report says global diesel/gasoil markets will stay uncomfortably tight well through 2027.

Inventories are not expected to be replenished beyond normal seasonal changes before the second half of 2027, even with a recovery in refinery runs. Europe, as a major importing region, is exposed to delayed refills of their SPRs.

• The International Energy Agency said member countries agreed to complete the release of 100 million barrels of oil still outstanding from an intervention in March.

• The countries will accelerate the distribution of the remaining volumes, including the release of 20 million barrels of diesel "as soon as possible".

• Member nations stated their willingness to take further actions to address challenges in global energy markets".

• Counter-seasonal stock draws ahead of winter demand and autumn refinery maintenance leave little cushion (IEA).

• The White House is displeased with Europe’s current release levels, stating they need to double or triple the pledged target output.

• Europe is especially exposed as the world’s structural diesel importer; imports are down sharply, commercial stocks historically low, the risk of renewed price spikes from Middle East engagement will impact shipping costs (IEA / Kpler).

• Europe Stock releases are finite and temporary; they do not restore lost Middle East/Russian refining capacity or end the conflict (IEA analysis).

• Fragile European Oil Reserve recovery: the renewed attacks on Russian infrastructure and Middle East tankers are quickly reversing any crude flow gains (IEA).

• Commercial stocks (especially in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp hub) have been historic record lows. Emergency stocks barley meet EU minimum cover rules (roughly 90 days of net imports or 61 days of consumption), and are being drawn down quickly despite demand destruction. The IEA has warned that delivered diesel prices in Europe could rise again in the coming weeks, even after the remaining oil target release.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-15/iea-agrees-to-release-of-outstanding-100-million-barrels-of-oil

PPI year over year: 6.3% (expectation 5.5%)

PPI m/m: 1.3% (expectation 0.6%)

Core PPI m/m: 0.7% (expectation 0.3%)

Core PPI year over year: 5.0% (expectation 4.4%)

Retail sales: 0.8% (expectation 0.3%)

Diesel is eating your paycheck. A single fill-up just hit $947. Washington's fix? Easing sanctions on Russian diesel. Twelve senators, including six Republicans, call that a gift to Putin. Meanwhile, Iran is attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Oil just hit $106 a barrel. The public record shows we still don't know how much relief Americans will actually get. Read the full paper trail: https://eve70.substack.com/p/andy-harris-the-idiot-who-tried-to?r=rpmdh&utm_medium=ios

#Eugene #EugeneOregon #Oregon #DieselPrices #Putin #Trump #Accountability #FollowThePaperTrail

What are your thoughts on today’s oil price? Drop your opinions, predictions, charts, memes , low and high effort post, your AI slop or even analysis below. Keep it civil and on-topic! This post is renewed daily.

Unless there is some compelling reason, other posts in the sub about oil prices will be removed. In a futile effort to improve the quality.

(Current WTI/Brent price can be checked on any major site.)

They're not even trying to pretend anymore.

ExxonMobil, Macquarie, Centalion, TotalEnergies’ ATMI, Trafigura and Energy Transfer were loaned 20–25M bbl in total.

Almost all was taken by ExxonMobil, who bid on 15M barrels.

This is despite Much more favourable conditions to previous releases, with expected premiums of 7-9% (instead of the 18-24% of previous spr release allocations of 2026)

Arabian sea/Hormuz, BAM, Malacca, Singapore all up in the daily compared to yesterdays lows. Esp Singapore up a lot.

Sea of Oman to Arabian Sea Implied Dark Traffic:

This is all the oil traffic out to the Arabian sea minus 2.5mb (pre war output of Fujairah and Oman) to estimate the additional output of dark traffic out of Hormuz as well as any additional output from the ADCOP pipeline. Usual traffic should be around 21mb of crude and oil products.

Adding this further crude vs product breakdown for Gulf of Oman to Arabaian Sea as well.

TITAN WAVE added to the 13 Oct data as they popped up near west coast of india.

Listing the actual ships and their draft/dwt as well as helps check if I messed up with double counts/fills

Data from: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:63.3/centery:23.5/zoom:7

Bab al Mandab AIS on Traffic:

Oil products going out south from the Red Sea. Usual traffic is around 8mb. Edit: I dont think much is coming out any more from the East/West pipeline its very unclear what is output now. That still means the amount overall is down. The drop below is more from dropping Russian and other sources of usual oil going south out of the red sea as the Yanbu/East/West pipeline is all going north to suez.

Ships: FISCARDO BAY,POP,EPICURUS

Data from https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:45.8/centery:12.7/zoom:8

Strait of Malacca:

Usual oil products throughput is 16.5 mb crude and 6mb oil products. Also added how much of that malacca traffic is going to China as well as how much oil is from the Persian gulf.

Ships:FRONT SEOUL,HUA LIN WAN,AGISTRI,MOONI,ADVANTAGE VERDICT,MARAN ATHENA,YUAN YANG HU,SEA DRAGON

Data from https://tankermap.com/analytics/straits/malacca?unit=million_bbl_per_day

Singapore Oil Departures:

Note based on 2024 the average daily output in tonnes was 211,000 tonnes per day. I think 2025/2026 is much higher but they don't yet have official data.

Data from https://tankermap.com/analytics/ports/singapore-oil?unit=million_bbl_per_day

• UK approvals for Jackdaw and Rosebank remain delayed, with Prime Minister Andy Burnham blaming bureaucratic hurdles and promising a pragmatic decision.
• Shell and Equinor warn that further delays threaten investment, potentially undermining the UK's attractiveness to energy companies.
• The projects could add £35 billion to the UK economy and generate £12.1 billion in tax revenues by 2035, according to an industry-commissioned report.