The Trump administration has revealed the details of its “economic D-Day” campaign against Iran, expanding secondary sanctions that threaten foreign companies with exclusion from the U.S. financial system for continuing to do business with Tehran and targeting nearly 60 individuals, entities and vessels in the first round of new measures. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday formally launched “Operation Economic Outcast,” giving countries a defined, but unspecified, timeline to shut down Iran-related activity identified…

Iran has made a new gas discovery in the southern province of Fars, with the oil ministry reporting estimates of 7.5 trillion cubic feet of gas, of which 73% is recoverable, or 5.7 trillion cu ft. Iran has the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves, after Russia. “This amount of gas is equivalent to one block of South Pars, which can supply gas for 15 years,” oil minister Mohsen Paknejad said, as quoted by Iranian media. “This volume of gas has the special characteristic of being sweet, which reduces both development…

Exxon is in the running for Shell’s U.S. chemicals business that could fetch $8 billion, the Financial Times reported today, citing unnamed sources familiar with developments. The U.S. supermajor is competing with LyondellBasell, Apollo Global Management, and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, the unnamed sources also told the publication. The potential buyers have submitted non-binding offers to Shell, with these ranging from offers to buy parts of the business to offers for the whole division. Shell’s chemicals business in the United…

Tanker traffic via the Strait of Hormuz remained weak over the weekend, with fewer than 20 vessels traversing the chokepoint as Iran and the United States traded threats again. Some 13 tankers passed through the strait on Saturday, with only four making the journey on Sunday, Kpler data cited by Reuters showed. That compares to 16 passing through the strait on Friday and one very large crude carrier exiting Hormuz on Thursday, the data also showed. Over the week to August 21, a total of 103 vessels entered the Strait of Hormuz while 89 exited it,…

Oil prices fell by more than 2% in early Asian trade on Monday as traders took profits and markets awaited details of a new U.S. sanctions package against Iran. At the time of writing, WTI futures were trading at $85.18 per barrel, down 2.16%, while Brent futures were trading at $92.32 per barrel, down 2.19%. Both benchmarks gained more than 5% last week as the U.S. and Iran continued to trade threats, Iranian crude exports dropped, and tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz slowed to a trickle. Today’s pullback appears to be driven…

The outlook for the Middle East war remains grim, the U.S. just threatened Iran with the “toughest sanctions in history,” and the world is running out of stored fuels. To make matters worse, refining capacity is down considerably, and even if the outlook for the war suddenly changed and the U.S. and Iran made peace, the fuel squeeze will last for months—and so will its adverse effects on the global economy. Watching crude oil prices, one would think everything is under control. Both Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate are…

Mexico’s state oil firm Pemex and Brazil’s national oil company Petrobras are joining efforts and expertise to drill prospects in Mexican waters in the Gulf of Mexico, hoping to unlock huge oil resources from source rock formations that are miles deeper and eight times older than the currently producing formations in the U.S. Gulf. Exploration in the Jurassic formations deep under the Mexican Gulf seabed in the Campeche Bay carries high risks, but the reward in case of a discovery could be enormous, geologists and analysts tell Bloomberg.…

The world is set to experience an extremely intense El Niño weather event this year, with warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific. This could disrupt typical weather patterns and lead to heavy rainfall in some regions and severe drought in others. While it is unclear whether the more frequent occurrence of El Niño is directly linked to human-caused climate change, it is certainly exacerbating extreme weather patterns in some parts of the world.  El Niño occurs every few years, but this year…