Japan’s import bill reached an all-time high in July, driven by higher oil prices, to a total of $76.39 billion. This was up by 27.8% from July 2025, Reuters reported, citing import and export data. In volume terms, Japan’s crude oil imports ticked up by 5.5% from a year earlier, but in price terms, the oil bill surged by 87.8%, breaking the previous record, set in June. “The recovery in crude volumes, combined with persistently high oil prices and larger shipments of pricier US crude, has been pushing up the value of imports,”…

Chinese refiners are buying Iraqi crude, with recent purchases of 8 million barrels of Basrah Heavy and Basrah Medium for prompt delivery, Bloomberg has reported, citing unnamed traders. Oil has continued flowing via the Strait of Hormuz—Iraq’s main export channel—despite the Iranian blockade, but the blockade has reduced these flows to a fraction of what they once were. For the week to August 17, Marine Traffic reported a total of 95 vessel crossings, down from 118 the previous week. Some tankers have found a way around that…

The world is installing wind turbines and solar panels faster than ever, but coal still generates more electricity than any other source, and by a huge margin. The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects coal-fired power plants to generate 10,974 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2026, nearly one-third of the 33,313 TWh of electricity produced worldwide. Natural gas is a distant second at 6,976 TWh, followed by hydropower at 4,536 TWh, solar at 3,289 TWh, wind at 2,898 TWh and nuclear at 2,871 TWh. In other words, coal will generate nearly as much electricity…

For most of the past six months, traders active on the commodity futures markets have been mostly optimistic. They have taken every statement by President Donald Trump about peace talks or victory over Iran at face value, betting on a speedy end of the war. Now, it has started to dawn on many that this is not happening. The physical squeeze is catching up with the market. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that a diesel shortage that has been brewing since spring is now growing increasingly severe and about to become even more…

Russia has been subject to many months of a ramped-up long-range drone campaign out of Ukraine, chiefly targeting oil refineries as well as industrial sites - and most recently expanding to online retail companies and attacks on private sector businesses.  Tuesday saw one of the single biggest drone waves on Moscow of the war, for example, with at least 600 sent against the capital region, resulting in widespread panic and some casualties. Making matters worse for the Russian population, several gas station networks have introduced new restrictions…

Oilfield services giant SLB is preparing to reactivate as many as 15 drilling rigs in Venezuela, potentially removing one of the biggest obstacles to increasing the country’s crude production. SLB and energy-focused private equity firm Formentera Partners are working on separate efforts to increase Venezuela’s drilling capacity, executives said at an industry conference in Houston on Wednesday. Formentera is discussing importing rigs with international service companies, while SLB is focused on equipment already inside Venezuela. SLB…

The oil market has remained complacent for months amid the worst disruption in global supply, with crude oil futures rarely topping $100 per barrel over the six months in which tanker traffic at the Strait of Hormuz is a trickle compared to pre-war levels. While market participants have been putting too much hope of a resolution of the conflict in their bets on future crude prices, product supply of the fuel of the economies – diesel – has been shrinking.     So much has the diesel market tightened in recent months that…

Trafigura Group and several other traders delivered more than 20,000 tons of copper into LME warehouses on Tuesday, the biggest one-day build in on-warrant stock since April, and the squeeze that had gripped the London market for the past week came apart. The cash-to-three-month spread settled at a $248-a-ton backwardation, down from as much as $545 on Monday, which was the widest since 2021. Trafigura was behind a large share of the metal placed on warrant, according to people familiar with the deliveries, and traders expect more to follow in…