Asia’s diesel exports to Africa are surging to nearly five-year highs, as Middle East’s sales to Africa crashed to nine-year lows amid threats to shipping and refinery outages, a Reuters analysis of ship-tracking data and volumes showed on Monday. The Middle East conflict has made shipping of fuels, including diesel, to east Africa challenging, with ongoing security threats to tankers in both the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. In addition, attacks by the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen on Saudi energy infrastructure have…

China’s liquefied natural gas imports are on track to slump by 18% in August from a year earlier, bucking a three-month-long trend of growing purchases this summer, as high LNG prices put off some price-sensitive industrial consumers, vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg showed on Monday. The average price of spot LNG for delivery into Asia nearly doubled this month from a year earlier, as the global gas markets continue to tighten amid intense Asia-Europe competition for supply that’s not trapped behind the Strait of Hormuz.…

A supertanker caught fire after hitting two naval mines in the southern Strait of Hormuz, Iranian state media reported on Monday, citing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The tanker was trying to transit the Strait illegally, the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement carried by Iranian media without identifying the vessel or its crew. Other vessels that attempt to violate IRGC’s security rules would face the same fate, Iran said. Complying with Iranian regulations for crossing the Strait of Hormuz is mandatory, the Guards…

Lithium miners are reporting strong profits for the first half of the year thanks to stronger demand for battery storage, Bloomberg reported today, noting some of them are planning production ramp-ups and capacity expansion. Two Chinese lithium majors - Tianqi Lithium Corp. and Ganfeng Lithium Group - reported their biggest profits in three years for the first six months of the year, the report said. U.S. Albemarle said global lithium demand had risen 45% year over year through May, driven largely by strong demand for battery storage. Supply has…

Asian crude oil importers, including China, Japan, and South Korea, have turned to buying oil from as far as Argentina to offset supply losses from the Middle East, anonymous traders with knowledge of the purchases told Bloomberg on Monday.     Refiners in Asia, which have relied on the Middle East for a large part of their term supplies before the Iran war, are now scouring the global crude oil market for alternative barrels that do not need to pass through the Strait of Hormuz or other geopolitical hotspots, or take a month longer…

Refiners are set to reap stronger profits on the global diesel shortage, Goldman Sachs has said, revising its earlier profit forecast to double the total profits that refining companies would make from the squeeze. “Rising strikes on refineries in the Middle East and Russia have further constrained already-stretched global refining capacity, pushing refined-products margins to new highs,” the bank’s analysts wrote in a note, as quoted by Bloomberg. “Diesel remains at the epicenter of the rally,” they added Global diesel…

The United States will use Venezuelan crude to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, President Donald Trump said on Sunday on social media. Describing the move as a “Gift from Venezuela to the People of the United States,” President Trump said the “topping out” will begin soon, as quoted by Reuters. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been drawn close to minimum operational levels amid a surge in U.S. crude oil exports in response to the crisis in the Middle East. As of August 21, per Reuters, the SPR held 290 million…

Oil prices climbed in early Asian trade on Monday after the U.S. struck Iran for the first time in over a month, with Iran then retaliating against U.S. bases in Jordan. At the time of writing, WTI front-month futures were trading at $85.46 per barrel, up 2.47%, while Brent front-month futures had climbed 2.71% to $90.49 per barrel. The latest escalation started on Sunday when U.S. forces struck two Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island, which sits inside the Strait of Hormuz. According to a U.S. Central Command spokesperson, the attack came…