Things affecting the price of oil
Destroyed
** The U.S. military destroyed two Iranian small boats Monday after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tried to seize an unmanned U.S. Navy vessel patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officials said.
Saudi Arabia
** A crucial Saudi oil pipeline that was struck in an attack will be mostly out of service for weeks as the damage is repaired, two regional officials said Monday, as Yemen’s Houthi rebels seized more islands along Red Sea shipping routes in a new blow to Saudi Arabia’s oil exports.
Vow
** The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen has promised to respond “firmly” to missile and drone attacks by the Iran-aligned Houthi group that wounded 13 civilians across three cities in the kingdom.
Hormuz
** A lightning offensive along Yemen’s Red Sea coast by Iranian-backed Houthi militants has strengthened Tehran’s leverage in its war of economic attrition with Washington – giving it the ability to threaten a waterway that plays an even broader role in global shipping than the Strait of Hormuz.
Russia
** Three of Russia’s six largest diesel-producing refineries are now either shut or operating at roughly one-quarter capacity after Ukrainian drone attacks damaged plants that together form the backbone of the country’s fuel system. The six refineries—Omsk, Kirishi, Taneco, Volgograd, NORSI and Perm—account for roughly half of Russia’s diesel production, according to Reuters calculations based on market data. Kirishi is completely offline.
Ukraine
** President Trump is urging Ukraine to stop hitting Russian refineries, while his top lieutenants say restricting U.S. exports would not help.
LNG
** Santos has agreed to two separate non-binding liquefied natural gas (LNG) arrangements covering supply to POSCO Steel and purchases from the proposed Ksi Lisims LNG project in Canada.
Reactors
** The International Atomic Energy Agency has released its annual projections of future energy demands and nuclear power capacity – and suggested in its ‘high case’ scenario that by 2060 there could be as much as 284 GWe capacity provided by small modular reactors, which would be the equivalent of 946 SMRs if they average 300 MWe capacity, or 1,136 SMRs if they average 250 MWe.
U.S. energy
** The average fuel surcharge for grain shipments on U.S. railways more than doubled over the past year, in the latest sign of how soaring energy prices will spur inflation of food costs. The surcharge skyrocketed 153% to 48 cents per rail car-mile by the second week of September, according to a Reuters analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture data.
** Gov. Greg Abbott has directed the Texas Water Development Board, the state agency tasked with overseeing the state’s water planning process, to penalize data centers that do not report their water usage.
** Entergy plans to defer Google’s $2.1 billion in the Cypress Solar payments for its large data center being built near Memphis, Arkansas while customers cover the construction cost.
** NextEra and Dominion are sweetening the deal for Virginia ratepayers as they seek approval for their megamerger, offering expanded bill credits. The path to state approval of the $67 billion deal to create by far the nation’s largest utility is politically tricky.
** Venezuela is deploying officials to a Group of 20 summit of energy chiefs in Texas this week, underscoring the rapid rapprochement between Washington and Caracas.”
** While U.S. refineries are running basically flat out, the world’s refineries last month processed over 6 million barrels per day less than in August 2025, S&P finds.
