Increase
** Brent benchmark oil prices rose by $3 on Thursday after China suspended oil products exports, potentially tightening fuel markets already coping with supply shortages globally, while investors continued to assess diplomatic efforts to end the US-Israeli war on Iran.
IRGC
** Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has hailed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq as a historic victory and the beginning of Washington’s “expulsion” from the region and the wider Islamic world.
Tankers
** Gulf oil producers, with considerable support from the U.S. Navy, are jamming crude through the Strait of Hormuz, right under Iran’s nose. Oil and petroleum product flows through the critical chokepoint averaged 13.1 million barrels per day last week, according to Kpler, a marine data tracking service. That’s just under 80% of the 17.1 million barrels that had traveled through the strait each day before the war broke out.
India
** A major explosion and fire have hit one of India’s largest refineries just as the country is pushing its plants above normal operating rates to offset tight fuel supplies caused by the Iran war. One worker was killed, and at least eight others were injured Wednesday in the explosion at Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd.’s 15-million-tonne-per-year refinery in Mangaluru, according to MRPL and local authorities.
Canada
** Canada will fast track the approval process for a new proposed crude oil export pipeline to its west coast that could generate over C$20 billion ($14 billion) a year in GDP, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Thursday.
US Energy Developments
** President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday plans for South Korea to invest roughly $54 billion to export natural gas from Alaska, a project long backed by Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, who’s in a competitive reelection contest there.
** Ovintiv Inc. announced it has received regulatory approvals for the renewal of its share buy-back program.
The Toronto Stock Exchange has accepted Ovintiv’s notice of intention to renew its normal course
issuer bid to purchase up to 26,973,037 common shares during the 12-month period commencing
October 5, 2026, and ending October 4, 2027.
** The Department of Energy awarded a $50 million grant to CenterPoint Energy to support advanced substation technology upgrades in the Greater Houston area, one of the fastest-growing regions in Texas and the nation.
** Residential geothermal giant Dandelion Energy and utility Vermont Gas (VGS) have announced what they call a “first-of-its-kind” partnership: The power couple is collaborating on geothermal systems to heat and cool a new affordable housing development in Vermont.
** A fifth of large oil and gas producers plan to pour cash from higher prices into new capital expenditures, the Dallas Fed’s latest survey of firms in its region finds.
