Oil
Oil prices unaffected by Storm Fern’s supply shock, as brent remains $66 per barrel
Winter Storm Fern and the impacts of the US’ Arctic blast have shifted the attention away from the gradual return of Kazakhstan’s Tengiz barrels.
One could argue that ICE Brent staying put around $66 per barrel doesn’t do justice to the severity of Fern as up to 2 million b/d of US crude oil production was curtailed over the weekend, equivalent to some 15% of national output, OilPrice.com reports.
Market participants expect OPEC+ countries to roll over their production quotas for March 2026, in line with the previously telegraphed freeze on output unwinding in Q1, as $66 per barrel Brent prices remain too low for most members’ budgets.
The Kazakh Energy Ministry announced that the country’s largest oil field Tengiz, has resumed production, after project operator Chevron (NYSE:CVX) was forced to halt pumping completely due to disruptions from drone strikes and a generator fire.
Libya’s National Oil Company signed 25-year development deals with ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) and TotalEnergies (NYSE:TTE) to develop oil fields within the Waha Oil Company joint venture, aimed at tripling production capacity by up to 850,000 b/d.
The Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed an antitrust lawsuit against four of the United States’ largest oil companies – ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP and Shell – claiming that they colluded to forestall competition from renewable energy resources, including EVs.
The European Council has voted to approve Europe’s long-mulled ban on imports of Russian piped natural gas and LNG, pledging to halt incoming flows of LNG completely by January 2027 and to stop importing pipeline gas by end-September 2027.
The extreme Arctic Blast sweeping through the United States has prompted shale producers in North Dakota’s Bakken basin to cut production by 100-110,000 b/d, equivalent to roughly 10% of the state’s total production as drillers fear ‘freeze-offs’.
The US Treasury Department sanctioned nine shadow fleet tankers allegedly servicing Iranian oil flows and their respective owners headquartered in Oman, India and the United Arab Emirates, taking the total of sanctioned ships above 180.
Following years of relatively weak exploration results, US oil major Chevron (NYSE:CVX) has posted a ‘significant’ shallow-water oil discovery in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, finding commercial volumes of crude with its Awodi-07 wildcat, drilled to a depth of 3,800 m.
Germany, Denmark, Britain and other European countries have signed a renewable energy pact this week at the Hamburg North Sea summit, vowing to deliver 100 GW of offshore wind power capacity, without providing a specific deadline.
The US’ largest regional power grid PJM issued extra alerts to transmission and generation firms as it expects peak demand to exceed 130 GW for seven straight days, an unprecedented maximum-demand streak as Tuesday’s peak load hit a record of 147 GW.
The governments of Syria and Jordan have signed an agreement to supply Damascus with 1.4 bcm/year of natural gas via Jordanian territory, with Qatar providing and financing LNG supply to be further piped northwards via the Arab Gas Pipeline.
Trump Jitters Feed the Bullion’s Nonstop Rally. With the US Federal Reserve convening again for its policy meeting today, gold prices have broken through the $5,100 per ounce threshold after President Trump announced higher tariffs on South Korea, hiking the 2026 to date rally to 18%.
China’s state-owned oil giant PetroChina has ordered its traders not to buy Venezuelan crude after the Trump administration attacked Venezuela and seized Nicolas Maduro, nudging Chinese buyers to maximize heavy Canadian imports instead.
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