Oil
Oil Prices Under Pressure Despite Fresh Sanctions on Iran
At the same time that US-Russia talks on a final Ukraine settlement are underway, the Trump administration has been tightening the screws on Iranian oil supply. The White House announced yet another round of sanctions on anyone believed to facilitate Tehran’s exports to China. Despite that move, ICE Brent futures currently trading around $74 per barrel, beneath the $74.29-77.00 per barrel range that has so far contained every single settlement this month.
US President Donald Trump called for the immediate relaunch of TC Energy’s (TSE:TRP) 800,000 b/d Keystone XL pipeline, supposed to bring heavy Canadian barrels to US refineries, saying the project was ‘viciously jettisoned’ by the Biden administration.
The US Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil industry this Monday, blacklisting more than 30 brokers and shipping companies for their alleged participation in trades, in line with President Trump’s maximum pressure pledge on Tehran.
European Union countries lifted most of sanctions against Syria, including restrictions on energy, banking and transport, a month after former al-Qaeda commander Mohammad al-Julani seized power from Bashar al-Assad, also lifting asset freezes for banks.
UK oil major BP will scrap its target of increasing renewable generation 20-fold by 2030, to be announced this week by chief executive Murray Auchincloss, as its current 8.2 GW renewable generation capacity is a mere fraction of the 50 GW required.
Italy’s Saipem (BIT:SPM), one of the world’s largest oilfield services companies, has agreed to merge with Norway’s Subsea 7, creating a global services giant with revenues of $21 billion per year and an order backlog of some $45 billion.
The political class of French Guiana is lobbying the French government to revoke its 2017 moratorium on oil and gas prospecting and allow oil companies to appraise the region’s offshore resources, prompted by neighboring Guyana’s success.
Flows through the CPC pipeline that brings Kazakh oil to global markets continue uninterrupted despite last week’s Ukrainian drone attack on a pumping station in Russia, casting doubts on whether damage repair could be done quicker than two months.
Brussels is set to water down its carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) by exempting some 99% of European businesses from paying levies on CO2 emissions in imported goods, setting a new mass-based threshold of 50 metric tonnes per year.
India’s market regulator SEBI has proposed lowering position limits for equity stock derivatives, either at 15% of free-float market capitalization or 60 times the average daily delivery value, wary of potential fallout from an overheated stock market.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has temporarily halted cobalt exports, citing an oversupplied global market that saw China’s CMOC double production in the African country to 114,000 tonnes last year, keeping the export ban until at least June 2025.
Joining the ranks of Japan and Taiwan, the government of the Philippines has expressed interest in the planned 20 mtpa Alaska LNG project thanks to its geographic proximity, currently relying on Australia for almost 40% of its LNG imports.
Potential buyers of Qatari LNG demand that Doha offers lower prices with its long-term supply deals, pushing for a low- to mid-12% Brent oil slope instead of the 13% offered by QatarEnergy, still leaving some 55% of 2nd phase expansion volumes unsold.
The Coast Guard of Taiwan detained the Chinese-crewed cargo ship Hong Tai 58, registered in Togo, over suspicions that it damaged a subsea communication cable to the Penghu Islands in Taiwan Strait, the fifth such incident in 2025 alone.
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