Pins matching tag:Oil

Debris from two intercepted drones, launched as Iran struck its Gulf neighbours, started a fire at Saudi Arabia's largest domestic refinery, a 550,000 barrel-a-day plant, and Aramco halted it as a precaution.

Aramco's 2025 net profit fell 12% to SAR 348 billion on lower oil prices, yet it raised its quarterly base dividend 3.5% to $21.89 billion and announced its first-ever share buyback, of up to $3 billion. No performance-linked dividend was declared for 2025.

Thirty-two IEA member nations agreed on 11 March 2026 to release 400 million barrels between them after Iranian attacks slowed tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The American share was 172 million barrels, the largest US release ever ordered, and Secretary Wright said it would take about 120 days to deliver.

The first tranche of the 172-million-barrel release went out as a request for proposals on 13 March 2026, covering 86 million barrels from Bryan Mound, West Hackberry and Bayou Choctaw. Bids were due the following Tuesday, and the borrowers must hand the oil back with extra barrels on top.

Sable Offshore resumed shipping crude from Las Flores Canyon to Pentland Station through the Santa Ynez Pipeline System on March 14, 2026, complying with a Defense Production Act order issued by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The company expects first sales by April 1, 2026 at a gross oil rate of 50,000 Bbls/d, which it says would raise domestic crude supply into the California market by about 17%.

From 22 March 2026 drone attacks on Russia's two big Baltic oil ports, Primorsk and Ust-Luga, suspended oil and fuel loadings; Reuters satellite analysis later showed Primorsk lost at least 40% of its storage, and the Kremlin called the strikes "terrorist attacks".

DOE went back to the market on 1 April 2026 for a third exchange, this one drawn entirely from the Bryan Mound caverns outside Freeport, Texas. Bidders had until the following Monday, and a limited Jones Act waiver let them move the crude on foreign-flagged ships to get it to refiners faster.

DOE had asked for up to 30 million barrels of sweet crude from West Hackberry on 9 April 2026; eight days later it awarded contracts for 26 million of them, with deliveries starting at once. By then more than 10 million barrels of the wider exchange had already reached the market.

On 28 April 2026 the United Arab Emirates said it would leave OPEC and OPEC+ effective 1 May, ending a membership that began with Abu Dhabi in 1967; its energy minister called it "a purely policy move" aimed at strategic autonomy, announced while Hormuz was closed and Brent was above $110.

Brent crude surged overnight on 30 April 2026 to $126.41 a barrel, the highest since early 2022, on the expiring June contract, before falling back toward $116 as volumes thinned; US gasoline hit a four-year high of $4.30.

Aramco's first-quarter adjusted net income jumped to $33.6 billion from $26.6 billion as it ran the East-West Pipeline at its full 7 million barrels a day to export from the Red Sea while the Strait of Hormuz was choked off. The board held the base dividend at $21.9 billion, 3.5% up on a year earlier.

After soliciting up to 92.5 million barrels from all four storage sites - the largest single exchange in the reserve's history - DOE awarded contracts for 53.3 million on 11 May 2026, at a return premium of about 28 per cent. That is 15.1 million extra barrels owed back to the stockpile.

Aramco's second-quarter adjusted net income rose 33% to $33.4 billion as prices surged with the Strait of Hormuz disrupted by the Iran war, while exports kept flowing through the East-West Pipeline. It declared a $21.9 billion base dividend; first-half adjusted profit reached $67.2 billion.

Weekly Energy Department data published on 10 August 2026 put the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at 298.7 million barrels, down 6.1 million in a week and the lowest reading in the EIA series since January 1983. The stockpile had held about 415 million barrels before the Iran war began.

Late on 31 August 2026 the very large crude carriers Sidr and Senegal Prosperity, each carrying about two million barrels of Saudi crude, were hit by unidentified projectiles minutes apart as they left the Strait of Hormuz; no one claimed the attacks and crews were safe.

Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman met virtually on 6 September 2026 and decided to keep September required production unchanged for October, pausing the monthly increases that followed the UAE departure.

Multiple drone attacks on the morning of 10 September 2026 damaged three pumping stations on Saudi Arabia's 1,200 km East-West oil pipeline and forced its shutdown; Riyadh blamed drones launched from Iraq, a claim an Iraqi umbrella group denied.

Treasury's OFAC extended the license that lets Lukoil negotiate and sign conditional deals for LUKOIL International from 19 September to 22 October 2026, with the Carlyle agreement still awaiting separate approval.

Lukoil's Perm refinery, over 1,500 km from Ukraine and Russia's seventh largest, halted operations on 25 September 2026 after a Ukrainian drone attack set it on fire, Reuters reported, the fourth Russian refinery to stop in under a week.

Ukrainian drones struck the Ilsky oil refinery, a 6.6 million tonne-a-year plant in Krasnodar Krai, on the night of 26 September 2026, starting a fire; the General Staff confirmed the strike, which it described as exercising Ukraine's right of self-defense.

Sable Offshore expects the Hondo platform offshore California to come back online by the end of September 2026, the third Santa Ynez Unit platform restarted after Heritage and Harmony. On its August earnings call management said the 45-year-old platform needed about 50% more work than expected and that it was "hoping" to hit the September timing. Hondo is expected to produce lower-sulfur crude that should bring field-wide sulfur content back to normal levels.

The seven remaining OPEC+ countries hold their next monthly meeting on 4 October 2026 to decide required production for November, with Brent above $100 and Hormuz still restricting Gulf exports.

Aramco's third-quarter 2026 results and dividend declaration, estimated for Tuesday 3 November 2026 at about 8 a.m. Riyadh time from its pattern; the company has not announced the day. It will be measured against Q2's $33.4 billion adjusted profit and $21.9 billion base dividend.

Sable Offshore’s October 26 announcement schedules its third-quarter 2026 financial and operating results for Monday November 9, before the market opens.

OPEC+ ministers meet on 29 November 2026 for the group's twice-yearly ministerial, its second since the UAE left, with production levels agreed through December 2026 and maximum-capacity assessments due to set 2027 baselines.

The offshore Zuluf increment, whose associated gas feeds the new Tanajib Gas Plant, is on track for completion in 2026 after Marjan came on stream in December 2025.