Trump has suggested that China is free to buy oil from Iran if it wants, but urges Beijing to purchase more U.S. crude instead, essentially suggesting that more oil deals are the price for de-escalating things with Iran. China’s purchases of Iranian barrels have surged past 1.5 million bpd, and the U.S. administration, despite the high-profile strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, is more interested in export competitiveness than in curbing illicit flows.
– Iraq is preparing to import LNG for the first time, from the U.S. Iraq’s domestic gas shortages have become acute, and American molecules are now being framed as a practical solution, politically viable in a post-Gas-for-Power scandal landscape.
– Moscow says it has captured a village in eastern Ukraine located near a lithium deposit, according to Russian state-linked sources. While the military significance is marginal, the location matters. Moscow is positioning itself not just as a spoiler in Ukraine but as a player in the global energy transition, chipping away at Western access to critical minerals while keeping gas exports steady.
– India remains non-committal on restarting oil purchases from Iran. While public signals are vague, private refiners are said to be running cost-benefit models against discounted Russian barrels and politically safer U.S. and Saudi flows. The geopolitical window is open, but the commercial calculus still tilts against a return to Iranian crude, at least until there’s regulatory clarity from Washington or a material price shock that forces Delhi’s hand.
– The U.S. has sanctioned Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for alleged use of chemical weapons, marking a rare invocation of WMD-related authorities outside the usual nonproliferation flashpoints. The timing is notable, coming as Washington faces criticism for a muted response to Sudan’s civil war and as regional actors like the UAE face scrutiny for their ties to the RSF. While the sanctions have limited direct economic bite, they elevate the conflict’s profile and suggest the U.S. may be preparing to lean harder on Gulf partners backing paramilitary factions. The move also serves a narrative function: repositioning Washington as willing to act against WMD use beyond Syria or state actors like Iran.
Discovery & Development
– Equinor has commissioned new subsea infrastructure linking the Fram and Troll West fields, aimed at boosting oil and gas output into Europe’s grid. The installation includes new wells and pipelines designed to extend field life and increase recovery rates, with first flows already underway. This is another quiet but deliberate step in Norway’s campaign to consolidate its role as Europe’s most reliable long-term supplier. While LNG headlines tend to dominate, it’s these kinds of brownfield tiebacks and incremental capacity gains that are keeping European energy balances stable as Russian flows remain politically and physically constrained.
– China’s Ministry of Natural Resources has announced the discovery of a major shale oil deposit in the Ordos Basin, claiming technically recoverable reserves of over 1 billion metric tons. While production economics remain unproven at scale, Beijing is clearly signaling its intent to reduce import dependence and develop more domestic upstream muscle. The announcement comes as Chinese refiners lean harder into discounted Russian and Iranian barrels, but the state narrative is shifting: long-term resilience will require not just diversified imports but viable homegrown supply. Whether Ordos becomes commercially meaningful or not, the political value of the find is already being banked.
Deals, Mergers & Acquisitions
– The Financial Times floated the prospect of a BP–Shell merger, citing unnamed senior executives and preliminary conversations. The idea set off a brief wave of speculation about consolidation at the top of European energy, with some framing it as a response to U.S. supermajors pulling ahead on scale and returns. Shell promptly denied the report, calling it “categorically untrue.”
– Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR has completed its acquisition of a 10% stake in Israel’s Tamar gas field, giving Baku a formal foothold in Eastern Mediterranean gas production. This cements SOCAR’s role not just as a transit player but as a producer in its own right, with potential implications for Turkey-Azerbaijan-Israel energy triangulation. The move also subtly complicates European diversification strategy, as more volumes from Tamar now run through an actor closely aligned with Ankara and not entirely divorced from Russian influence.
– Chevron has signed another 1 mtpa of offtake from the under-the-radar ETS Lake Charles LNG project, bringing more credibility to a Gulf Coast export facility that had been largely written off as a relic of the last cycle. While bigger names like Plaquemines and Corpus Christi Stage 3 dominate headlines, Lake Charles is quietly pulling together a buyer’s list, underscoring that even second-tier U.S. LNG projects can move if the pricing is sharp and the counterparty list long enough.
– The UK government has rejected the proposed Morocco-UK green energy cable project, which aimed to send large volumes of solar and wind power across a 3,800 km HVDC subsea line. Officially, the decision was framed as regulatory, not political, but it deals a blow to one of the more ambitious transcontinental renewable concepts in play. The rejection reflects Whitehall’s discomfort with large-scale offshore dependency for baseload power, even if the source is carbon-free. For now, Britain’s decarbonization strategy appears to be folding inward.
Credit: Oilprice.com
