Andrew Critchlow
Head of news, EMEA 
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January 6, 2020 10:42 UTC 
(0)
The killing of Major General Qassim Soleimani, Iran’s top hardline military leader, has put oil prices and the fragile stability of the Middle East once again on tenterhooks. Crude jumped 4.9% to almost $69.50/b on Friday after a US drone strike in Baghdad killed Soleimani on foreign soil. Oil traders are now weighing the scale and ferocity of Tehran’s inevitable response. |
S&P Global Platts
News editors
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July 22, 2019 05:30 UTC
(1)
S&P Global Platts editors’ pick of unfolding commodities trends. This week, tight US gasoline supply incentivizes imports, high-tech industries drive tin demand and Iranian oil exports hit new low. Plus impacts of Europe’s heatwave and China key economic data on energy and commodities. |
Emma Slawinski
Editor, Platts Insight
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July 19, 2019 12:25 UTC
(1)
After a calmer start to the week in geopolitics, US-Iran tensions erupted again on July 18 when President Donald Trump said the US Navy had shot down an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude prices responded with a near 2% increase by in Singapore morning trading hours. |
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Andrew Critchlow
Head of news, EMEA
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July 16, 2019 09:19 UTC
(2)
Deploying more of the Royal Navy to protect oil tankers from Iranian attack as they sail through the Strait of Hormuz is a short-term fix to a historic problem of providing energy security in the Persian Gulf. Instead of Britain adding to the crowded fleet of warships converging on the region, new export routes such as pipelines and canals should be opened up to provide long-term peaceful alternatives that would finally reduce the world’s dependence on the narrow 21-mile-wide channel dominated by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. |
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Andrew Critchlow
Head of news, EMEA
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May 28, 2019 09:55 UTC
(0)
Keeping fuel prices low is a political priority for US President Donald Trump. Just don’t bet on him gambling with America’s emergency oil stocks to achieve a second term in office, at the risk of jeopardizing energy security for the world’s largest economy. Created in the early 1970s, soon after the oil shock caused by OPEC’s disastrous response to the Yom Kippur war, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) remains arguably America’s most important economic buffer. Ironically, the first oil pumped into the giant salt caverns acquired by the US government was shipped from Saudi Arabia. |
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Andrew Critchlow
Head of news, EMEA
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May 20, 2019 07:10 UTC
(1)
Drone attacks on pipelines in Saudi Arabia and the mysterious alleged sabotage of tankers near Fujairah sent pulses racing, but a phony war in the Persian Gulf failed to trigger a feared triple-digit surge in crude prices. A hot war, however, between the US and Iran could be an entirely different matter. |
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Emma Slawinski
Editor, Platts Insight
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Energy and commodities highlights: Crude contamination, alternatives to Iranian oil, China shale gas
May 3, 2019 13:30 UTC
(0)
Supply-side issues continued to preoccupy oil markets at the start of May, after Russian crude exports to Central and Eastern Europe were hit by a contamination problem that caused disruption all along the supply chain. Problems with crude quality on Russia’s Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline began to emerge on April 18, and the pipe was subsequently shut down. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland responded by releasing emergency stocks. Exports from the Ust-Luga terminal on the Gulf of Finland were also disrupted. |
Brian Scheid
Senior editor, oil news
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April 29, 2019 11:14 UTC
(1)
On April 22, the Trump administration dropped its focus on global oil prices, abandoned its already dubious goal of US energy dominance and learned to love hardline policy idealism over economic pragmatism. That was the day the US said it would push to end all Iranian oil exports, refusing to extend waivers to Iran’s biggest crude and condensate buyers that had been allowed to import some Iran crude despite sanctions. |
Laura Huchzermeyer and Maria Eugenia Garcia
Editors, Americas crude oil markets
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April 24, 2019 12:39 UTC
(0)
Medium sour crude values have found fresh support, following an announcement on April 22 that the US will end all waivers from Iran sanctions when they expire on May 2. May barrels of USGC sour crude benchmark Mars were heard talked between $4.80/b and $5.05/b above WTI cash in the morning of April 22 and then later heard traded at WTI plus $5/b, up from the previous assessment of WTI plus $4.55/b on April 18. Also on the day of the announcement, June barrels of Mars were heard trading at WTI plus $5.10/b on, up from over $4.70/b. |
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Emma Slawinski
Editor, Platts Insight
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April 12, 2019 12:58 UTC
(0)
Commodity markets were weighing supply side risks this week, as key producing countries continue to grapple with sanctions and political upheaval. In Libya, Africa’s third-largest oil producer and a significant supplier of gas to Europe, violence has escalated and the country is in danger of falling back into civil war. International oil companies like Italy’s Eni have started evacuating staff from Tripoli. |
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