Oil prices have weakened recently, mostly on the back of equally weak economic data from the two largest markets for oil.
Oil prices have nearly erased all year-to-date gains as shrinking refining margins signal weaker demand for oil.
Iran says construction work at the revived 10.8mn t/yr Iran LNG project stands at just shy of 50pc and is on track for completion before the end of the current administration’s term in office in mid-2025.
67 new oil and gas projects worth some $15 billion should be operational in Iran by next March, the country’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, has said.
Ever since the U.S. officially ended its ‘combat mission’ in Iraq on 31 December 2021, it has been looking for a way back into the huge but still relatively untapped oil and gas regions of the country, as analysed in depth in my new book on the new global oil market order.
Iran’s oil output has jumped to the highest in nearly five years, to 3.1 million barrels per day (bpd), a member of the energy committee at the Iranian Parliament was quoted as saying this weekend.
Reports of Iran/U.S. talks have surfaced repeatedly over the last couple of years, spooking the markets each time it’s suggested that Iran’s oil could return to the market. But Iran’s crude oil does add a mystery element to the oil markets that transcends demand forecasts.
Back in March, Saudi and Iran announced they had agreed to restore diplomatic ties in a deal brokered by China, ending a seven-year rift. The Saudi Arabia-Iran deal–one of the latest in a series of geopolitical realignments that have lately been going on in the Middle East–has been widely lauded, with the U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby saying, “To the degree that this arrangement can lead to an end to the war in Yemen, to the degree that it can help prevent Saudi Arabia from having to defend itself against attacks, to the degree that could deescalate tensions – all that’s to the good side of the ledger.
The road map of cooperation between Iran and Uzbekistan in the oil, gas and petrochemical industries was compiled during a visit of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and his accompanying delegation to Tehran.
The last week or so has seen a flurry of major cooperation agreements – including in energy, security, and logistics – between various permutations of Iran, Iraq, Russia, and China.