Jack Farchy

The World for Sale comes out in paperback this week If you want to understand how oil and commodity markets work, how they influence geopolitics, and the extraordinary power of a few little-known traders, take a look: smarturl.it/TheWorldForSale

Prices for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel are rebounding even as crude oil eases, a rare divergence that’s swelling costs for peak-season travelers bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

COLUMN: China giveth and China taketh away. Oil won't rise to $100 a barrel again this year or drop to $50 in 2027 if China keeps behaving as the rational energy trader we’ve seen in recent months. @Opinion bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

China’s oil buying strike has sent the value of physical crude from Angola to a >10-year low vs the Dated Brent benchmark. Beijing is typically a big importer of Angolan crude, but Chinese companies are now sellers, rather than buyers.

RT @JavierBlas: BREAKING: US Treasury issues a general license waiving key Iran oil sanctions until August 21, 2026. On a quick read, it’s…

MUST READ: Kuwait has started ramping up oil production and plans to reach 2 million b/d within a week (from 0.5m b/d during the war), KPC CEO Sheikh Nawaf Al-Sabah tells @FionamMacDonald in an interview. He says recovery faster than previously thought. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Lee Raymond, the oil executive who created Exxon Mobil via a mega-merger in 1998 and for many years fought global efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, has died. He was 87. Raymond ran Exxon from 1993, and negotiated the merger deal with Mobil CEO Lucio A. Noto, emerging as CEO of the combined entity. Exxon Mobil soon after became the world’s largest publicly traded company as oil prices surged.

Trafigura Pays Record Dividend as Profit Soars Over $4 Billion @megacontango bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Gunvor’s Geneva Offices Searched in Corruption Probe @hugodmiller @megacontango bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Willy Strothotte, Ex-Glencore CEO Who Ousted Marc Rich, Dies at 82 @megacontango bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

🚨🚨🚨🚨BREAKING: BP fires Chairman Albert Manifold due to what the company calls "serious concerns raised to the board related to important governance standards, oversight and conduct." Manifold is seen as the architect of the company's most recent turnaround. BP is down 5%.

A little-known Swiss trading company played a key role in getting an oil supertanker transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a stop-start journey that captivated the market earlier this month bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

The scale of the reduction in Chinese oil imports is increasingly difficult to explain with available data. On paper, Beijing is currently running its economy with ~1/4 less oil than pre-war. But demand destruction (or shift in petchem feedstock) can hardly explain *all* of it. So is China drawing hard on difficult-to-track commercial stocks of refined products? Has it tapped underground SPR sites? All of the above?

UK government says it's closing a tax loophole that allowed some oil/gas firms to pay little (or none at all) tax on their British energy trading profits. From @RachelReevesMP statement today:

BREAKING: US total crude inventories fell last week ~17.8 million barrels (that's commercial and SPR stocks combined). On that basis, it's the largest weekly fall since data is available starting in 1982.

The Qatari billionaire Al-Khayyat family is going after mega African infrastructure deals, including a 400km road in Congo bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

There were 28 sailors aboard the Bella 1 when the sanctioned, 330m-long supertanker turned around and made a mad dash across the Atlantic, US Coast Guard in pursuit. In the @FTMag this weekend — life aboard the shadow fleet, and in the firing line: as.ft.com/r/31e28d68-451…

COLUMN: China is quietly slashing oil imports, an invisible hand that's rebalancing the market in the middle of the Hormuz closure. (The shift has not only capped benchmark oil prices, but also triggered a collapse in physical differentials) @Opinion bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

US sanctions Iraq deputy oil minister Ali Maarij Al-Bahadly for allegedly facilitating the diversion of Iraqi oil to “be sold for the benefit of the Iranian regime and its proxy militias in Iraq.” home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel…

Counterintuitive perhaps, but the physical oil market appears to be calming. Dated Brent is hovering at ~$115 a barrel, and physical differentials have narrowed massively, with grades offered at ~$3 a barrel premium to the benchmark vs the ~$30 a barrel premium of mid-April.

MUST READ: The world’s biggest energy traders are reaping a fresh profit bonanza as the war in Iran causes unprecedented disruption to oil markets. @megacontango @jfarchy bloomberg.com/news/articles/…