Monday, 20 July 2026

Bloomberg counts nine or more commercial vessels hit since the U.S.-Iran truce broke down, five of them very large crude carriers. The International Maritime Organization has said the Strait of Hormuz is now too dangerous for normal commercial navigation.

Export activity through the Gulf slipped back after a short rebound. World Oil reported that satellite imagery caught just one tanker at berth at Saudi Arabia's main Gulf export terminals on Wednesday, following a brief pickup that ran from late June into early July.

"The loading pace has started to roll over," said Rory Johnston, founder of Commodity Context. He described a recovery that reversed almost as fast as it began, with conditions worsening across the board.

The strain falls hardest on Iraq, which ships nearly all its crude through the Basra Oil Terminal, according to World Oil. A renewed scarcity of available tankers there has slowed shipments and pushed the country into further production cuts.

Saudi Arabia carries more insulation than several of its neighbors, since it can route a large portion of its barrels to the Red Sea and skip the Strait of Hormuz entirely.

The United States launched fresh strikes across Iran against more than 80 sites and scrapped a waiver that had permitted new sales of Iranian oil, according to Rigzone. The two moves added strain to the interim agreement signed on June 17, which set a 60-day path toward a permanent peace, Rigzone reported.

The strikes targeted Iranian air defenses, command and control networks, coastal radar installations and anti-ship missile assets, according to Rigzone. More than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats were also hit.

The US Treasury Department said it would bar new sales of Iranian oil after July 7, according to Rigzone. Ending the waiver stripped out an incentive designed to hold Tehran to a deal that requires reopening the strait.

Brent crude rose 3.4% to trade near USD 77 a barrel early Wednesday, Rigzone reported. That price sits well under the peak above USD 126 a barrel Brent touched in late April, two months into the military campaign against Iran, according to Rigzone.

Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group and a former White House official, told Rigzone the end of the waiver "is a signal to a complacent market that the ceasefire may not be as durable and solid as thought". "The market has some risk pricing to do," he said.

A gas supplier in regional Victoria plans to close its network by the end of 2026, leaving 10 towns without a supply and pushing residents to swap out their gas appliances, according to RenewEconomy.

The closure lands on a lopsided funding base. Households and small businesses cover roughly 90 per cent of gas distribution network revenue while using a much smaller portion of the gas that flows through the pipes, RenewEconomy reports.

That gap grows each time a customer leaves. Current rules mean the cost of maintaining pipes after one household disconnects is passed to the neighbours still on the network, according to RenewEconomy.

Gas companies are seeking regulator approval to recoup their investments faster, which raises bills for the customers who remain, RenewEconomy reports.

Claire Ohk of Energy Consumers Australia says the cost of a declining gas industry should be split proportionately among network investors, governments, and consumers.

The group's Power Move report warned that leaving the gas network decline unmanaged is no longer viable, according to RenewEconomy.

The UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) published its annual report and accounts for 2025 to 2026 on 16 July 2026.

The report sets out the department's activities over the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. DESNZ describes it as a report on the expenditure and performance of the department for that period.

The print-ready PDF of the report runs to 326 pages and 17.6 MB, according to DESNZ.

Chinese solar firms are pulling back from the United States, with more than half of the clean-tech investments they announced since 2022 now canceled, paused, or delayed, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Semafor Net Zero tied the retreat to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump, which unwound Biden-era incentives that had drawn green investment into the country.

Two leading Chinese solar firms were added to a Pentagon blacklist, according to The Wire China.

The tightening rules could push Chinese manufacturers to scale back or exit US operations, one analyst told Semafor Net Zero, warning that "at some point, it will stop making financial sense".

The National Laboratory of the Rockies signed two new memorandums of understanding on May 19 to increase research and innovation in critical minerals, energy, and buildings in Alaska and the Arctic, according to CleanTechnica.

NLR Laboratory Director Jud Virden signed the partnership agreements at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference in Anchorage, CleanTechnica reported.

Switching eligible households to induction cooking would recover its cost within around 1.7 years through avoided LPG subsidies, while replacing LPG with coal-based dimethyl ether (DME) would roughly triple the subsidy bill, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

IEEFA estimated that a one-time investment of IDR105 trillion (USD6 billion) to provide induction packages could pay back in about 1.7 years and generate nearly IDR200 trillion (USD11.7 billion) in savings over five years.

By contrast, fully replacing LPG with coal-based DME would require around IDR194 trillion (USD11.8 billion) in annual subsidies, IEEFA said. The subsidy burden of IDR22,730 per kilogram would run about 2.3 times the current LPG subsidy.

Subsidized 3kg LPG cylinders made up 92% of Indonesia's LPG consumption by volume in 2025, costing IDR87 trillion in subsidies, according to IEEFA.

The country consumed 9.24 million tonnes of LPG in 2025, with more than 80% imported as a finished product, IEEFA said. About 29% of imports came from the Middle East.

Household reliance on the fuel is deep. Indonesia's Central Statistics Agency (BPS) reported that 89.7% of households used LPG as their primary cooking fuel in 2025.

Prices for non-subsidized supply have already climbed. On 18 April 2026, Pertamina raised the price of non-subsidized 12kg LPG cylinders by 18.75%, to IDR228,000 from IDR192,000 per cylinder.

The fiscal pressure is widening. Indonesia's Finance Minister has committed an additional IDR100 trillion (USD5.9 billion) in energy subsidies in 2026, on top of the IDR381.3 trillion (USD22.5 billion) allocated in September 2025.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy named Sergii Koretskyi, chief executive of state-run energy company NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy, as the country's next prime minister, according to Rigzone. The bill submitted to parliament sets Koretskyi to succeed Yuliia Svyrydenko.

Lawmakers confirmed his approval on Thursday in a vote of 289 to 1, with seven abstaining, Rigzone reported.

Zelenskyy had considered candidates with energy-sector experience for the role to avoid a repeat of last winter's hardships, when Russian airstrikes severely crippled infrastructure and disrupted electricity, heating and water supplies during an exceptionally cold season, according to Rigzone.

Ukraine's power and heating infrastructure remains vulnerable to Russian ballistic-missile strikes amid low supplies of interceptors.

Naftogaz is responsible for importing, producing and storing Ukraine's natural gas, Rigzone reported. While the country has faced major disruptions to electricity supplies during every wartime winter, it has avoided gas shortages during Koretskyi's tenure at the state-run company.

Koretskyi, 48, previously worked with private oil companies and ran state-owned oil producer Ukrnafta, according to Rigzone. He has no political experience or ties to any party.

The 2026 Partner Forum brought together industry, academia, government, and researchers to discuss U.S. critical mineral supply issues and modern mining, according to CleanTechnica.

CleanTechnica reported that the referenced site sits in one of the western-most points of West Texas, about 85 miles east of El Paso County.