Tuesday, 22 September 2026

The US national average price for a gallon of gasoline reached USD 4.48 on Friday, according to AAA. President Donald Trump described higher pump prices as a very inexpensive price to pay for the war with Iran, saying "You have a little higher. It's a very inexpensive price to pay for what we've done".

AAA data showed the national average rose roughly 17 cents over the past week, 40 cents over the past month and USD 1.27 from a year earlier.

Interviews with voters across several states, alongside a fresh round of national polling, found an overwhelming sense of frustration that the surge in gasoline prices, described as a direct result of Trump's war, is creating serious and sustained financial hardship for America's working class.

Persian Gulf allies have shipped more than 1 billion barrels of crude through the Strait of Hormuz in the last couple of months, Admiral Brad Cooper said.

Cooper said the strait's primary transit lanes are clear of mines. A regional U.S. commander said U.S. naval protection and mine-clearance efforts were paying off in the waterway.

Cooper said forces under his command had assisted more than 2,000 commercial ship transits through the strait by providing coordinated protection.

Venezuela and TotalEnergies signed a memorandum of understanding that could enable the French company to return to operations in the South American country.

Under the agreement, TotalEnergies E&P New Ventures will participate in energy projects, according to a statement cited by World Oil.

The scope and value of the agreement were not disclosed.

Diesel prices at several California stations were displayed at USD 9.99 per gallon last week, the highest figure the pumps could show, according to Electrek.

Images circulating on social media appeared to show US filling stations out of diesel as fuel prices climbed to record highs, Electrek reported, though industry data did not point to any widespread shortage.

GasBuddy said its own data and its Pay with GasBuddy card network showed no high-level diesel outages, and that current outages remained within normal levels. The fuel-tracking firm noted it monitors outages closely, particularly during hurricanes.

Iraq has formally asked OPEC to raise its production baseline to 6 million barrels per day, according to a report carried by Event Registry citing coverage of the request.

The request would lift Iraq well above its current OPEC+ production ceiling of 4.431 million barrels per day set for September and October.

President Donald Trump is set to meet Delcy Rodríguez in New York, in an encounter the White House confirmed last Friday.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said the meeting is scheduled for Tuesday during the UN General Assembly in New York.

The encounter will be brief and informal, without formal delegations or an agenda.

A bipartisan group of 31 senators has asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to move quickly on releasing Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) funds once they become available on Oct. 1, according to The Maine Wire.

The effort was led by Susan Collins, Jack Reed and Lisa Murkowski, who sent the letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Sept. 17, per the same report.

The senators framed the request around household conditions heading into the cold season. "Given the extraordinary pressure consumers will face this winter, we ask that you make this distribution well before the deadline," they wrote, according to the Bennington Banner.

Federal law requires HHS to distribute at least 90% of the available LIHEAP appropriation by Nov. 1, The Maine Wire reported.

Oil steadied as traders monitored Middle East supply risks and intensified diplomatic efforts to end the US-Iran war, according to Livemint.

Brent traded near $104 a barrel after a three-day decline, while West Texas Intermediate was below $100, Livemint reported.

In equity-linked oil exposure, the ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil fund's share price moved above its 200-day moving average during Friday trading. The fund's 200-day moving average stood at $41.73, and the shares traded as high as $53.15.

Petrobras said its board approved the company's participation in a new Brazilian government subsidy program for diesel oil producers, according to reporting relayed by Bluewater Healthy Living.

The subsidy is set at R$1 per litre of road diesel, equivalent to about USD 0.19, and is valid for 30 days, according to Rio Times.

The measure can be extended for a further 30 days and stacks on top of an existing subsidy of 1.12 reais per litre, per Bluewater Healthy Living.

Rio Times reported that Petrobras raised its wholesale diesel price by R$1, or about USD 0.19, while the federal government is financing a matching discount. The net price to distributors therefore stays unchanged.

Capital spending by the 30 largest publicly traded exploration and production companies in the United States dropped 49% year over year in 2025, according to EY.

The pullback did not translate into lower barrels. Big Oil producers lifted output despite the spending cut by squeezing more from each well, deploying new drilling technology and rotating capital toward shorter-cycle, high-return assets, per the same reporting.

Diesel at 236 UK petrol stations is already priced above £2 per litre, with a further 633 forecourts charging 199.9p per litre, according to PetrolPrices data.

PetrolPrices says almost 10% of UK forecourts are either selling diesel above the £2 threshold or sit one price increase away from it.

The average UK diesel price has reached 193.5p per litre, while the supermarket average stands at 190p per litre, PetrolPrices data shows.

The rise is being driven primarily by higher wholesale costs. Wholesale diesel has climbed by more than 12p per litre during the month, with supply constraints and renewed Middle East tensions lifting the cost of middle distillates.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced an emergency 90-day waiver for gas and diesel truck drivers, according to WWLP.

Under the waiver, drivers hauling gasoline and diesel may operate for up to 16 hours within a 24-hour window, up from the 14-hour limit that applies under normal conditions, SGT Report said.

The 90-day federal waiver is set to expire on Dec. 16, according to WWLP.

ExxonMobil is reportedly nearing a preliminary deal to return to Venezuela, according to reporting cited by Insider Monkey.

Reuters reported that Exxon has shown interest in the Petromonagas heavy oil project in the Orinoco Belt, along with areas of the adjacent Carabobo block.

The discussions remain at an early stage and could still collapse or slip, according to the reporting.

Chevron plans to more than double the number of oil rigs it operates in Venezuela as part of a five-year output growth plan, CFO Eimear Bonner told a Barclays conference on September 8.

The rig expansion accompanies a recent announcement that Chevron's joint venture partnerships in Venezuela would invest more than USD 7 billion to more than double oil output to 600,000 barrels per day by 2031.

Chevron's three Venezuelan joint ventures currently produce around 290,000 barrels per day, all of which is exported to the United States.

ExxonMobil and its partners have awarded $1.1 billion in pre-investment contracts for the Rovuma liquefied natural gas project in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado region.

The awards move the venture closer to a final investment decision on a development expected to involve roughly $30 billion of investment in the southeastern African country.

Separately, QatarEnergy said damage to LNG Trains 4 and 6 totals 12.8 million tons per annum of production, representing approximately 17% of Qatar's exports.

Cheniere Energy completed Stage 3 of its Corpus Christi liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Texas on August 28, 2026, according to Weekly Blitz.

The expansion, sited in San Patricio County near Corpus Christi, adds approximately 3.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of LNG production capacity, Weekly Blitz reported.

China's crude oil imports from Russia reached 11.2 million tonnes in August, a 41% year-on-year rise and a 23% gain from the previous month, according to Archyde. That volume was equivalent to 2.64 million barrels per day.

Over the first eight months of 2026, China's purchases of Russian oil totaled 77.65 million tonnes, an 18.1% increase, TASS reported.

Bangladesh Jatiya Sangsad Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmad has asked Italian commercial companies to explore and extract oil and gas resources in the country's coastal areas, according to the Daily Sun.

The invitation was made during a courtesy meeting with Italian Ambassador to Bangladesh Antonio Alessandro at the speaker's office on Sunday, tob.news reported. The two sides discussed strengthening parliamentary and economic cooperation alongside the energy overture.

Discussions centered on oil and gas exploration and well-drilling in Bangladesh's coastal region, framed as a step to deepen energy cooperation between the two countries, according to tob.news.

Coal inventories at India's thermal power stations dropped to 22.9 million tonnes on September 19, equivalent to seven days of fuel cover and 39% of the normative stock, according to Business Standard citing daily data.

The number of plants running critically low on coal rose to 74 as of September 19, up from about 60 the previous week, based on Central Electricity Authority data cited by Business Standard and the Economic Times. The threshold captures stations holding less than 25% of required inventory or fuel for fewer than three days.

Peak power demand crossed the projected 271 GW in September, a level the Economic Times described as unusually high for the month, driven by cooling and irrigation load after a deficit monsoon.

Crisil analysts told Business Standard and the Economic Times that the drawdown appears to be a temporary logistical issue rather than a sign of structural supply constraints.

Indian Oil Corporation's board has approved an investment of Rs 2,448.70 crore to build and operate a 424.65-km natural gas pipeline linking Kochi in Kerala with Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu, according to a regulatory filing reported by Bizzbuzz.

Reuters-tracked coverage via Moneycontrol put the outlay at 24.49 billion rupees, equivalent to USD 255.6 million, and confirmed the southern India route from Kochi to Thoothukudi.

The Economic Times reported the project length at 424.65 km connecting the two cities.

According to The Hindu BusinessLine, the Kochi-Kanyakumari-Thoothukudi Pipeline will have a system capacity of 6.84 million metric standard cubic metres per day, inclusive of common-carrier capacity.

At least 1.71 million standard cubic metres per day of that throughput will be offered as common-carrier capacity, per the company's regulatory filing cited by The Hindu BusinessLine.

India's core sector output growth slowed to 4.8% year-on-year in August 2026 from 5% in July, according to provisional government data reported by The Economic Times. Newsbytes described the reading as a three-month low.

The Economic Times reported that the deceleration reflected contractions across energy-related sectors and an unfavourable base.

Coal output fell 3.8%, crude oil production declined 3.6%, and natural gas contracted 4.9% year-on-year, according to CNBC TV18. The same data showed fertiliser production dropped 12.4%.

Cement and electricity carried the aggregate figure. Cement production rose 12.5% year-on-year in August, easing from 12.7% in July, The Economic Times reported. Electricity generation grew 11.6%, up from 8.4% the previous month according to the same source. CNBC TV18 also recorded the 12.5% cement gain and 11.6% electricity rise for the month.

U.S. equities rallied on Monday as oil prices fell sharply, with the Nasdaq Composite closing at a record high of 27,122.09, according to bbntimes. It was the index's first record finish since June.

U.S. crude dropped about 3.5% to around USD 96.76 a barrel, while Brent crude fell roughly 2.9% to around USD 100.85 a barrel, according to Quartz. The same report attributed the equity open to declining oil prices and easing Treasury yields.

Futures had signaled the move before the bell. At 7:09 a.m. ET, Dow futures were up 0.78%, S&P 500 futures gained 0.67% and Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 1.04%, according to the Economic Times.

By the close, the Nasdaq Composite was up 2.3%, its best single-day performance in recent memory according to Rolling Out. The S&P 500 added 1.5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose about 0.8%, snapping a run of three straight weekly losses for the blue-chip index, the same outlet reported. The Motley Fool put the S&P 500 gain at 1.49% and the Dow gain at 0.71%.

Aliko Dangote said the ongoing initial public offering of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals is targeting 10 million shareholders, according to Punch. The chairman told reporters the company had already raised the money it was seeking through the offer, and that the exercise was now aimed at spreading wealth across the continent.

The share sale was designed not only to attract Nigerian investors but also to broaden ownership of the refinery across Africa, Hallmark News reported.

Dangote said the facility will process 1.4 million barrels a day by the first quarter of 2029, according to Bloomberg.

The group also plans to take its fertiliser business public in 2028, Naija News reported, citing Dangote. Dangote Fertiliser operates a USD 2.5 billion plant in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, with annual production capacity of about three million tonnes of urea.

The US national average gasoline price rose 18.5 cents per gallon over the past week, reaching $4.44 on Monday, according to GasBuddy. AAA's national average stood at $4.47 per gallon, according to reporting on the same day.

GasBuddy said prices climbed in virtually every state, with 45 states recording increases of more than 3 cents per gallon. The Great Lakes region led the move, with Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin all up more than 30 cents per gallon on refinery issues, according to GasBuddy.

Oil prices fell on Monday as investors focused on a rebound in Saudi Arabian shipments, shrugging off continuing Houthi attacks and heightened Middle East tensions, according to Livemint.

Brent crude futures dropped 0.78%, while US West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.89%.

Saudi oil exports have recovered to just over 4 million barrels per day so far in September, after slumping to 2.4 million barrels per day in August, provisional data from analytics firm Kpler showed.

Houthi attacks on Saudi Aramco's East-West pipeline prompted the state energy company to increase exports through the Strait of Hormuz this month and next, after halting some shipments through Yanbu.

Halliburton has signed memorandums of understanding with Eneva and WESCA covering oil and gas project work in Venezuela. Both deals are non-binding, per Oilprice.

With Eneva, a Brazilian energy firm, the oilfield services company will jointly scout and pursue development prospects in the country.

The WESCA arrangement covers field evaluation and development planning inside Venezuela.