Saturday, 3 October 2026

Ukrainian forces reportedly struck oil infrastructure in Russia's Volgograd and Samara regions overnight, with fires reported at facilities in both regions, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Ukrainian activist Serhii Sternenko and the Exilenova Plus monitoring channel identified the likely targets as the Volgograd Oil Refinery and the Samara oil distribution station.

Regional governors said Russian air defenses shot down Ukrainian drones over several regions of western and southern Russia from Thursday evening into Friday, with no casualties reported.

Russia's Defense Ministry said air defenses downed 227 Ukrainian drones during Thursday over more than a dozen regions, including the Moscow region and Crimea, and over the Black Sea.

Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Karim Badawi said Egypt can link oil, gas and mineral output from across Africa to regional and global buyers through its existing energy assets.

Those assets, as Badawi described them, cover gas networks, the LNG plants at Idku and Damietta, pipelines, petroleum ports, refineries and petrochemical complexes.

African producers could route crude through Egyptian refineries to process, blend, store and ship it there, Badawi said, letting the continent capture processing revenue instead of only selling raw crude abroad.

Badawi tied that offer to geography, noting that ports, storage and pipelines sitting on both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea connect Egypt to international shipping and trade routes.

The Group of Seven will start releasing 100 million barrels of fuel at once and keep drawing on reserves for four months, the bloc said in a Friday statement. Its members are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S.

Diesel will lead the drawdown, with a front-loaded release in the first 20 days by G7 members and partners, the group said.

The seven governments also agreed to coordinate maintenance schedules at their refineries to avoid simultaneous shutdowns and lift utilization rates at plants that turn crude into gasoline and diesel.

GCC countries have awarded more than USD 417 billion in oil, gas and petrochemical contracts since 2017, averaging over USD 46 billion annually, according to MEED.

Oil and gas represents the largest share of the UAE's planned energy investment, according to EICDataStream data cited by Zawya. Upstream projects account for almost 40% of estimated capital expenditure.

Nigeria's state oil company, NNPC, reported an after-tax profit of about USD 5.43 billion for 2025, according to africa.com.

The result marked a 33% increase from the previous year, africa.com reported.

NNPC Chief Executive Bayo Ojulari attributed the rise to tighter operational discipline, efficiency improvements and continued investment in infrastructure and assets, according to africa.com.

Connecticut's average diesel price was about USD 6.47 per gallon on Thursday, according to AAA, just below a record set days earlier.

Regional distillate inventories have fallen sharply heading into winter. New England held 2.5 million barrels of distillate fuel in the week ending Sept. 25, down from more than 12.6 million barrels in the corresponding late September week of 2020.

Katie Childs said market backwardation, a structure in which near-term prices sit above later-dated ones, has helped keep inventories low even as winter approaches.

Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles attacked strategic facilities in Russia's Samara Region on the night of Friday, October 2, according to charter97.org.

Japan announced additional sanctions against Russia the same day, targeting a shadow fleet of vessels that transport sanctioned Russian oil, according to semasocial.com.

The Japanese measures restrict the provision of services to 35 vessels, the Foreign Ministry said in reporting cited by semasocial.com.

The average UK diesel price reached 199.35p per litre, according to the RAC, surpassing the previous record set in 2022.

UK diesel has risen by 59p per litre, or just under 40%, since the outbreak of the war in the Middle East in February, the RAC reported.

The price pressure has been linked to severe disruption of oil shipping routes and refineries, including the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery for global oil supply.

In Australia, the national median diesel price stood at $2.88 per litre, with some stations charging more than $3, according to news.com.au.

India's petrol sales rose 7.2% and diesel sales rose 4.9% year on year in September, while aviation turbine fuel sales were flat and LPG sales fell 9%, according to Event Registry.

Average daily US fuel oil supply ran 5% higher in September than in August, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Euro zone inflation reached 3.8% in September, up from 3.2% in August, according to Eurostat figures cited by joe.ie. The rise was driven largely by a Middle East-fuelled jump in oil and gas prices.

The September reading beat the 3.6% forecast of economists and marked the fastest pace in three years, joe.ie reported, citing the Irish Times.

Switzerland recorded a separate inflation figure for the same month. Consumer prices there increased 1% from a year earlier in September, according to MenaFN.

The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Ireland, together with the European Commission, agreed on a joint response to a US demand that they open their diesel reserves, according to newsukraine.rbc.ua.

Washington requested that European countries release 120 million barrels of diesel over six months, according to Sunday Guardian.

The United States threatened a potential temporary ban on US diesel exports if European countries did not immediately release a portion of their emergency fuel stocks, Sunday Guardian reported, adding that the European Union rejected the warning.

The US supplies more than half of Europe's diesel imports, according to newsukraine.rbc.ua.

Vedanta Oil and Gas is raising investment in its mature Rajasthan fields to arrest natural reservoir decline and lift crude output from existing wells, according to Event Registry.

The company is targeting production of more than 150,000 barrels per day from Mangla, up from about 80,000 bpd currently, according to Event Registry.

To reach that level, Vedanta plans to deploy enhanced recovery techniques including polymer flooding, alongside well interventions and other measures aimed at improving output from existing assets, according to Event Registry.

Oil prices rose for a second straight session on Tuesday as concerns over potential supply disruptions from the Middle East outweighed signs of a recovery in the region's crude exports, according to the San Antonio News.

Reuters reported that Brent crude futures rose 0.6%, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude gained 0.8%.

In later trading, Brent crude slipped 0.03% to USD 102.28 a barrel after edging higher earlier in Asian trading, while WTI fell 0.2% to USD 92.68, reversing small early gains, according to The Arabian Post.

The Arabian Post reported that prices had initially fallen before concerns over refined-fuel availability and Middle East security drove a rapid reversal.

Diesel prices are rippling through Canada's supply chain, leaving businesses to absorb rising expenses while police in Alberta investigate a string of unusual fuel thefts, CTV News reported.

Evelyne Nyairo, who founded the Calgary-based skincare firm Ellie Bianca, told CTV News that costlier transportation hits nearly every stage of her operation.

Patrick De Haan tied the diesel increase to several global supply pressures on refined fuels: tensions between the United States and Iran, restrictions through the Strait of Hormuz, lower refinery output from China, and Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries.

JERA is establishing an oil storage company to manage the national petroleum stockpiling bases it operates in Japan, according to Oilprice. The new entity will exclusively handle operation of those reserve sites.

JERA Group subsidiaries currently run four national petroleum stockpiling bases in Japan, at Tomakomai-Tobu, Akita, Fukui and Shibushi, Oilprice reported.

The company says the structure is intended to strengthen safe and stable operations and to transfer and advance operational expertise, according to TokenPost.

The oil stockpiling business is expected to transfer to the new company around April 2029, TokenPost reported.

Representatives from Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and EnergyUnited briefed the Davidson County Board of Commissioners on power generation, energy storage and the need for additional energy capacity in North Carolina, according to The Dispatch. The presentation tied the demand to rapid population and industrial growth across the state.

U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright toured Duke Energy's Roxboro coal plant on Friday afternoon and praised coal as a historic energy source, according to WFAE.