Monday, 5 October 2026

Ukrainian attacks have disabled more than 51% of Russia's oil refining capacity, Ukraine's Defense Ministry reported on Oct. 4.

The ministry listed recent strikes on refineries in Moscow, Yaroslavl, Kirishi, Perm, Ilsky, Saratov and Syzran, according to its report.

Russia's Defense Ministry said on Sunday that the Russian military had struck a data center and a logistics hub in Ukraine. The ministry said Geran drones targeted a Nova Poshta logistics center in Chernomorsk and a data center in Odessa.

The Anambra State Government is considering a modular refinery to expand gas processing and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) production in the state, according to Nigerian News Direct.

Petroleum and Mineral Resources Commissioner Charles Ofoegbu said the proposed refinery would eventually lead to an LPG processing plant as the state develops its petroleum and gas sector.

The state is open to investors interested in setting up gas processing plants and is prepared to support prospective investors with access to gas supply for their facilities, Ofoegbu said.

Benjamin Netanyahu and Bezalel Smotrich said they agreed on an executive order to lower the price of gasoline by NIS 0.50 through a reduction in the fuel excise tax.

The order applies to 95 octane gasoline.

The measure will lower the cost of a liter of 95 octane gasoline from NIS 8.27 to NIS 7.77.

A very large crude carrier operated by Iraq's state-owned Oil Tanker Company carried 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude through the Strait of Hormuz, the first time the company has run such a voyage in decades, its director general said.

Until now, Iraq loaded crude for buyers at Basra port and left onward shipping to them; this voyage instead took the oil past the waterway under the company's own tankers.

That change hands the State Organization for Marketing of Oil (SOMO), Iraq's state oil marketer, control over the choice of destination and sales terms for the cargo.

Director General Ali Qais Abdul Jabbar said the shift lets SOMO take advantage of better sales and pricing opportunities.

At least three tankers have been struck by unidentified projectiles in and around the Strait of Hormuz since October 1, according to Times Now.

Two of the incidents occurred on Friday, the outlet reported. One outbound ship suffered a small fire and lost power, and a crude tanker was hit close by.

African Terminal & Logistics Services is developing a petroleum terminal at Djibouti's Doraleh port to handle fuel shipments bound for Ethiopia, according to Ecofin Agency.

The facility will include equipment to load railcars directly onto the railway linking Djibouti and Ethiopia, with loading bays to handle tanker trucks.

Ethiopian media reported on September 27 that the first phase is scheduled to begin operations in June 2027, according to Ecofin Agency. That first phase will provide 288,000 cubic meters of storage capacity.

Gasoline in Israel will drop by 50 agurot per liter after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich backed a reduction in the fuel excise tax, Israel National News reported.

Drivers will pay 7.77 shekels per liter once the change takes effect, down from 8.27 shekels, according to the same report.

Netanyahu and Smotrich tied the decision to a sharp climb in fuel prices worldwide, saying they wanted to shield Israeli consumers from a comparable jump at the pump, per Israel National News.

Diesel prices could fall below USD 2 a litre in the coming months as oil prices ease, according to energy expert Peter Linder, though tensions between the United States and Iran remain a major uncertainty.

Linder, a former oil and gas analyst, said oil could decline to about USD 85 a barrel from roughly USD 90 now if tensions in the Middle East ease.

He expects oil prices to keep falling in the coming weeks, but said the outlook could change quickly. Oil could return to well above USD 100 a barrel if the conflict between Iran and the United States escalates.

Heritage activists, including the Kakatiya Heritage Trust, are demanding the withdrawal of the proposed PVNR opencast coal mine at Venkatapur in Mulugu district, warning it could threaten the Ramappa Temple and Ramappa Lake.

The trust said the proposed mine would sit about 5 km from Ramappa and involve excavation to a depth of 300 metres, according to the Deccan Chronicle. It argued that the area has a complex geological structure with faults, fractures and joints, and that large-scale mining could potentially affect the temple and lake.

According to The Hindu, the trust acknowledged that reports assessed the immediate impact of blasting on the temple as low, but contended that repeated and periodic vibrations could have a cumulative effect on the nearly 800-year-old structure. The activists frame the opposition around the risk to the UNESCO-inscribed site and the adjacent lake.

Offshore wind development in Louisiana has reached a near standstill under Trump administration policies, according to industry leaders cited by the Louisiana Illuminator, who said they are working to preserve the state's wind expertise and supply chain for a future revival.

The administration's efforts began with executive orders that withdrew federal waters from new offshore wind leasing and halted permitting for additional projects, the Louisiana Illuminator reported.

Developers have relinquished 12 offshore wind leases in exchange for federal payouts, Madelyn Smith said. About USD 4 billion in taxpayer money was spent to remove those projects from the pool, Smith said, and the projects represented about 21 GW of potential capacity.

Industry leaders said they hope to revive the sector under the next administration.

Iraq's total revenues reached approximately IQD 39.09 trillion, nearly USD 30 billion, through the end of July 2026, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Finance.

The ministry disclosed the figure on Sunday.

Oil revenue accounted for about 78 percent of the country's total state resources over the period, according to the ministry.

The Bangladesh government has taken up a Tk 2,910.22 crore project to expand and modernise electricity distribution networks across the three Chattogram Hill Tracts districts, according to UNB.

The project aims to bring another 88,586 consumers under the national grid in one of the country's most remote regions.

Titled "Expansion of Electricity Network in Three Hill Districts," the scheme will cover all 26 upazilas in Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Bandarban.

The project is scheduled to be implemented by June 2031.

Vietnam's rooftop solar development has not met its target and is expanding more slowly than other baseload power sources, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Truong Thanh Hoai said, according to VietnamPlus.

The country is targeting a 10% share for rooftop solar in residential and office areas, with selected projects to be developed and battery storage systems encouraged under a directive.

Installed rooftop solar capacity nationwide currently stands at around 11,000 MW, according to Vietnam Electricity.

The government has opened an investigation into alleged fraudulent land titles issued on the parcel earmarked for the Lamu refinery, Government Spokesperson Charles Owino said.

Owino said the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) acquired the site, and families who had been living there were compensated before the property was consolidated under a mother title.

About 90 families occupying the area when the port was being established received Sh1.4 billion in compensation, according to Owino.

After the transfer to KPA and the issuing of the mother title, fresh titles could not be legitimately created on the same parcel without subdivision, Owino said.

The main structure of China's first offshore carbon injection project has been completed, with the central platform at the Dongfang 1-1 gas field entering commissioning, according to CGTN.

The demonstration project is designed to inject captured carbon dioxide into underground formations to boost natural gas production, CGTN reported.

Once operational, the project will be able to permanently store more than 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, according to CGTN.

The project will mark the first large-scale offshore application of carbon injection technology in China, CGTN reported.

Citicore Renewable Energy Corp. (CREC) has reached 1 GW of installed renewable energy capacity in the Philippines, according to punto.com.ph. The company is expanding investments in solar power, battery energy storage, and other clean energy projects.

The milestone builds on a portfolio of 21 completed solar sites across the country, according to punto.com.ph.

Citicore aims to reach 5 GW of renewable energy capacity within five years.

Iraqi and Turkish ministers discussed increasing Iraqi oil export capacity through Ceyhan and bringing Turkish firms into Iraqi oil and gas projects, according to iraqinews.com.

Khudair said the meeting was constructive, with talks centered on raising export capacity through Ceyhan and Turkish participation in Iraqi oil and gas projects, iraqinews.com reported.

The discussions follow an agreement Khudair signed with Turkey in early August to transport Iraqi crude through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline to the port of Ceyhan, according to iraqinews.com.

That deal stipulates a minimum volume of 750,000 barrels per day for a one-year period, pending completion of a broader framework agreement, iraqinews.com reported.

China's Shanxi Province had installed more than 80 million kW of wind and solar power capacity by the end of June, according to People's Daily.

The coal-rich northern province is pushing its energy transition while keeping coal supplies stable, People's Daily reported, pointing to intelligent coal mines and digital power-grid management.

The wider region faces a steep investment gap. The Asia-Pacific needs USD 79 trillion to USD 89 trillion by 2050 to meet net-zero targets, according to Deloitte.

Meeting that goal requires annual low-carbon investment to nearly triple, from USD 840 billion in 2023 to roughly USD 2.3 trillion by 2030, Deloitte said.

The average U.S. regular gasoline price stood at $4.38 per gallon on Sept. 30, well above the $3.15 per gallon recorded at the same time a year earlier, according to AAA.

Crude oil prices have dipped back into the $90-per-barrel range, which lowered the national average, AAA said. Even so, overall gas prices remain the highest ever recorded for this time of year.

At the local level, the average price of self-serve regular gasoline in Riverside County dropped 1 cent on Sunday.

A naval blockade has stopped Iranian tankers from leaving the Gulf, forcing Iran to sell oil from floating stocks held primarily off Malaysia and China for the last 10 weeks, according to Maritime Executive.

Those stocks had been built up for exactly such a contingency, Maritime Executive reported. The sanctioned Iranian oil being bought and sold is drying up fast as the afloat stocks are sold and run down.

The depletion has put Iranian oil brokers and middlemen under pressure, according to the same report.

The US Treasury sanctioned an extensive network of financial sub-agents built and controlled centrally as part of the A7 network, which Maritime Executive described as an underworld alternative banking system. The report said the move deepened an existing campaign against Iran's sanctions-evading trade.

The US Treasury estimates the A7 sub-agents processed transactions worth USD 17 billion between January 2025 and June 2026, averaged 2,000 transactions per day, and handled 13% of Russia's foreign trade transactions, according to Maritime Executive.

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey has pressed the Trump administration to accelerate the federal review of a proposed Algonquin gas pipeline expansion, Boston.com reported.

In a letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Healey asked federal officials to set firm timelines for required reviews and permits, line up coordination across agencies, and commit resources to hold the project to schedule, according to Boston.com.

The expansion, which Healey's administration backs, could cut energy costs for 600,000 Massachusetts customers, her administration says. The project would widen the existing pipeline and route more natural gas into the state, saving customers an estimated USD 40 million a year, according to Boston.com.

Los Angeles zoning officials are weighing the shutdown of an oil production site, which would be a first for the city. The city was built on oil and remains home to more than 2,000 active wells.

Residents of the Jefferson Park neighborhood have fought for more than a decade to close 32 oil and gas wells at the Murphy drill site on West Adams Boulevard, run by Bakersfield-based E&B Natural Resources.

The Murphy drill site carries a history of air pollution violations that run from before its current operator took over through this year.

A non-binding framework announced at the White House would direct USD 120 billion toward construction of eight nuclear reactors in the United States, according to the Spokesman-Review.

The deal would include six Westinghouse AP1000 reactors and two Korean-designed APR1400 units, the Spokesman-Review reported. The APR1400 was the subject of years of litigation between Westinghouse and Korea Electric Power Corp.

The Nigerian Navy disrupted two illegal refining sites and recovered about 58,000 litres of suspected stolen crude oil and illegally refined Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) in Rivers State, according to Vanguard.

NNS Pathfinder, a unit under Operation Delta Sentinel, carried out the operation at Okarki Community in the Ahoada West Local Government Area on October 3, 2026, Vanguard reported.

The naval team found nine dugout pits, storage containers and sacks holding the suspected stolen crude oil and illegally refined products at the sites, according to Vanguard.

An unannounced meeting of President Donald Trump's senior national security team at Camp David coincided with a major US military buildup in the Middle East, sharpening questions over Washington's next move against Iran.

CBS News confirmed that the administration's senior Iran officials met at Camp David, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and the USS Makin Island amphibious group are heading to the Middle East with about 7,000 sailors and 2,000 Marines, due by the end of October.

Trump said he would make a decision about Iran, characterizing the alternatives as the easy way or the hard way.

A proposed transaction covers Lukoil's international portfolio of oil fields, refineries and petrol stations, which the company valued at around USD 20 billion, according to News18.

The deal is not final and would require approval from both the US government and the Kremlin.

According to News18, which cited a Times report, there is no indication that Kushner or Witkoff would personally profit from the proposed deal.

Oracle will take between 10% and 20% of output from Wisconsin's Point Beach Nuclear Plant, locking in 125 to 250 MW to power an AI data center campus, according to Foreign Policy Journal.

The contracted power supports the Lighthouse Campus, a planned USD 15 billion AI data center in Port Washington, Wisconsin. Oracle, OpenAI and Vantage Data Centers are jointly developing the site.

The campus is designed to house up to 1 GW of AI capacity inside a 1.3 GW total electrical footprint, with completion set for 2028, Foreign Policy Journal reported.

The Liberia Petroleum Regulatory Authority (LPRA) will officially launch Liberia's 2026 Offshore Direct Negotiation Licensing Round in Cape Town on 14 October 2026.

The LPRA has invited investors, exploration companies, financial institutions and industry stakeholders to the launch. The round opens access to prospective deepwater and ultra-deepwater acreage across Liberia's Liberia and Harper basins.

Liberia holds more than 50,000 line-km of 2D seismic and 31,000 square kilometres of 3D seismic data supporting its offshore licensing opportunities. That data is accompanied by new frontier imaging and technical studies strengthening understanding of the country's offshore petroleum potential.