Oil prices have given up some of the gains from last week’s oil tanker attack in the Gulf of Oman, with recession fears outweighing geopolitical tension and the risk of supply outages. “The response of oil prices to the latest escalation in the Middle East has been comparatively subdued given that 30% of global oil shipments pass through the Strait of Hormuz and only a small proportion of this total could be rerouted through pipelines in the event of a conflict,” Commerzbank wrote in a note.

Two recent explosions at hydrogen fueling stations may have soured the fuel’s reputation, but there is increasingly optimistic sentiment for it, with two reports last week claiming it will have an important role to play in the energy mix of tomorrow. One of these, led by the UK Institution of Engineering and Technology, said hydrogen could come to replace natural gas as a fuel for heating in the country.

In this Report, we publish our first outlook for 2020. As we do so, volatility has returned to oil markets with a dramatic sell-off in late May seeing Brent prices fall from $70/bbl to $60/bbl.

Russia is willing to step in to help Iran export its oil while the Middle Eastern country is struggling to keep the oil flowing while pressured by sanctions levied by the United States.

The industrial sector of the worldwide economy consumed more than half (55%) of all delivered energy in 2018, according to the International Energy Agency. Within the industrial sector, the chemicals industry is one of the largest energy users, accounting for 12% of global industrial energy use. Energy—whether purchased or produced onsite at plants—is very important to the chemicals industry, and it links the chemical industry to many parts of the energy supply chain including utilities, mines, and other energy product manufacturers.

The uncertainty about the U.S.-China trade tension and the future of global oil demand for the rest of the year have resulted in many investors staying away from energy exchange traded funds (EFTs) in recent months.

It’s been well over a year since the then-United States Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis accused Russia and China of being “revisionist powers” each working its way toward making a power grab on the world stage and announced that the U.S. would be shifting its international relations focus away from fighting terrorism and instead prioritize what Mattis referred to as a "great power competition.

“Iran has no plans to leave OPEC...and regrets that some members of OPEC have turned this organization into a political forum for confronting two founding members of OPEC, meaning Iran and Venezuela,” he said, adding “And two regional countries are showing enmity toward us in this organization. We are not their enemy but they are showing enmity toward us and (they) use oil as a weapon against us in the global market and world.”

Iran plans to raise its current oil refining capacity by 250,000 bpd before next March, said the head of National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company.