Baltic
Dry Index. 2730 +44 Brent
Crude 108.17
Spot
Gold 4625 Spot Silver 76.43
U
S 2 Year Yield 3.88 unch.
US
Federal Debt. 39.190 trillion
US
GDP 32.080 trillion
The US
Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that the Appalachian region contains 2.3
million metric tons of undiscovered, economically recoverable lithium. This
volume is equivalent to 328 years of US lithium imports based on 2025 levels.
US hits jackpot, 2.3 million metric ton of lithium deposit discovered
Big
oil is warning bad things happen in the US and global economy this month.
But
is anyone in the District of Clowns listening?
Big
Oil Warns Supply Buffer Is Running Out
May
1, 2026 at 11:00 PM GMT+1
The
US-Israel war with Iran and the calamity it’s triggered in global energy
markets has been sharply felt by nations from Southeast
Asia to Europe.
In the US, however, the price for consumers flowing from Donald Trump’s
decision to attack has been about $1.40 more
for a gallon of gas, on average. This week, the warnings that more acute pain
may be coming to American shores have been accumulating. On
Friday, one more arrived—from Big Oil.
Every
day the Strait of Hormuz remains shut, the world is using up commercial
stockpiles, strategic reserves and crude that was stored in vessels, Exxon
Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips said this week. These supplies
are now running short, Chevron Chief Financial Officer Eimear
Bonner said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Friday.
“There’s
very little of the buffer left,” she said. “If you look at the unprecedented
disruption and the world’s supply of oil and natural gas, the
market hasn’t seen the full impact of that yet.”
—David
E. Rovella
Big
Oil Warns Buffer Is Running Out: Evening Briefing Americas - Bloomberg
U.S.
oil prices will exceed Iran wartime high to above $125 as conflict drags on,
Kalshi traders say
Published
Fri, May 1 2026 2:12 PM EDT
Western Texas Intermediate crude
futures haven’t hit their highs in 2026 yet, according to traders on
Kalshi.
Users
on the prediction markets platform think that there’s a more than 50% chance that prices will reach nearly $127 per
barrel this year, far higher than the current closing high of nearly $113 per
barrel on April
7.
Traders
also estimate there’s a 63% chance that prices will cross $120 per
barrel.
While
WTI prices remain off their highs from before the U.S. and Iran announced a
ceasefire to the war in the Middle East, they’re considerably higher than their
lows of $82.59 on April 17.
Prices
are above again $100, and Brent
crude prices hit a new post-war high this week. However, oil
prices retreated
on Friday after Iran sent a revised peace proposal to the U.S., though
President Donald Trump said he’s
not satisfied with the country’s proposals.
Some
of the post-ceasefire decline in WTI oil prices has been reversed as there’s no
clear path to Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz nor to the U.S. ending its
naval blockade of the passageway.
While
traders think the highs in oil prices haven’t been hit this year, the range
they think prices will trade has shrunk. In early April, before the ceasefire,
traders thought there was a more than 50% chance prices traded above $150 per
barrel. Traders now place just a 26% chance of that happening.
Kalshi
traders think U.S. oil prices are set to hit new 2026 highs
Trump
said his blockade would cause Iran’s oil industry to ‘explode’ this week. Why
that won’t happen
Published
Thu, Apr 30 2026 8:16 AM EDT Updated Thu, Apr 30 2026 12:36 PM EDT
Locked
in a standoff with Iran that will break only when economic pain is no longer
tolerable, President Donald
Trump may have to maintain his naval blockade against Iran for weeks —
forcing serious economic consequences on the world.
Trump
said Wednesday that he will keep the U.S. blockade against Iran in place until it agrees to
a nuclear deal. Tehran, meanwhile, refuses to reopen the Strait of Hormuz until
the U.S. calls off its Navy.
It’s
unclear which side will budge first.
Trump
said Sunday that Iran’s oil infrastructure is days away from exploding because
crude is bottled up due to the blockade.
“Something
happens where it just explodes,” Trump told Fox News.
“They say they have only three days left before that happens. When it explodes,
you can never rebuild it the way it was.”
But
Iran has weeks of space left in its tanks to store oil that it can’t export,
experts said. This should give Tehran time to ramp down oil fields in an
orderly way that avoids permanent damage, they said.
The
oil supply shock, meanwhile, grows worse every day Iran keeps the strait
closed, putting pressure on the U.S. as the global economic damage mounts.
“The
question for me is who has a longer runway — Trump or Iran,” said Fernando
Ferreira, the head of Rapidan Energy’s geopolitical risk service.
Iran
tankers blocked
Tehran
will feel the heat from the U.S. blockade. There has been no confirmed passage
of an Iranian tanker through the U.S blockade zone, according to the
ship-tracking firm Kpler.
Iran-linked
ships have crossed the strait but they did not make it past the blockade, which
stretches from the Gulf of Oman to the Arabian Sea, according to Kpler.
Tehran
is losing $500 million per day due to the blockade, a White House official told
CNBC.
With
Iran’s tankers hunted by the U.S. Navy, oil and condensate loadings at its
ports have collapsed from 2.1 million barrels per day before the blockade to
just 567,000 bpd after, Kpler found.
Iran
will have to start filling up its storage tanks because the oil cannot be
exported. Eventually, Tehran will have to cut oil production as the storage
tanks near capacity.
Storage
capacity
That
is the point where Tehran would start feeling the squeeze but it could take a
long time to force a reaction, according to Rapidan Energy.
“They
prepared for a blockade,” Ferreira said. “They thought it through. They saw
what happened in Venezuela.”
“They’re
prepared to hold out for months,” the analyst said.
Iran
has at least 26 days before its storage tanks fill and production cuts become
unavoidable, Ferreira said. The estimate assumes 26 million barrels of onshore
storage and 21 million barrels of floating storage in 18 empty, sanctioned
tankers in the region, he said.
But
it’s a conservative estimate, Ferreira cautioned. Iran’s maximum storage
capacity suggests it has space for another 39 million barrels, giving it
another 22 days beyond the 26, the analyst said.
There
are also 31 ships linked to Iran that will head back to the Middle East through
late May which could provide another 50 million barrels of storage, Ferreira
said. That would allow Iran to hold out as long 76 days, or well over two
months, he said.
These
estimates assume Iran is constantly filling its storage at a rate of 1.8
million bpd, Ferreira said. In reality, Tehran will likely start ramping down
production, which would stretch the storage further, he said. They also assume
Iranian oil exports will not circumvent the blockade at all, the analyst said.
“The
blockade can be very effective,” Ferreira said. “It’s about the timeline for it
to put Iran under excruciating pain.”
It
will take weeks or months to put Tehran under that kind of pressure, he said.
“That runway might be longer than Trump has in mind for results,” the analyst
said.
More
Trump
might have to maintain blockade for months before Iran feels pain
In
other news.
China May Restart Fuel Exports as Domestic
Stockpiles Surge
By Irina Slav - Apr 28,
2026, 3:30 AM CDT
Chinese state refiners could restart fuel
exports next month if the government in Beijing approves their applications for
the restart, citing ample domestic stocks.
Companies including Sinopec and CNPC have
submitted applications for export permits, Bloomberg reported today,
citing unnamed sources in the know. The applications are for exports of diesel
and gasoline, the Bloomberg sources said.
In early March, China told energy
companies to suspend new fuel export contracts and try to cancel already
arranged fuel shipments abroad as global fuel markets tightened amid the Middle
Eastern war that effectively froze most traffic through one of the world’s
biggest oil and fuel chokepoints.
The ban on exports took immediate effect,
covering all gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel cargoes that had not cleared
customs as of March 11. Since the institution of the ban on exports, domestic
supply has swelled, the sources told Bloomberg, with high prices dampening
demand. According to local energy consultancy OilChem, gasoline and diesel
stocks at state refiners are at their highest since 2025 and 2024,
respectively.
China is a top-three fuel exporter in
Asia, after South Korea and Singapore; as such, it has been undermining other
countries on the continent with refining industries. A suspension of fuel
exports could have boosted the refining industries of other countries had it
not been prompted by the tightening crude oil supply due to the traffic
disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.
China issues fuel export quotas for both
state and independent refiners on a regular basis. State-owned energy companies
get the bulk of the quotas. The latest batch was issued in December last year,
with 70% going to state refiners such as Sinopec and CNPC. Meanwhile, fuel
export margins have been driven considerably higher by the hostilities in the
Middle East. Diesel, in particular, is in increasingly tight supply, recently
prompting warnings from energy industry executives of potential shortages.
China May Restart
Fuel Exports as Domestic Stockpiles Surge | OilPrice.com
China allows state refiners to export some fuels
to Asian buyers
The shipments, which would likely head to
Vietnam, Laos and other nations, have already been loaded
Published Thu, Apr 30, 2026 · 07:42
PM
[BEIJING] China has given state-owned
refiners the green light to export 500,000 tonnes of fuels to a handful of
regular customers, signalling the country is effectively easing an earlier ban
on shipments.
The
one-off quota would allow petrol, diesel and jet-fuel cargoes to leave China
next month,
according to people with knowledge of the matter, providing relief to Asia’s
emerging economies as the war in the Persian Gulf continues to cut off supply.
They asked not to be named as the discussions are not public.
The shipments, which would likely head to
Vietnam, Laos and other nations, have already been loaded, they added.
With the Iran war stretching into a third
month, vital supplies of crude, fuels, food and fertiliser remain stuck on the
wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz.
China
– the world’s largest oil importer and a consumer of Middle East crude – has
been quick to react,
implementing fuel export curbs in order to shield local customers. Domestic
stockpiles of fuels such as petrol and diesel have since climbed to seasonal
highs.
Bloomberg News reported earlier this week
that state oil firms had begun applying for government permits to resume fuel
exports.
The National Development and Reform
Commission, which oversees the allocation, did not respond to requests for
comment. BLOOMBERG
China allows state
refiners to export some fuels to Asian buyers - The Business Times
Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession
Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians,
inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Global inflation outlook worsens as oil stays above
$110
Economists have raised 2026 inflation forecasts for most major economies
as oil prices remain above $110 a barrel amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran
and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. While growth projections are largely
unchanged, central banks are cautious, holding rates steady as they assess the
conflict’s impact. Financial markets remain resilient, but analysts warn of
risks if energy prices stay elevated.
29 April 2026
A Reuters poll of 500
economists shows inflation forecasts for 44 of the world’s 50 largest economies
have been raised for 2026, driven by oil prices above $110 a barrel following
Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict has reduced hopes for
lower energy costs, with Morgan Stanley’s Seth Carpenter warning of a sustained
risk premium. While Turkey and Argentina already face double-digit inflation,
most upgrades remain modest, and global growth projections hold near
2.9%. Reuters
"The outright
closure of the Strait of Hormuz is essentially ahistorical, and so we don't
have a great model for this in the past. People need to entertain the idea we
just have higher oil prices for the foreseeable future because of the extra
risk premium built in."
Reuters Seth Carpenter,
global chief economist
Oil prices up 49% since Iran conflict began
Deutsche Bank Research
reports Brent crude 1-month contracts have surged 49% since the onset of
hostilities with Iran, while 6-month contracts rose 25%, suggesting markets
still see the disruption as temporary. U.S. equities have hit record highs,
buoyed by its net energy exporter status and tech sector rebound, while South
Korea’s KOSPI has posted a 58% YTD gain. In contrast, Eurozone markets have
been hit hard by energy exposure and currency weakness, and precious metals
have unexpectedly fallen due to high starting prices and rising real
yields. Seeking Alpha
Bond demand slumps as firms shift to bank loans
Elevated corporate bond
yields and geopolitical tensions are prompting more Indian companies to seek
bank loans over market borrowing. India Ratings and Research data show bond
issuance dropped to about Rs 9 trillion in FY26 from Rs 9.9 trillion the prior
year, with activity slowing sharply in the final quarter as oil price spikes
lifted yields. Abundant liquidity has lowered short-term borrowing costs,
boosting corporate commercial paper issuance in April, while equity market
volatility from high oil prices has further influenced funding
choices. Reuters + 1
What’s next for India’s markets?
Indian equities fell as
Brent crude topped $110, with banking stocks pressured by the Reserve Bank of
India’s final credit-loss guidelines, which may particularly impact state-owned
lenders. The Nifty 50 and Sensex reversed early gains, while upstream oil firms
like ONGC rose on stronger earnings prospects. Analysts warn higher crude costs
could pressure inflation, growth, and corporate earnings, adding to market
volatility ahead of derivatives expiry. Reuters
Global inflation outlook worsens as oil stays
above $110
Technology
Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
Another
weekend and another battery fire to cover. As batteries spread in everyday
life, so does the battery fire risk. Approx. 5 minutes.
Hospital Robot Battery Fire: What Happened at Cedars-Sinai
Hospital
Robot Battery Fire: What Happened at Cedars-Sinai
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
Exponent
Calculator
Enter
values into any two of the input fields to solve for the third.
This
weekend’ s music diversion. More genius from
Vivaldi, no tape required. Approx. 8 minutes.
Antonio
Lucio VİVALDİ: Recorder Concerto İn F Major RV.312
Antonio Lucio
VİVALDİ: Recorder Concerto İn F Major RV.312
Next,
when things really go wrong when saving six million dollars. Approx. 9 minutes. If you think this is bad
wait for next week’s real NYC building disaster.
This
NYC Skyscraper Has Been Empty for 7 Years. It Can't Be Fixed. It Can't Be Torn
Down
This NYC
Skyscraper Has Been Empty for 7 Years. It Can't Be Fixed. It Can't Be Torn Down
Finally, jam
yesterday, jam today and (probably) jam tomorrow. Approx. 13
minutes. But read the comments.
How Radar Jamming Actually Works (It's
Genius)
How Radar Jamming Actually Works (It's Genius)
Next week, Stealth explained, how modern planes hide.
The research indicates that these resources are located within pegmatites, which are large-grained rocks similar to granite.
The findings divide the
resource into two main areas, with the southern Appalachians estimated to hold
1.43 million metric tons of lithium oxide, primarily in the Carolinas.
US hits jackpot,
2.3 million metric ton of lithium deposit discovered
No comments:
Post a Comment