It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, April 06, 2026
Trump administration to rejoin offshore drilling agencies separated after 2010 Gulf oil spill
Lawmakers from both parties and outside critics accused the agency of lax oversight of drilling and cozy ties with industry. A 2008 report by the U.S. Interior Department’s inspector general said employees accepted gifts, steered contracts to favoured clients and engaged in drug use and sex with employees of the energy firms they regulated.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Thursday, March 26, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Friday it is combining two agencies that were separated in the aftermath of the 2010 Gulf oil spill. The U.S. Interior Department said the overhaul would increase efficiency and speed up permitting for offshore oil and gas drilling.
The new Marine Minerals Administration will bring together the functions of the current U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said. Doing so will enable a “streamlined approach” that will maintain existing regulatory protections and rigorous safety standards, he said.
The combined agency will “deliver clearer coordination, better service to the public and stronger, more integrated oversight of offshore energy development,” Burgum said in a statement.
The new name is reminiscent of the old Minerals Management Service, which for decades was the federal agency responsible for overseeing offshore drilling. In April 2010, a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and discharging nearly five million barrels of crude oil into the sea over the next three months in the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
Lawmakers from both parties and outside critics accused the agency of lax oversight of drilling and cozy ties with industry. A 2008 report by the U.S. Interior Department’s inspector general said employees accepted gifts, steered contracts to favoured clients and engaged in drug use and sex with employees of the energy firms they regulated.
The head of the agency resigned in May 2010 — less than a year into her tenure — under public pressure as the Obama administration moved to impose stricter control over drilling in the wake of the spill.
The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement replaced the disbanded Minerals Management Service in 2011. The former agency’s revenue management function was also separated into a new office. The Obama administration said the reorganization was designed to remove the complex and sometimes conflicting missions of the former agency.
BOEM oversees development of oil and gas, as well as renewable energy and mining on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, while BSEE enforces safety and environmental regulations. Environmental groups slammed the reorganization as a replay of the agency’s troubled past.
The MMS was intentionally split up after the Gulf spill because regulators were too cozy with industry and “we couldn’t trust the integrity of their work,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
The new set-up “sounds like yet another handout to the oil industry that will fast-track risky projects. It sure won’t make the people or wildlife on our coasts any safer,” she wrote in an e-mail Friday.
The National Ocean Industries Association, which represents offshore developers, said that two separate — yet overlapping — government agencies responsible for administering the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act can understandably result in inconsistencies and delays.
“Bringing them back together should result in closer coordination and a more efficiently functioning government, for the benefit of American citizens who rely upon the energy produced from the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf to fuel our economy and lift society,” Association President Erik Milito said in a statement.
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Jennifer Mcdermott And Matthew Daly, The Associated Press
Canada in the European Union? Poll suggests broad openness to the idea
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney takes part in a press conference during the Canada EU Summit in Brussels, Belgium on Monday, June 23, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
OTTAWA — New polling suggests a majority of Canadians think Canada ought to explore joining the European Union at a fraught time for geopolitical relations.
A survey of 4,000 people conducted by Spark Advocacy’s polling arm in March found that one in four respondents thought it would be a good idea for Canada to formally join the economic and political bloc of European nations.
A further 58 per cent indicated it was a proposal worth exploring further, while the remainder felt it was a bad idea.
Spark’s chief strategy officer Bruce Anderson says the survey suggests Canadians are increasingly open to finding ways to buck Canada’s reliance on the United States after more than a year of tariffs under U.S. President Donald Trump’s second administration.
France’s foreign minister last month openly floated the idea of Canada joining the EU, while Prime Minister Mark Carney has said he’s looking to deepen trade and security ties with the continent but not as a formal member of the bloc.
The Spark poll cannot be assigned a margin of error because it was conducted online.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 6, 2026.
-- with files from Dylan Robertson
Craig Lord, The Canadian Press
Why Losing the Iran War May Be the Best Outcome for the Global Economy
Global energy systems are under strain due to the declining per capita supply of critical fuels like diesel and LNG.
Oil prices are caught between being too low for producers and too high for consumers, creating systemic instability.
A forced shift toward localized economies and reduced energy consumption may be unavoidable - and even beneficial in the long term.
As I will explain, the outcome that looks like losing may actually be the best path forward for the world’s remaining economies.
The fighting today is with respect to which parts of the world will get which energy resources, and at what prices. Even before the current conflict, there was a shortage of jet fuel and diesel. The only reasonable outcome I can think of is that the US will only be able to tap its own energy resources, plus those of its nearby neighbors (Figure 1). Consequently, the economy will gradually reorganize in ways that use fuels more sparingly.
Figure 1. A chart I made when trying to explain that it is really the heavy oil portion of oil, which disproportionately makes diesel and jet fuel, that is especially constrained. Reducing travel across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would leave more heavy oil for other purposes, such as growing food.
The outcome outlined in Figure 1 implies that Donald Trump and the US-Israel coalition will lose the war against Iran. It appears that the physics of the situation (or perhaps the Higher Power behind the physics of the situation) has chosen the flawed personality of Donald Trump to accomplish the required result. This is a situation where what seems to be the US losing in its conflict against Iran is actually winning for the overall world economy. If oil can be used more sparingly in the future by servicing people closer to where end products are made, the available energy resources will provide greater benefit to society as a whole
In the remainder of this article, I will try to explain the situation more fully.
[1] Background
In physics terms, an economy is a dissipative structure. In order to stay away from a dead state (collapse), it needs to “dissipate” energy of the right kinds. A human is also a dissipative structure. We dissipate food to stay away from a dead state.
From a physics point of view, fossil fuels are as essential to economies as food is to humans. Without fossil fuels, economies tend to collapse and die. With an adequate supply of easily extractable and transportable fossil fuels, economies are able to grow. However, when these fuels become less available due to the exhaustion of nearby resources, or for other reasons, economies are forced to shrink. Rising population can also be a factor because every person in the world needs food and at least minimal transportation. The war is about future standards of living in countries around the world.
An underlying problem is that the world now has too many people for the available resources, such as fresh water. One chart showing data through the end of 2023 indicates that the Middle East is home to 4,863 desalination plants, or about 42% of the world’s total. This region is acutely stressed for fresh water. The Middle East cannot grow much of its own food; it must depend on imports, which are grown and transported using oil.
Previous analyses (here and here) have shown that diesel and jet fuel supplies have been in increasingly short supply since long before the Iran War.
Figure 2. World per capita diesel supply, based on data of the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, published by the Energy Institute.
Critical minerals, used in electrification, are also in very short supply. In a finite world, the easy-to-extract minerals are extracted first, leaving the high-cost-to extract minerals for the future.
In today’s fossil fuel economy, oil is the largest component. Oil is usually the highest-priced of the fossil fuels because it is energy-dense and easy to transport and store. If oil supply fails, an economy is likely to collapse. Coal and natural gas are the other fossil fuels. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas that is super-chilled and shipped long-distance by boat. Similarly to oil, its price is under pressure today.
[2] The world’s fossil fuel economy already seems to be at a turning point in its economic cycle.
It is well known that economies exhibit cyclical behavior. Researchers Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov analyzed eight economies that collapsed and published their findings in their book Secular Cycles. They found that populations that discovered new resources were able to grow for a period of time until they came close to the carrying capacity of the resources available. After approaching the carrying capacity, economies reached a period of stagflation, characterized by slower growth, inflation, and spiking prices as shown on Figure 3.
Figure 3. Chart by author based on information provided in Turchin and Nefedov’s book, Secular Cycles
At this point, the fossil fuel system has been growing for over 200 years. It has undergone stagflation since the early 1970s. It is now ready to begin the downswing of the Crisis Years.
Now, the Iran War seems to mark the beginning of a fairly long Crisis Period. The Stagflation Period was expected to last 50 to 60 years. The year 2026 is 56 years after the time US crude oil production stopped growing, so the timing is roughly in line with expectations. However, we don’t know whether the Crisis Period will really last between 20 and 50 years, since the situation is now quite different compared to cycles before fossil fuels were added to the economy. But it does look like the world economy is headed for reorganization based on the limited fuel supply.
[3] In order for an economy to “work,” oil prices need to be both low enough for consumers, buying end products such as food made possible by the use of oil, and high enough for oil producers.
This issue is not one most people think much about. There are really two different oil price levels that are important:
(a) The price level affordable by consumers. If consumers cannot afford food or basic transportation, this quickly becomes a problem that leads to unhappiness with elected officials. This is the reason why elected officials often try to hold down oil prices.
(b) The price that oil producers require in order to make an adequate profit and allow investment in new wells to offset depletion in existing wells. In the case of oil exporters, oil prices may need to be very high to permit high taxes on oil exports to support food subsidies and other government programs.
I believe that a major problem we have reached today is that countries that are primarily oil exporters, such as Russia and countries in the Middle East, need far higher oil prices than consumers are able to pay. Even if the wars in Ukraine and Iran stopped tomorrow, the world would still have this underlying issue.
[4] Since 2014, oil prices have been too low for countries that use taxes on oil exports as a major source of tax revenue.
Figure 4. Oil prices in 2025 US$, with ovals marking three different oil price periods. Oil prices are based on oil data from the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, published by the Energy Institute, adjusted by the US CPI Urban increase to 2025 levels. The 2025 average Brent oil price is from EIA data.
Figure 4 shows average world oil prices on an inflation-adjusted basis, to 2025 price levels. As such, prices for earlier dates appear much higher on the graph than past observers would have seen them.
The low oil prices from 1948 until early 1973 were good for economies around the world, including the US. In the early days of oil extraction, oil was easy to extract and close to where it was to be used. The cost of extraction and transport was low. Consumers started seeing many more products become available. Many families in the US could afford a car for the first time. Also, the US was able to support the recovery of European economies from the impact of World War II at a cost that was not excessive.
In recent years, costs have risen. This is especially the case for the price needed by oil exporters. Part of the problem is that the size of the population requiring subsidy keeps growing, while oil production has been close to flat.
Figure 5. Crude oil production of the Middle East and population based on data from the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, published by the Energy Institute.
A second part of the problem is that economies of oil exporters often have few other sources of taxable revenue. Oil exporters are trying to change this by adding downstream manufacturing that uses the oil and gas they produce. A third part of the problem is that, as population grows, the higher population tends to use more of the available oil supply, leaving less for export.
Figure 6 shows that, in the 2011-2013 period, oil prices seemed to be high enough for most OPEC members (except Iran). Fiscal break-even prices indicate how high oil prices need to be, including the amount of tax revenue needed to balance budgets.
Figure 6. OPEC Fiscal Breakeven prices, published by APICORP in approximately 2013.
The notation in yellow on Figure 6 shows that the expected fiscal breakeven break-even for the period under analysis for all OPEC members combined was $105. EIA data shows that the average Brent oil prices during this period were $111 in the year 2011, $112 in the year 2012, and $109 in 2013. Thus, prices were high enough for most producers. Iran was an outlier on the high side, with a range for the 2013-2014 period of $110 to $172. (A more recent forecast for Iran shows a 2025 fiscal breakeven price of $124, which remains far above the pre-Iran war oil price.)
Figure 4 shows that oil prices began to fall in 2014. At these lower levels, it became increasingly difficult for oil exporters to obtain enough tax revenue to significantly help their local populations. They started needing to use more debt to fund their local economies. As a result, they gradually became increasingly unhappy. Figure 4 shows that the average price 2025 for Brent oil was only $65.
To make matters worse for oil exporting countries requiring high prices, oil price forecasts by the EIA and IEA for the year 2026 were even lower because of an expected oversupply of oil. Countries with growing oil production included Argentina, Brazil, China, and Guyana. In addition, some counties on the coast of Africa are hoping to add oil production. Unless world demand is growing rapidly, more oil supply tends to lead to lower prices and a worse situation for oil exporters trying to balance their budgets with taxes on exported oil.
[5] Without the war, LNG prices would also have been too low for LNG exporters.
LNG is a “modern” way of shipping natural gas. Only about 13% of natural gas is transported as LNG. It tends to be an expensive method of transport. Recent reports indicate that a huge amount of future LNG supply is planned for the next few years.
Figure 7. From “Will QatarEnergy’s LNG Fiasco Derail Goldman’s Prewar View Of A Mega LNG Wave.”Source.
Adding a huge amount of LNG would probably cause prices to drop significantly. This would be great from the point of view of consumers, but it would likely leave prices too low for producers. As I see the situation, Middle Eastern producers are likely to need prices in the $15 to $20 range per million metric tons of LNG, while India is not willing to pay more than $10 per unit, and those wanting to replace coal are unwilling to pay more than $5 per unit. Thus, without the war, LNG would have had a similar problem to that of oil, with prices far too low for exporters.
[6] From Iran’s point of view, I see the war as similar to a suicide, when a farmer can no longer support his family.
With Iran’s fiscal breakeven price at $124 per barrel and the pre-war Brent price at only $65, Iran was already in an impossible position. In fact, Iran could see that all of the Middle East infrastructure would be close to worthless, at expected 2026 oil and LNG prices. So why not take it down as well?
If nothing else, a war might help raise prices, at least a bit. Notice that on Figure 4, oil prices bounced up a little from their very low level in 2022, the year when the Ukraine conflict started.
[7] Losing any significant share of energy supply is likely to significantly reduce world GDP.
If the energy supply were to be lost, the world would be dealing with the losing something equivalent to its food supply. If the world economy loses even 10% of its oil and LNG, it is not difficult to imagine world GDP falling by 10%. At this point, we don’t know precisely how much energy supply, of which kind, will be lost, or for how long. The amount lost could be far higher than 10%. Also, the outage could last for years.
There are many issues involved. Supply lines are breaking down forcing businesses to find closer sources for both energy products and products made using cheap local energy products, such as fertilizer and aluminum. The war, as it is taking place today, is leading to major damage to energy-related structures in the Middle East. Destroyed LNG structures are estimated to take at least five years to replace. Damage elsewhere is also immense. Rebuilding the oil infrastructure will also likely take at least five years.
[8] The US understands the importance of Middle Eastern oil and gas. It uses its strong relationship with Israel to further its military presence in the Middle East.
Israel is a very high-level ally. In fact, a 2025 US Department of State Fact Sheet says that the US is committed to helping Israel in the case of an attack:
Steadfast support for Israel’s security has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for every U.S. Administration since the presidency of Harry S. Truman. . . Israel is the leading global recipient of Title 22 U.S. security assistance under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program. . .Israel has been designated as a U.S. Major Non-NATO Ally under U.S. law. This status provides foreign partners with certain benefits in the areas of defense trade and security cooperation and is a powerful symbol of their close relationship with the United States. Consistent with statutory requirements, it is the policy of the United States to help Israel preserve its QME, or its ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damages and casualties.
However, if we look to see where US military bases are located, they are not in Israel. Instead, a map shows that the “persistent” US military bases are all located around the Persian Gulf (Figure 8).
Figure 8. Figure shown by Congress.Gov of US bases in the Middle East, as of July 10, 2024. Source.
These bases were clearly intended to protect oil transiting through the Persian Gulf. At this point, all of the persistent bases have been severely damaged by missiles from Iran.
The major interest of the US has been the availability of oil and natural gas from the Middle East. No one ever considered the idea that low prices might be the force that would bring down Middle Eastern oil and natural gas exports.
Friendship with Israel provides the US a convenient close by ally. It also pleases both Jewish Americans who support Israel and those evangelical Christians who hold a religious view that Israel is needed for the second coming of Christ. Some of the latter may even believe that a war in the Middle East could perhaps hasten this event.
[9] Trump realizes that winning the war against Iran is absolutely essential if the US is to retain global hegemony.
The US has been the holder of the world’s reserve currency since immediately after World War II. It was chosen for this role because it was the most trusted and dominant country in the world. International trade took place almost exclusively in US dollars, creating a high demand for US government debt. This allowed the US to import more goods and services than it exported, year after year. This advantage tended to raise the standard of living of US residents.
At one time, Saudi Arabia insisted that all oil purchases be made in US dollars. This requirement has recently expired, but, as a practical matter, the majority of purchases have continued to be through trades in US dollars.
One of the main ways that the US has maintained its hegemony is by building military bases around the world. With these bases, the US can claim to protect countries against aggressors. However, recent events have shown that Iran is able to take down the radar systems at these bases. Without radar, the bases are virtually useless. If the US is to maintain the illusion that it is truly at the top of the pecking order with its sophisticated weaponry, it must show that, together with Israel, it can prevail against Iran.
A disadvantage of the role of being the chief hegemon is ever-rising US government debt and the need to pay interest on that debt. This growing debt and the interest on the debt has become an increasing burden.
If the US should lose its hegemony role, the advantage the US has had over other countries in trade is likely to disappear. Repaying debt with interest is likely to become an even worse problem. If this should happen, Trump will no longer be able to think about making America great again.
[10] Conclusion
The world is now facing a problem that most people never considered possible: Oil and LNG prices can fall so low that production becomes unprofitable for major oil and LNG exporters. Until now, the trend among world leaders, including President Trump, has been to try to hold prices down for consumers, so that food and fuel for vehicles would remain affordable. However, this has created a problem in that prices have become too low for countries whose primary industry is being an oil exporter.
At this point, the world economy needs to make a major transition in order to deal with the inadequate level of fuels available for long-distance transportation. These same fuels are heavily used for farming and for many for commercial endeavors, such as building homes and roads. It is therefore necessary to find ways to use these fuels more sparingly. One way to achieve this is by reducing the length of most supply lines, as shown on Figure 1. Shorter supply lines will also be needed elsewhere in the world.
It is ironic that the world economy cannot make a change such as this without a war to focus our attention in this direction. Other changes will also be needed. Governments will probably have to become smaller and provide fewer services. Vacation travel will become the exception rather than the rule. “Working from home” will become the norm, whenever possible. I expect that the world’s population will need to fall, albeit in a fairly subtle way. I expect this will mostly be the result of shorter life expectancies.
We are fortunate that economies are self-organizing. If resources are available, even after a major schism such as the loss of the war against Iran, the self-organizing nature of the economic system will try to knit together pieces that can productively provide goods and services. This cannot happen instantly, but this feature means that there are likely to be some jobs and some goods and services available. Past cycles of the type illustrated in Figure 3 have eventually led to new beginnings.
If the US and Israel lose the current war against Iran, I expect President Trump to be blamed for this loss. However, I believe that this outcome would be best for the world as a whole.
With Russia’s Yamal LNG exports rebounding amidst the war in the Middle East, new research reveals that a logistics challenge is likely to impact the project as early as 2027. While most of the Yamal shipments are currently heading to ports in Europe, Moscow has announced a pivot to the Asian market. In January, the European Union also approved a ban of Russian LNG imports to the bloc from January 2027. These shifts will add pressure to Russia’s existing transport fleet for Yamal LNG, according to Norway’s Center for High North Logistics (CHNL) - unless energy shortages from the ongoing Arabian Gulf conflict force Europe to change course.
The operational Russian LNG fleet includes 14 Arc7, 6 Arc4 and 5 non-ice-class LNG carriers. The researchers calculated the capability of the fleet to serve the Asian market when redirecting of shipments begins from 2027. Notably, the estimates do not account for maintenance, weather delays, port congestion and structuring transshipment cycles.
“If all flows are redirected to Asia, the fleet will be able to complete approximately 120-130 voyages per year. This is more than two times lower than the export volumes of 2024-2025,” projected CHNL.
The reduction is explained in part by the longer distances to Asia. In addition, Yamal LNG depends highly on Arc4 and non-ice-class vessels for transshipment operations, significantly limiting navigation options in the winter months. Again, shorter European routes ensure higher turnover for the relatively small transport fleet.
For Yamal LNG to retain its market edge, CHNL said that the project’s logistics scheme will require adjustments. This includes expansion of the ice-class tonnage, which Russia is struggling to build due to massive sanctions on its shipbuilding sector. Since 2023, Russia has only managed to complete two Arc7 vessels, which are part of the five partially built hulls originally supplied by South Korea.
Other options to resolve the impending logistical bottleneck include increasing transshipment capacity for a long voyage around Europe to reach Asia. Data from Eikland Energy shows that Russian gas producer Novatek would need to charter 25-35 additional tankers from 2027 to effectively redirect LNG to Asia using the Suez Canal or Cape of Good Hope route during the winter season. This would help Yamal LNG maintain its current export levels of 18 million tons per year.
Europe remains the largest customer of Yamal LNG, with France and Belgium being the primary destination. Out of 270 shipments from the port of Sabetta in 2025, 88 were destined to France, followed by 57 to Belgium and another 50 to China. The three countries together absorbed more than two-thirds of the total annual shipments.
This dynamic has changed with the ongoing war in the Middle East. In February, 100% of all Yamal LNG exports went to Europe, according to data by the campaign group Urgewald. All 21 shipments made in February, equivalent to 1.5 million tons of LNG, were destined to EU ports. Zero shipments went to China or Asia, down from four cargoes during the same period last year.
Lone Russian Corvette Flies the St. Andrew’s Flag in the Med
RFS Stoykiy (Russian Ministry of Defense file image)
At a time of active conflict involving both Lebanon and Israel, and when the French Navy has deployed at full strength to prevent further attacks on the British Sovereign Base Area in Cyprus, the strength of the Mediterranean Flotilla has sunk to a single ship flying the St. Andrew’s Flag of the Russian Navy.
On March 31, the Improved Kilo (Project 636.6) class submarine RFS Krasnodar (B-265) and its shadowing tug Altay (IMO 4622404) passed westwards back through the Strait of Gibraltar, having transited the English Channel on entry in mid-December last year. In its three month stint in the Mediterranean, Krasnodar first made a port call in Algiers, and passed back through Algiers with the Altay on its return journey.
On the basis of NATO anti-submarine patrol paths tracking the submarine, the Krasnodar appears to have spent most of its time in the central Mediterranean, where in December the dark fleet Omani-flagged tanker Qendil (IMO 9310525) was attacked, as was the Russian-flagged LNG carrier Arctic Metagaz (IMO 9243148) later on March 3. A Kilo-class submarine is not well suited to helping deter or react to such attacks.
The Krasnodar has conducted previous patrols in the Mediterranean. Although now based in the Baltic, the boat was formerly assigned to the Black Sea Fleet – and in effect may still therefore be nominally assigned to the Mediterranean Flotilla.
The sole Russian naval vessel remaining in the Mediterranean is the Steregushchiy-class corvette RFS Stoykiy (F545), last identified off Tartus at the end of March, but seen west of Cyprus and alongside in Tartus earlier in the month. The Stoykiy has had an eventful patrol, passing through the English Channel in late November, circumnavigating Africa, participating in Exercise Mosi-26 in Cape Town in early January, then making a port call in the Seychelles. It was next scheduled to exercise with the Chinese and Iranian navies in Exercise Maritime Security Belt 2026 off Bandar Abbas.
Clearly aware something was afoot, the Chinese 48th Flotilla did not turn up, and the Stoykiy stayed only one night on February 18, conducting a very brief exercise with the Iranian Navy as it left the next day - a gesture which was clearly much appreciated by the Iranians. Most of the Iranian vessels participating in this short passage exercise were sunk days later as the Stoykiy was beating a retreat through the Red Sea to Tartus.
The Russian Navy, contrary to predictions, appears to have retained some restricted visiting rights in Tartus, and the Russian airfield at Khmeimim further up the Syrian coast remains active. The Russians appear not to have sought a new facility, with the port of Tobruk in Libya considered a strong candidate. Instead, the Russians are leveraging their long-term training presence to make more frequent port calls in Algiers. Algiers is some distance away from the technical support which might be available at the Algerian naval base of Mers el Kebir, where a Russian team help maintain Algeria’s six Kilo-class submarine
Algerian Navy Kilo Class submarines alongside at their base in Mers al Kebir, March 2025 (Google Earth/Airbus)
Qatar LNG Tankers Make First Move Through Hormuz Since War Began
Two tankers that loaded LNG from Qatar before the war began appear to be attempting to exit the Strait of Hormuz in what could be the first export of Qatari LNG in over a month.
The Al Daayen and the Rasheeda, which took Qatari LNG at the end of February just before the war started, have idled in the Persian Gulf for a month as Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to vessel traffic after the U.S. and Israel began bombing it on February 28.
Now the two LNG carriers loaded with Qatari gas are moving east toward the opening of the Strait of Hormuz near Oman, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing vessel-tracking data.
The Al Daayen signals its destination is China, according to data in MarineTraffic. The Rasheeda signals ‘for orders’, but both destinations could change and it’s unclear whether and when the tankers would be able to transit the Strait of Hormuz.
If they succeed, though, these would be the first loaded LNG tankers that have exited the Strait of Hormuz since February 28.
The de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz has trapped about 20% of daily global LNG flows. In addition, Iranian drone and missile strikes on energy infrastructure in the region has damaged Qatar’s key LNG liquefaction complex Ras Laffan.
Qatar’s state firm QatarEnergy expects the damage to the Ras Laffan LNG complex, the world’s single largest LNG-producing facility, to cost it about $20 billion per year in lost revenue and to take up to five years to repair.
QatarEnergy has been forced to declare force majeure for up to five years on some long-term LNG contracts.
The LNG crunch has sent Asian and European gas prices to the highest levels in three years and stoked fears about rebuilding gas inventories in Europe ahead of the next winter.
Almost 50 liquefied natural gas carriers used by Qatar to export the superchilled fuel are idled in Asia, Bloomberg has reported, citing data from Kpler. All the vessels are empty, the data shows.
The LNG carriers are accumulated in a handful of locations, including West India, Sri Lanka, close to the Strait of Malacca between Indonesia and Malaysia, and offshore Singapore.
LNG carriers typically have a capacity of 170,000 cu m of natural gas, which translates into 72,000 tons of liquefied gas. The Bloomberg report references “more than four dozen” vessels being idled across Asia, meaning a loss of at least 3.456 million tons of LNG in carrier capacity.
Bloomberg notes that globally, there are about 800 LNG carriers in operation. This number is considered insufficient for projected LNG demand, analysts warned before the latest Middle Eastern war. With Qatar’s LNG production suspended as a result of the war, tanker supply should be a less major issue.
Amid the disruption in global LNG trade, China has been reselling record amounts of liquefied gas to other Asian countries, taking advantage of its solid stockpiles and lukewarm demand. In March alone, China resold up to 10 cargoes of LNG—a record-high for any month ever, according to data from energy analytics firms Vortexa, Kpler, and ICIS, as cited by Reuters last week.
Yet the events in the Middle East have started to sap demand for liquefied gas across Asia, as supply tightness pushes prices higher, helped by competition from Europe. Imports of liquefied natural gas into Asian countries fell last month by the sharpest rate since 2020, when pandemic lockdowns decimated energy demand. The total for the month stood at 20.6 million tons, according to Bloomberg, which represented an annual drop of 8.6%. It was the sharpest demand drop since December 2020.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
QatarEnergy’s U.S. LNG Plant Achieves First Production at Critical Time
Golden Pass achieved its first production and is preparing for the start of exports (Golden Pass LNG)
Just as the world is looking for alternative sources of LNG, Golden Pass LNG in Texas reported it has achieved first production. The project, which has been in planning and development for 15 years, is set to start export shipments in the second quarter, coming online to help fill some of the shortfall from Qatar and the Middle East.
The United States is already setting records for LNG shipments and has been rivaling Qatar for the title of the largest producer/exporter. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported the U.S. was the largest export country in 2025 with over 100 million tons of LNG, further establishing its position after strong exports in 2024. LSGE reports that the U.S. set another new all-time high in March, exporting 11.7 million metric tons, versus the previous record of 11.5 million tons just four months ago.
Global supply fell by as much as 20 percent in March as hostilities with Iran grew. QatarEnergy reported that it had suspended its operations at Ras Laffan after it was struck by the Iranians, and it warned that its operations could be reduced by as much as 12 million metric tons per year for up to five years while it completes repairs. Qatar had expected to pull ahead in the global race as it commissioned its new North Field.
Golden Pass had been in the application and permitting phase from 2012 to 2017. It is a joint venture with Qatar owning 70 percent and ExxonMobil holding the other 30 percent. The two companies made their final investment decision in February 2019, reporting they would invest approximately $10 billion for the development of Golden Pass LNG.
Cool down cargo arrived in December 2025 (Golden Pass)
“Golden Pass LNG is part of a wider QatarEnergy strategy for international investments that we have been planning over the past decade,” said Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, and the President and CEO of QatarEnergy. “It also represents a significant part of the plans announced by QatarEnergy in 2018 to invest 20 billion dollars in the U.S. energy sector.”
The project had received its cool down cargo in early December aboard one of QatarEnergy’s new LNG carriers. The company is taking delivery on a massive new fleet with its shipping partners after what was billed as the largest shipping building project. The ships are being built in both South Korea and China.
“First LNG is of particular importance for one of the largest single investment decisions in U.S. LNG history,” commented the minister. “The operational phase and market entry of Golden Pass LNG will come at an important time when global energy security ranks very high on energy agendas worldwide.”
The project is located 10 miles south of Port Arthur, Texas, and close to the Louisiana border. The project highlights that it has a unique advantage in its location with a large, deep-water port. EIA notes it has been just 10 years since the U.S. launched Sabine Pass as an LNG export hub.
The first of three trains at the new site is now in production at the Sabine Pass Terminal. The company said it is now focusing on the delivery of its first cargo, achieving sustained liquefaction operations, and moving to meet its commercial and strategic objectives.
When the project is completed, the three trains will have a total capacity of 18.1 million tons per year. It also includes five 155,000 m³ LNG storage tanks and two marine berths. It will be able to accommodate the largest LNG carriers in the world and become one of North America’s largest LNG export terminals.
