Oil rose as traders weighed the supply impact from disruptions in the Black Sea region along with broader market gyrations in the wake of President Donald Trump’s ambitions to take over Greenland. West Texas Intermediate’s February contract, which settled Tuesday, rose 1.5% to settle above $60. The more active March contract rose by a similar amount. Supply disruptions have helped support prices, with Kazakhstan’s largest oil producer recently halting production at the Tengiz and Korolev fields after two fires at power generators. The Tengiz field will be shut for another seven to 10 days, Reuters reported. Kazakhstan had already reduced oil production after drone strikes affecting the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s shipping terminal in Russia, which is the outlet for about 80% of Kazakh exports. “Crude is trading higher this morning on ongoing concerns around CPC loadings, which have remained constrained following recent Ukrainian attacks,” said Rebecca Babin, a senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth Group. “At the same time, broader geopolitical risks remain elevated, keeping traders focused closely on headlines.” Meanwhile, Trump unleashed fresh social media attacks against allies, with European leaders signaling a strong response to potential US tariffs over the semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. The escalation of tensions has pressured stock markets, helped send gold and silver to record highs and raised the specter of a US-EU trade war that could dent global growth and drag down oil prices with it. But so far, the direct impact on crude prices has been more muted. “Growth concerns as a result of tariff threats weigh on risk sentiment,” said Giovanni Staunovo, a commodity analyst at UBS Group AG. “Oil is, like equity markets, not immune to it.” Any new downward pressure on prices would add to broader concerns about crude supply outpacing demand, with the International Energy Agency forecasting

State-owned Kenya Pipeline Co., which the East African state is listing through an initial public offering, plans to triple capital expenditure on projects to widen its network, increase storage and diversify into natural gas. The company plans to spend 110 billion shillings ($852.6 million) over the next five years, more than three times the 34 billion-shilling outlay between 2021 and 2025, according to the IPO prospectus for the sale of a 65% stake. It will raise the financing through “a combination of internally generated cash flows and innovative financing structures including access to debt capital markets, special purpose vehicle project financing, joint ventures and partnerships,” the listing document said. KPC is retaining none of the $824 million raised from the sale. The Kenyan government will instead utilize the proceeds to capitalize an infrastructure fund for its planned mega projects. KPC’s projects includes a new pipeline from the Rift Valley city of Eldoret to Uganda’s capital, Kampala, and onward to Rwanda. In addition, it will build an oil trading hub in Mombasa. The port city is the future site of a bulk natural gas handling facility for imports from Tanzania for power generation. The company plans additional storage facilities for Kenya’s strategic petroleum reserves. KPC intends to commercialize a power plant located at the defunct Kenya Petroleum Refineries Ltd. plant to supply electricity to the grid, in addition to solar farming. A crude refinery shut in 2013 will be converted into a biofuel refinery to produce blending components and sustainable aviation fuel. Eni SpA is undertaking studies on the proposed venture, according to KPC. Uganda’s plans for a refinery to be operation by 2030 poses “a significant risk to KPC in terms of its regional expansion strategy,” it said. “It will take a long time for the Eastern African regional market

Mol Nyrt. and Gazprom Neft PJSC have agreed on the terms of a deal which will see the Hungarian company gain control of Serbia’s only oil refinery, paving the way for the lifting of US sanctions on the plant’s operator. Mol will buy Gazprom’s combined 56.2 percent interest in Naftna Industrija Srbije, which came under US sanctions in October due to its Russian majority ownership, the Budapest-based firm said in a statement on Monday. The deal, subject to the approval of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Serbian government, may be completed by March 31, Mol said, without disclosing the purchase price.  Mol is in talks with Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. to enter NIS as a minority shareholder, Mol Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Zsolt Hernadi said in the statement. The United Arab Emirates has a long relationship with Serbia, with several government-linked entities having made investments in property, agriculture and other businesses in the Balkan state.  Serbia is also looking to raise its nearly 30 percent stake in NIS by 5 percentage points, Serbian Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic told reporters in Belgrade earlier on Monday. The deal is a win for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban ahead of elections in April where his party is trailing in polls. The premier leveraged his ties to the leaders of Russia, Serbia and the US to bring the deal to fruition, discussing the potential purchase in back-to-back meetings with the three presidents late last year. Removing Sanctions Hungary and Serbia will now ask the US to lift sanctions on NIS. They were imposed amid a raft of penalties on multiple Russian-controlled energy assets following Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions on NIS – announced a year ago but in effect since October – halted oil deliveries via the Adriatic pipeline

Tankers have begun discharging Venezuelan crude at Caribbean islands, publicly signaling their activity in a move that marks a new trade order after US exerted control over Caracas’ oil industry.  Two vessels delivered about 2.5 million barrels of Venezuela’s Merey crude to storage tanks on Saint Lucia and Curacao, staging posts for broader exports, over the weekend, according to ship-tracking data. In the coming days, others tankers are set to bring more of the nation’s oil to different destinations, including the Bahamas. The Trump administration tapped trading giants Trafigura Group and Vitol Group to help market Venezuelan crude, and is encouraging US majors to invest in the country to revive its battered oil industry. The shipping market is being shaken up by the intervention, with freight rates surging for some routes.  Some so-called dark fleet tankers laden with Venezuelan crude have turned on their transponders as they prepare to offload their oil, while ships that have stayed clear of the trade return to participate.  The Volans — an Aframax sanctioned by the US and UK — unloaded about 600,000 barrels at Curacao on Jan. 17, according to ship-tracking data. The discharge location is home to the Bullen Bay storage facility. The vessel was carrying a cargo for Vitol, Bloomberg reported last week. Separately, the Kelly, a very-large crude carrier, arrived at Castries on Saint Lucia on Jan. 18 to offload 1.9 million barrels of Merey, according to the data. The delivery is the first shipment of Venezuelan crude to the Caribbean island since Dec. 2018, according to Kpler and Vortexa. Castries is home to a storage facility that’s primarily operated by Houston-headquartered Buckeye Partners LP. The company didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment outside of working hours. Bloomberg News couldn’t identify the company or entity responsible for the oil trade. Meanwhile, VLCC Marbella reached South

Listen to the article 3 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Five Upper Midwestern utilities, led by Xcel Energy, have proposed expanding transmission between North Dakota and Minnesota to address thermal and voltage issues on an existing 345-kV line operating at capacity. The companies, which include Great River Energy, Minnesota Power, Missouri River Energy Services and Otter Tail Power, on Jan. 15 filed an application with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to add a second 345-kV transmission circuit to the existing line between Douglas County, Minnesota, and Cass County, North Dakota. The original transmission line was completed about a decade ago as part of the CapX2020 project. The companies said all new infrastructure would be added within the existing right-of-way. The five energy providers will jointly own the project, with Xcel acting as project manager and responsible for construction. The entire project is estimated to cost about $249 million, with roughly $187 million for work in Minnesota, according to the application.  Retrieved from Minnesota PUC. The utilities said they plan to file a similar application with North Dakota regulators. “We designed the original transmission line with the future in mind by building infrastructure that could be expanded when our customers and electric cooperative members needed it,” the energy providers said in a statement. “We will soon expand this important project without affecting any new landowners, limiting our overall impact while saving money for our customers and electric cooperative members throughout the region.” The new line “will facilitate efficient electricity transmission across multiple states to local communities, supporting each state’s policy and reliability objectives in a more cost-effective and minimally disruptive manner,” the utilities said in their application. “The project is needed to provide additional transmission capacity and to maintain electric system reliability throughout the

Murphy Oil Corp said Monday it had encountered noncommercial quantities of hydrocarbons in the first of its three-well exploration campaign offshore Côte d’Ivoire. “A key outcome at Civette is that we confirmed the presence of hydrocarbons in this frontier play – a meaningful success in early-stage exploration”, president and chief executive Eric Hambly said in an online statement. “While Civette did not meet commercial thresholds, the well provided insights that strengthen our subsurface understanding for the potential of the [Tano] basin and inform the remaining prospectivity on the CI-502 Block”. The Houston, Texas-based oil and gas explorer and developer had placed a gross resource potential of 440-1,000 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe) on Civette, according to Murphy Oil’s investor presentation on January 7, 2026. The Civette well is in Block CI-502. The company said Monday it would continue with the Bubale prospect in Block CI-709 and the Caracal prospect in CI-102, “both targeting independent plays with significant resource potential”. According to the investor presentation, the gross resource potential for Bubale and Caracal is 340-850 MMboe and 150-360 MMboe respectively. They are scheduled to be spudded this year. The three blocks are among five held by Murphy Oil in the West African country. The five, all in deep waters, are co-owned with Société Nationale d’Opérations Pétrolières de la Côte d’Ivoire, the American company holding 85-90 percent operating interests. The licenses, acquired 2023, cover about 1.5 million gross acres in the Tano basin, according to Murphy Oil. Murphy Oil was scheduled to submit a development plan for the Paon discovery in Block CI-103 to Ivorian authorities by the end of 2025, according to the company’s annual report for 2024. Elsewhere, Murphy Oil has scheduled two more spuds in Vietnam this year, both appraisal wells for last year’s Hai Su Vang oil discovery.