Latest · October 29, 2026No official confirmation yet, two days on, of damage from the 27 Oct Ras Tanura fire or the Houthis' 26 Oct East-West pipeline/Riyadh airport claims. Brent holds near $114.80/bbl; TTF gas remains at its highest level this year, above €97/MWh.
Background: how we got here
US-Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February 2026 set off a regional war. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, and it has not reopened to normal traffic, cutting off most Gulf oil and LNG exports; the IEA calls it the largest supply disruption in oil-market history. Retaliatory strikes damaged Gulf energy assets: Qatar lost ~17% of its LNG capacity for 3-5 years at Ras Laffan, Israel hit South Pars, and Saudi (Ras Tanura, SAMREF, Abqaiq, Jazan), Emirati (Fujairah, Shah, Habshan) and Kuwaiti (Mina al-Ahmadi) facilities were hit. An 8 April ceasefire and a 17 June US-Iran MoU briefly revived traffic and pushed oil back to pre-war levels, but the truce collapsed on 7-8 July. Since then the US has blockaded Iranian ports (from 14 July), Iran runs a permit-and-toll regime, and tanker attacks continue. The second front is the Red Sea: the Houthis declared a ban on Saudi shipping from 20 July, struck tankers and the Jazan refinery, and seized Mocha on 10 September. Drones from Iraq hit Abqaiq (27 July) and shut the East-West bypass pipeline (10-11 September); it restarted at reduced rates around 22 September and by 28 September flows had recovered to roughly 3.5 mb/d, about half its 7 mb/d capacity. Saudi Arabia has also offset the outage by selling roughly 60 million barrels for ship-to-ship transfer at Sohar, Oman, pushing STS capacity there and at Fujairah to its limit and tightening the VLCC market. In the Black Sea, Ukrainian strikes on Russian ports and refineries (Baltic ports in March, Novorossiysk/CPC, Tuapse, Moscow) and Turkey briefly halted Novorossiysk-bound transit permits in early August before resuming them two days later. Policy responses include a record 400 mb IEA stock release (US 172 mb), the UAE's exit from OPEC (1 May) and US consideration of diesel export curbs. US LNG exports are at records as new trains start up (Golden Pass, Corpus Christi Stage 3), and Panama Canal and Trans Mountain flows to Asia have risen. As of 1 October Brent was around $99-100 (pre-crisis ~$72.5) and TTF ~€73/MWh (pre-crisis ~€32). Iran offered at the UN to reopen the strait within a week if the US lifted its naval blockade; Trump rejected the offer on 26 September. By late September, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs estimated regional oil flows had recovered close to pre-war volumes even as tanker attacks and reporting gaps persist, while Trump and Iran continued trading claims over sanctions relief and the sequencing of any reopening.
October 27, 2026 · infrastructure reported
Fire breaks out near Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura export terminal after attack
Saudi authorities contained a fire near Ras Tanura, Aramco's largest crude export terminal, after an attack in the area early on 27 October; Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter, said the extent of the damage was not immediately clear and that Aramco and Saudi Arabia's energy ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment (reported: Bloomberg via Türkiye Today, The Edge Malaysia). The Saudi-led coalition separately said it intercepted three ballistic missiles aimed at the Eastern Province and four drones aimed at southern Saudi Arabia the same day, without linking the intercepts to the Ras Tanura incident; no group had claimed responsibility for the attack itself.
October 26, 2026 · military unverified
Houthis claim new strikes on East-West pipeline, Riyadh airport hours after reopening
Yemen's Houthis said on 26 October they struck pumping stations on Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline and fired a ballistic missile at Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport, hours after the airport resumed limited flights; Saudi Arabia and Aramco did not confirm either claim (unverified: Houthi claim). The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted the missile aimed at Riyadh and destroyed Houthi missile launchers near Sanaa. Brent and WTI fell on the day on profit-taking after the previous week's rally, even as the unconfirmed claims kept a geopolitical premium in the market.
October 25, 2026 · shipping confirmed
JMIC: Hormuz transits fall to about a quarter of normal, ~492 ships now waiting
The multinational Joint Maritime Information Center recorded just 101 transits through the Strait of Hormuz over 22-24 October, about a quarter of the roughly 138/day pre-war baseline, and 58 through Bab el-Mandeb over the same period, against a baseline near 61/day. JMIC said about 492 vessels were waiting outside Hormuz as of 25 October — roughly 194 near Fujairah/Khor Fakkan, 178 off Dubai, 55 near Musandam/Sohar and 32 off Bandar Abbas/Qeshm — and expects the backlog to persist. UKMTO separately logged 18,049 anomalous AIS positions in the Gulf in its 23 October weekly overview, and ship-tracker Windward reported 293 vessels affected by GPS jamming on 21 October (confirmed: JMIC, UKMTO, Windward, via Gulf News).
October 25, 2026 · military confirmed
Houthi missile barrage hits Riyadh and Yanbu area; King Khalid airport reopens
Saudi-led coalition air defenses intercepted Houthi ballistic missiles aimed at Taif and the Yanbu area on 24 October, then a ballistic missile and two drones aimed at Riyadh and a cruise missile toward Khamis Mushait air base on 25 October; falling debris from intercepts injured two people and damaged buildings near Khamis Mushait and Ahad Rafidah. King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, shut since a Houthi strike killed 13 people on 10 October, broadly reopened on 25 October. No damage to Aramco's Yanbu facilities was reported (confirmed: Saudi-led coalition statements via Reuters and AFP).
October 24, 2026 · shipping confirmed
Oil leak off UAE coast forces beach closures in three emirates
The UAE said it was working to contain oil leaking from an unidentified tanker offshore; Ras Al Khaimah closed all its beaches on 24 October, a day after Umm Al Quwain and Sharjah's Al Hamriyah Beach were closed as precautions, with residents in Ajman and Umm Al Quwain reporting unusual odors. The UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment said it was assessing the spill's extent and that the odors pose no health risk; no vessel has been identified as the source, and no link to any specific earlier tanker incident has been confirmed (confirmed: UAE government statements, Reuters).
October 23, 2026 · market confirmed
Record tanker rates threaten to push US oil exports to Asia to 7-year low
Leasing a tanker for the US Gulf Coast-to-China route hit nearly $60 million by late October, after touching a record $79.6 million earlier in the month, up from under $8 million before the war, Baltic Exchange data show. Valero's head of oil trading, Randy Hawkins, said freight, insurance and ship-to-ship transfer costs tied to the Iran war are now the market's main story; Vortexa data showed November US crude orders for Asia down roughly 50% month over month, which, if it holds, would be a seven-year low. Permian export premiums at the Magellan East Houston hub have fallen from more than $3 to 25 cents over benchmark futures as high freight costs erode US crude's competitiveness in Asia (confirmed: Bloomberg reporting; Baltic Exchange, Kpler and Vortexa data).
October 22, 2026 · infrastructure confirmed
Aramco seeks overseas storage deals to shore up supply resilience
Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser told Al Arabiya the company is negotiating with foreign governments for Aramco to use their strategic oil storage, aiming to double its existing overseas commercial storage in South Korea, Japan, the Netherlands and Egypt's Sidi Kerir hub; he gave no timetable or current capacity figure. Nasser linked the move to continuing Houthi attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure, including the Shaybah oilfield strike that killed two contractors on 21 October, and said Aramco is also studying raising crude flow from the Gulf to the Red Sea from 7 to 10 million b/d (confirmed: Aramco CEO statement, reported by Bloomberg).
October 22, 2026 · market confirmed
QatarEnergy signs long-term deal for up to 4 mtpa of US LNG from Cheniere
QatarEnergy signed two long-term sale-and-purchase agreements with US developer Cheniere Energy for up to 4 million tonnes a year of LNG — 2 mtpa each from Cheniere's Sabine Pass (Louisiana) and Corpus Christi (Texas) terminals — with deliveries running from 2031 through 2054, priced off the Henry Hub benchmark plus a fixed fee. The deal gives QatarEnergy a supply source outside the Gulf after Iranian missile strikes destroyed two LNG trains (12.8 mtpa, about 17% of capacity) at its Ras Laffan complex in March; the company has said repairs could take three to five years and cost roughly $20bn a year in lost revenue. One mtpa of the Sabine Pass volume depends on a final investment decision for an expansion phase there (confirmed).
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