Brent and U.S. crude futures contracts pared losses after being down over 3.5% earlier in the session after reports that Yemen’s Houthis had targeted a Saudi Aramco refinery with drones

International News via Reuters:

Oil settled down more than 2% on Thursday, reversing course after a week of gains, as investors focused on signs of weaker global demand and a sharp build in U.S. crude inventories.

Brent and U.S. crude futures contracts pared losses after being down over 3.5% earlier in the session after reports that Yemen’s Houthis had targeted a Saudi Aramco refinery with drones, renewing concerns over supply disruptions in an already tight global market.

Brent futures finished $1.91, or 2.15%, lower at $87.07 a barrel following a six-session rally, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude closed down $2.02, or 2.4%, at $81.25 a barrel after advancing for five sessions.

Investors weighed data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday that showed U.S. commercial crude oil inventories made their largest weekly gain since January 2023 as exports slumped. Crude inventories rose by 17.4 million barrels to 424.4 million in the week ended August 7, their highest since June 5, the EIA said. 

OPEC lowered its world oil demand growth forecast for 2026 to 580,000 barrels per day in its monthly oil market report.

The International Energy Agency also said it expected a contraction of 1.6 million bpd in consumption this year, versus a drop of 1 million bpd forecast last month, with demand curtailed by higher prices and restricted supply due to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

Prices, however, were pressured after a report from Yemen’s Houthi-run Saba news agency said the militant group attacked an Aramco refinery in Saudi Arabia’s Jazan with two drones on Thursday. 

  News of the attacks sent diesel cracks to an all-time high. According to Saudi Aramco’s website, the Jazan refinery has the capacity to produce 250,000 bpd of ultra-low sulfur diesel. 

A Houthi military source said the attack was in response to what the group described as Saudi violations of Yemeni airspace and sovereignty in Saada and Hajjah provinces. Saudi Arabia did not immediately comment on the report. 

      COMPETING CLAIMS OVER HORMUZ

Supply disruptions in the Middle East and the Black Sea region continued to support oil prices, with the U.S. and Iran making competing claims over the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of global oil supply passed before the start of the Iran war.

The strait is “under Iran’s control and management”, the recently appointed head of Iran’s Basij paramilitary unit said on Thursday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States had “total control” of the waterway.

Iran and the United States remain at loggerheads over efforts to agree a permanent end to the war in the Gulf, according to a senior Iranian source, who said there had been no progress in talks to revive the interim deal agreed in June and define a time frame to implement it.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday that the United States military could keep a blockade on Iranian ports for as long as needed.

    Traders continued to assess the scale of disruption after U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said about 9 million bpd was moving through the strait weekly, while shipping data showed vessel crossings excluding container ships dropped to five on Wednesday, their lowest in three weeks.

Before the war, 125 to 140 vessels passed through the crucial waterway each day.

“Conflicting stories continue to drive the narrative as to who controls the Strait of Hormuz and just how many ships are making passage,” said Tim Snyder, chief economist at Matador Economics.

Adding to market tightness, Russia’s seaborne oil product exports fell sharply in July after Ukrainian drone attacks led to unplanned maintenance at key domestic refineries, industry sources said and Reuters’ calculations showed.

In the Russian city of Orsk, an oil refinery that was hit by a Ukrainian drone strike two days ago has been forced to shut down, and repairs could take up to six months, the regional governor said on Thursday.

Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in New York, Sam Li in Beijing and Siyi Liu in SingaporeEditing by Mark Potter, David Goodman, Keith Weir and Nia Williams

At least 273 people were killed — many in Cali and Pereira, a city in the coffee region — and more than 3,800 injured, according to government data on Thursday morning

International News via Reuters:

Hopes of finding more survivors from the powerful earthquake that rocked Colombia early this week were fading on Thursday as rescue workers narrowed their searches, while families in the worst-hit areas waited for news of missing relatives.

In Cali, the country’s third-largest city, crews have turned their attention from a search-and-rescue effort to debris removal at most sites, a sign the disaster response was entering a grimmer phase after the crucial first 72 hours.

The 7.4-magnitude quake struck shortly after 7:30 a.m. local time on Monday, toppling apartment blocks, damaging homes, schools and hospitals and sending residents into the streets across western Colombia, home to the country’s coffee farms.

At least 273 people were killed — many in Cali and Pereira, a city in the coffee region — and more than 3,800 injured, according to government data on Thursday morning. It also said 377 people were still reported to be missing.

In Pereira, Enrique Marin said he drove more than 10 hours from Bogota after getting a call from a friend who told him Marin’s mother was trapped underneath the rubble of her home.

“My mother was rescued six hours after the earthquake. They pulled her out with vital signs, but she died on the way to the hospital,” Marin told Reuters as he stood in front of the debris clutching a bicycle from his childhood, the only item he said he was able to recover from the house.

He said his mother was found in her pajamas with the house keys still in her hand.

At the Torres del Limonar residential complex in southern Cali, rescue brigades with buckets and cranes continued to search for 15 people still missing. Rescuers have found seven survivors and 13 corpses at the site.

Monica Mina, a 38-year-old restaurant owner, told Reuters she and other chefs in the city were working almost around the clock to distribute about 1,000 meals a day — including scrambled eggs and bits of pork — for rescuers, medics and volunteers.

FIRST MAJOR TEST FOR NEW COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT

Outside major cities, rescue groups said smaller towns and communities were still struggling with little or no response from the Colombian government.

Nazly Lozano, the International Rescue Committee’s program assistant at the port city of Buenaventura northwest of Cali, said rescue workers had not reached some stricken areas until Wednesday night, leaving locals to dig through the rubble with their bare hands in a desperate search for survivors.

IRC workers said some neighborhoods in Buenaventura remained inaccessible due to armed groups, some of which seized food donations, vowing to distribute these items themselves. Residents still lack basic services such as water and electricity and were using logs to cook their meals, the IRC workers said.

More than 150 aftershocks have been recorded since Monday, adding to the risks for rescue workers combing through the debris as well as people made homeless by the initial quake, which was one of the strongest felt in Colombia in several decades.

The government has estimated the quake destroyed more than 12,500 homes.

President Abelardo De La Espriella, who took office just days before the disaster, said on Wednesday he would declare an economic emergency and create a reconstruction fund to channel domestic and international aid toward rebuilding hospitals, schools, homes and infrastructure.

The disaster is shaping up as the first major test for the conservative president, who campaigned on cutting public spending and now faces the task of financing relief and reconstruction while showing his government can manage a national crisis.

Colombian officials have also pushed back against criticism over the handling of foreign assistance, saying the government has not rejected any country’s offer but will only accept international search-and-rescue teams that meet recognized certification standards.

Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra in Pereira, Julia Symmes Cobb in Cali and Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogota; Additional reporting by Sarah Morland; Writing by Kylie Madry and Sarah Morland; Editing by Paul Simao

A spokesperson for major energy commodities trading company Gunvor said an “incident” occurred during maintenance work on one of its storage tanks

International News via Reuters:

A blast at a storage facility for petroleum products at the Netherlands’ Rotterdam port killed one person and wounded six others on Thursday, officials said, as police investigated the cause of the explosion.

A spokesperson for major energy commodities trading company Gunvor said an “incident” occurred during maintenance work on one of its storage tanks. A police spokesperson said that there was no immediate sign of sabotage and that all possible scenarios were under investigation.

The port of Rotterdam is the largest in Europe and a major hub for crude oil and fuel imports and storage. It hosts Europe’s largest oil refinery, Shell’s 404,000-barrel-per-day Pernis plant, in addition to other oil refineries operated by BP, ExxonMobil, and Vitol.

The explosion occurred at around 11:30 a.m. (0930 GMT).

Gunvor said it was cooperating with local authorities.

Shell said its operations at the port were unaffected by the blast.

A Rotterdam Port spokesperson said LNG terminals were not affected by the blast. Data from European gas transmission group ENTSOG showed a temporary drop in gas sendout from Rotterdam’s Gate LNG terminal, and then volatile flows. It was not clear if that was a consequence of the blast or an unrelated power outage elsewhere in the sprawling port.

Any prolonged disruption would be closely watched by traders, as Gate is one of northwest Europe’s key LNG import hubs and Dutch gas storage sites are currently only around 40% full, according to Gas Infrastructure Europe data, ahead of the winter heating season.

ExxonMobil said the power outage had been resolved and that its operations were normal at its 191,000-barrel-per-day refinery, declining to confirm an alert from Wood Mackenzie seen by Reuters that all monitored units had shut down.

Rotterdam Port said there was no connection between the blast and the power outage. The port had experienced several power outages earlier in the day, but none were connected to the blast, the local safety authority said.

Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Inti Landauro; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Toby Chopra, Hugh Lawson and Sharon Singleton

The NTSB is investigating the incident where a piece of the engine broke off the plane and smashed the window

International News via Reuters:

Bird remains were found in the engine of a Ryanair Boeing 737 NG plane where a passenger was partially sucked through a broken window shortly after takeoff from Greece in July, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Thursday. 

The NTSB is investigating the incident where a piece of the engine broke off the plane and smashed the window. The plane, headed to Germany, lost pressure and was forced to make an emergency landing. 

The NTSB said in its preliminary report into the July 10 incident that four suspected bird strikes to the airplane’s No. 2 engine were reported by flight crew in the 12 months preceding the accident.

“Bird remains were reportedly found in two of the cases,” although no damage was located during subsequent maintenance, it said.

The NTSB said the CFM engine made by a venture between France’s Safran and U.S.-based General Electric had been inspected in May with no findings.

Boeing and Ryanair declined to comment on Thursday. GE and Safran were not immediately available for comment.

The NTSB, an independent U.S. government agency that investigates civil transportation accidents, is leading the investigation into the Ryanair flight.

The agency said it is still looking at whether the incident is similar to other cases, such as an April 2018 engine failure on a U.S. Southwest Airlines flight that killed a passenger who was partially sucked out the window.

“The investigative team is aware of previous … events with similar engine models that resulted in damage to engine inlets or cowlings and fuselage structures,” the report said. “Determination of any relevant similarities or details between this accident and previous events remains under investigation.”

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told Reuters in an interview: “I don’t think the early indications are ‌that (the ⁠recent Ryanair problem) mimics what the Southwest incident was.”

Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Matthew Lewis

People wearing face masks, some clutching pets, boarded dingies and boats in the seaside town of Siviri as the fire ate through a forest and large columns of smoke turned the cloudless sky a dark gray

International News via Reuters:

Tourists and residents fled villages in the Halkidiki region of northern Greece by land and sea on Thursday as a wildfire fanned by strong winds engulfed houses and trees near resorts during the heart of holiday season. 

People wearing face masks, some clutching pets, boarded dingies and boats in the seaside town of Siviri as the fire ate through a forest and large columns of smoke turned the cloudless sky a dark gray. Inland, the fire charred holiday apartments and their sea-facing balconies. 

The coast guard said that more than 300 people have been evacuated by boat from Siviri, which sits on a picturesque peninsular of woodland, olive groves and beaches south of Greece’s second city Thessaloniki. Patrol and fire boats and fishing vessels were involved in the operation, it said in a statement. 

More than 140 firefighters were deployed to battle flames raging on both sides of the main road from Siviri to the town of Kassandreia. Nine aircraft and seven helicopters were also deployed, the fire brigade said in a statement posted on X.  One firefighter was injured and traffic has been stopped.

“Our effort is focused on extinguishing the fire and the safe transport of people,” fire brigade spokesman Giannis Artopios told Protothema news portal. 

Across Europe, successive heatwaves this summer have intensified drought, strained water supplies and left vegetation tinder-dry, helping ‌wildfires in Spain, France, Greece scorch near unprecedented amounts of land. 

Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Edward McAllister