🇮🇷⚔️🚢 The IRGC released video footage of the aftermath of the mine explosion which incapacitated the GEM NO.2 tanker carrying 2 million barrels worth of Saudi oil.

@CIG_telegram

🇪🇺🌐 POLITICO: The rise of rightwing populist parties in Europe worries NATO officials about a collapse in public support for war against Russia

In France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Poland and Romania, these parties are looking to turn voters’ cost-of-living concerns into opposition to aid for Kyiv, and rejection of higher national defense budgets and a greater role for the EU in defense — although each party has often sharply diverging views on those issues.

France’s National Rally leader Marine Le Pen last month called for limiting aid to Ukraine, saying: “financially, we can’t do it anymore.”

Roberto Vannacci, a former general and MEP who leads the far-right National Future party, which is increasingly challenging Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, called for a rethink of defense spending. “Let’s evaluate whether this military spending is justified: in my opinion, it isn’t, especially at a time when commodity prices are hitting record highs,” he said last week.

The challenge for Europe’s mainstream parties is how to sustain support for higher defense budgets even if that means competing with welfare and other priorities.

“People are struggling with the rising cost of living across the board … so there’s room for populistic rhetoric about how much should we support Ukraine financially, or how much should we invest in defense,” said Janne Kuusela, permanent secretary at Finland’s defense ministry.

The dilemma is sharpening as several large NATO members, including France, Italy and Poland, face elections in 2027, when far-right parties stand a real chance of coming to power. Many countries are also beginning talks on next year’s budgets.

For NATO, a spending slowdown would complicate efforts to meet the alliance’s target of spending 5% of GDP on defense and security by 2035. Four NATO diplomats, granted anonymity to speak freely, said the risk is a growing concern, though some said its effects may not be clear until next year’s budget cycle.

“We’re already in a situation where we need to catch up” with Russia, said a NATO military official. “So far, we’re on a positive trajectory — if someone closes the faucet, there’s a risk of losing capabilities.”

European countries and Canada are expected to spend $634 billion on core defense needs this year, an 11% hike relative to 2025. But public support has limits.

In eight European countries, an average of 46.2% of respondents said they would not back higher defense spending if it meant higher taxes, while 35.5% were in favor, according to an August poll assessed by the European Council on Foreign Relations and shared with POLITICO. More people were opposed to increasing taxes to finance military spending in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland. Respondents in the Netherlands, Sweden and the U.K. were more likely to accept higher taxes for military spending.

Protests against higher defense spending have taken place in Rome, Brussels and Madrid this year, with demonstrators criticizing cuts to funding for hospitals, universities and social services.

🔗 https://unwall.app/www.politico.eu/article/europe-far-right-nato-defense-spending-ukraine-aid/

🇾🇪⚔️🇸🇦 Ansarallah's strikes are threatening Saudi Arabia's flagship investment summit, the Future Investment Initiative, known as "Davos in the desert," which opens in two weeks, the Financial Times reported.

Scheduled speakers include BlackRock's Larry Fink, JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon and Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio. Organizers told participants Friday night that the summit would go ahead as planned, with "comprehensive security measures" at Riyadh's airports, venues and hotels. That was followed by Saturday’s attack on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport, the third this week, which killed 12 people and wounded 309.

"We have no idea what's going on," an executive at one firm scheduled to attend told the FT. "It's a very dicey situation." Italy's energy minister has pulled out of a ministerial energy meeting in Riyadh next week and will appear by video instead.

🔗 https://unwall.app/www.ft.com/content/e29fd05b-9e71-474c-906e-c3fd45dfaa03

🇺🇦⚔️🇷🇺 President Zelensky and an official close to him have told Axios and the FT that the ceasefire was "news to [him]" and something "nobody has heard" of.

Prior to this announcement which appears to have caught him off guard, President Zelensky said he’d be open to organizing national elections during a 60 day full ceasefire, if Russia would agree.

🔗 Faytuks Network

🇺🇸 Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Don Bacon are backing legislation to block U.S. purchases of Russian oil following President Trump’s diesel agreement with Moscow. Fitzpatrick plans to seek a House vote through a discharge petition, requiring 218 signatures.

🔗 Faytuks Network

🇾🇪❌🇸🇦 — Ansarallah announces conducting 4 operations against KSA and 1 against PLC, involving ballistic missiles, cruise missiles & UAVs:

- Targeting King Khalid Intl. Airport, Riyadh in 3 separate phases, causing the airport to completely close [at least 1 of the phases were successful]
- Striking Shegdum Gas Plant, Eastern Province, causing a fire
- Striking Tanajib Oil Complex, Eastern Province, causing a fire
- Striking King Fahd Intl. Airport, Dammam, causing disruption of air traffic
- Striking PLC forces on the Bab el-Mandeb front with 6 ballistic missiles and 2 UAVs, causing dozens of casualties

These operations were carried out in response to 124 Royal Saudi Air Force airstrikes conducted over the past 24 hours against Ansarallah-controlled Sana'a city and Ta'izz, Ma'rib, al-Jawf, Hajjah, Al-Hudaydah, and Sa'dah governorates, causing civilian fatalities among women and children.

🇾🇪🇸🇦⚡️ — KSA's General Authority of Civil Aviation has acknowledged a new Ansarallah strike against King Khalid Intl. Airport, Riyadh, announcing injuries as a result of the attack.

⚡️🇾🇪🇸🇦 Al-Hajr and Al-Tubbah Al-Hamra are reportedly now under Ansarallah control.

@medmannews

🛢 Goldman Sachs estimates that insurance rates for VLCCs will reach $200k in 2027 and up from $150k in 2026

Record-high rates and an ageing fleet give the oil shipping companies good incentives to order new ships, and according to Goldman Sachs, the oil tanker is now taking an increasingly large part of the order entrance at shipyards.

Container ships accounted for the largest part of new orders in 2024–25, but the tankers are now taking a larger share of the contracting.

According to the investment bank, the order input has historically shot speed when “dynamic RoI” – expected timecharter earnings over the next twelve months divided by the current new construction price – is around 20 percent. For VLCCs, that figure is now 59 percent.

Goldman Sachs assumes VLCC rates of $150,000 the day in 2026, $200,000 in 2027 and $140,000 in 2028. It provides a dynamic RoI of 41, 55 and 38 percent respectively.

Today, the spot rates for VLCCs are $640,000 the day outside the Strait of Hormuz and $1.3 million for sailing through the strait, according to the ABG Sundal Collier.

Around 19 percent of the tanker fleet is already over 20 years old, and oil tankers now have a record high average age. About 43 percent of the fleet will be older than 15 years at the end of 2026, while the order book is equivalent to around 24 percent of the current fleet.

By 2030, 43 percent of the tanker fleet is estimated to be over 20 years, against an order book equivalent to 26 percent of the fleet. Many of the ships from the previous delivery peak in 2006–12 are thus approaching the replacement age.

The analysts, led by Herbert Lu, are expecting the rise of the shipyards to last until 2032.

“Our analysis of fleet age shows that 43 percent /29 percent of tankers/bulkships will be over 20 years old in 2030, against existing orders of 26 percent /15 percent, and another 5 percent/7 percent of tanker/bulkships incremental capacity will pass 20 years per year in 2031–32, providing strong underlying replacement demand that makes up 52 percent of total new orders in 2026–32,” Goldman analysts write.

🔗 https://www.finansavisen.no/shipping/2026/10/09/8386537/goldman-sachs-venter-tankrater-pa-200.000-dollar-neste-ar

🚢 Tanker Rates Soar to Record as Oil Crisis Becomes Shipping Crisis

Supertanker rates hit a record $1.4 million per day on Persian Gulf–Asia routes, surging 40% in the first week of October amid the Iran war.

Ship-to-ship transfers near Hormuz are tying up tankers, creating a global vessel shortage and driving up freight rates for VLCCs, Suezmaxes and Aframaxes.

U.S.–China crude shipping costs have soared to $76 million per cargo, roughly ten times pre-war levels, adding tens of dollars per barrel to delivered oil prices.

Supertanker rates soared in September to above $1 million per day on the Persian Gulf to China route—a record high.

The September record was soon smashed as freight rates soared by another 40% in the first week of October alone, to top $1.4 million per day on the Gulf to East Asia trip this week, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The increased flows of oil from the Strait of Hormuz, mostly thanks to ship-to-ship (STS) transfers in the Gulf of Oman, are tying up supertankers for weeks waiting for the transfers outside the Strait, limiting the availability of very large crude carriers (VLCCs) for the other global key oil trade routes, such as the U.S. Gulf Coast to Asia.

The inefficient oil loadings in the Middle East and the very tight supertanker market resulting from these have created a ripple effect extending to the market of smaller vessels, Aframax and Suezmax, whose demand and daily rates have also surged amid a shortage of supertankers.

Thus, the Iran war and the oil crisis has also turned into a full-blown shipping crisis, with record rates being smashed nearly every day. Sky-high rates add millions of U.S. dollars to the cost of a single crude oil cargo, further fueling oil and fuel prices.

The shuttle-shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is “very inefficient,” Russell Hardy, chief executive officer at the world’s biggest independent oil trader, Vitol, said at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London this week.

“We started this conflict with a crude crisis. Then it turned into a product crisis. Now we have more crude oil coming out of the Middle East, but it is turning into a shipping crisis,” Hardy added.

“There is really not quite enough shipping to go around,” the executive noted.

Rates on the U.S. Gulf-to-Japan route are skyrocketing and one supertanker has been reportedly offered at a total fee of $82 million for the journey, up by 50% from just three weeks ago, Bloomberg reports.

Commodity trading giant Trafigura has reportedly chartered a supertanker to ship crude from the U.S. Gulf Coast to China at a total fee of $76 million, a source with knowledge of the fixture told CNBC this week.

The $76-million tanker fee is ten times higher than $7 million to $10 million in pre-war times. This suggests the freight cost of the journey is now about $38 per barrel of oil.

🔗 https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Tanker-Rates-Soar-to-Record-as-Oil-Crisis-Becomes-Shipping-Crisis.html

🛢 Emergency Oil Releases Risk Draining the World’s Last Supply Cushion

The IEA is releasing another 100 million barrels of emergency oil and fuels, but global inventories are rapidly shrinking amid the prolonged Hormuz crisis.

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve has fallen to 282 million barrels, its lowest level since 1982, placing itself in the operational minimum of 250–300 million barrels.

Aramco warns the global oil supply cushion is dangerously thin, with inventories potentially taking two years to replenish once Hormuz reopens, leaving markets vulnerable to further shocks.

Earlier this week, the International Energy Agency, after consulting with G7, said it would release another 100 million barrels of diesel, gasoline, and crude oil. The release is part of a plan announced in March to release 400 million barrels of oil in response to the Hormuz squeeze. But there is a problem with those releases—storage is emptying.

When the U.S. administration began releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a flurry of reports followed, citing experts who warned the level of oil in the SPR was already low enough for concern, and any further draws would be risky. As of the start of October, the amount of oil in the strategic U.S. reserve stood at 282 million barrels, which was the lowest since 1983, following the latest release of over 9 million barrels. The releases are part of a 172-million-barrel release the United States committed to earlier this year.

The U.S. strategic oil reserve, however, is not the only one reaching minimum levels. Global inventories are on the decline, too. According to the IEA’s latest monthly oil report, from September, global oil inventories dropped by 95 million barrels in August, bringing the total draws since February to 507 million barrels, translating into 2.8 million barrels daily. The one piece of good news that the IEA had in that report was that OECD commercial inventories rose by 23 million barrels, offsetting a 19-million-barrel draw in strategic reserves.

However, the good news did not last long. Earlier this week, Aramco’s chief executive Amin Nasser warned that the world’s oil inventories were running dangerously low—and implied the prospect of refilling them was rather distant.

“The system is already straining,” Nasser told the Energy Intelligence Forum in London. “And, with precious little else the world can turn to, the supply resilience cushion is scarily thin.” The replenishment of drained inventories, Nasser noted, could take up to two years, and that only after the Strait of Hormuz reopens. While the world waits for that to happen, it is draining its inventories, exposing itself to much more severe supply shocks if the war drags on into 2027.

“IEA Member governments still have significant levels of publicly held emergency oil stocks – equivalent to around 1.1 billion barrels, including over 200 million barrels of diesel,” the agency’s head, Fatih Birol, said this week, following his meeting with agency members to discuss the new release of oil and fuel. “The IEA stands ready to release more of these stocks to the market if and when required.”

This was meant to reassure the market that there will be no shortage of, notably, diesel. However, it might well spark concern instead of allaying fears of shortages, because global inventories are also dangerously close to their operational minimum and that cannot be breached because once you breach it, you have no global inventory system.

The world has drawn over 1 billion barrels of crude from inventories since the start of the war between the United States and Israel, and Iran. Most of that came from commercial inventories, Aramco’s Nasser said this week. That leaves less than 6 billion barrels still in storage—and those 6 billion barrels are needed to stay where they are to keep the storage system functional. The world, it seems, has worn its oil supply cushion through.

No wonder, then, that a lot of countries, notably in Asia, are now in a race to build their oil inventories. Asia is especially vulnerable to adverse events in the Middle East because most of its oil imports come from the region. With that severely compromised, Asian economies, especially Southeast Asian ones, have been struggling to secure fuel for their economies and populations, and to keep them relatively affordable.

🔗 https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Emergency-Oil-Releases-Risk-Draining-the-Worlds-Last-Supply-Cushion.html