Topic
The industrial process of converting crude oil into diesel, gasoline, jet fuel and other products at refineries worldwide.
International Energy Agency says the global diesel shortage will stretch into 2027 despite planned sanctions easing and stockpile releases. Heavy diesel users face high costs into next year while refiners expect record profits.
Reality
Africa's biggest listing values Aliko Dangote's refinery at about $50 billion and promises to pay its dividends in US dollars, with the proceeds committed to making the plant the largest in the world by 2029.
Reality
Environment Agency reports say Stanlow refinery, which makes about 18% of UK road fuel, broke its permit 58 times across 2023 and 2024. The agency is now investigating breaches that came after the 2018-20 offences operator EET Fuels pleaded guilty to this year.
Reality
Ukraine says its strikes have knocked out 51% of Russia's oil refining capacity, a claim that could not be independently verified. IEA figures point to a smaller loss that Russia covers by postponing maintenance and keeping diesel at home.
Reality
Poten & Partners puts a Middle East-to-Asia supertanker charter above $1.2 million a day, up from about $30,000 in January. Freight and lost refining capacity help hold Brent above $100 while Hormuz flows sit near 80% of pre-war levels.
Reality
Aliko Dangote broke ground on a $16 billion, 700,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Lamu, Kenya, with five heads of state at the ceremony. The plant will run on neighbors' crude, and Uganda's president says his country will still build its own refinery.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishersReality
Uganda is pledging its crude to Hoima and a $20 billion complex in Tanzania, so Dangote's planned refinery at Lamu in Kenya will likely import by sea. Lenders and IPO buyers are now pricing a plant fed by tanker crude through a port with no working oil storage.
Reality
Treasury has extended Citgo's protection from a court-ordered $9 billion sale to Elliott Management six times since January. Creditors holding that order are waiting on an administration that keeps its leverage over Caracas for as long as it leaves the license undecided.
Reality
Crude had a reserve to tap and refined product does not, which is why taking roughly 3% of global diesel supply out of the market has pushed the US pump average to an all-time high with the squeeze still building.
Reality
US diesel averaged $6.52 a gallon on Sept. 23, an all-time high, and analysts told Fortune that keeping the fuel home would lower prices only near the Gulf Coast before refiners trim runs on every fuel they make.
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The US national average hit a record $6.505 a gallon on September 21, about 50 cents above where it sat ten days earlier, with inventories 13% under the five-year average as harvest demand arrives.
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Carlyle agreed to pay $22 billion for Lukoil's overseas assets in January 2026. OFAC's licences since then cover negotiation and maintenance through October 22, and Romania's Petrotel refinery went into insolvency.
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The September Oil Market Report puts world demand down 2.5 mb/d this year and supply back up 8 mb/d in 2027, an ending that looks loose while US diesel trades above $200 a barrel and Gulf diesel exports sit at a quarter of their pre-war rate.
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WTI at about $102 has widened the gap between Singapore product prices and the capped price Korean refiners may charge at home. The industry puts its losses at 5 trillion won. No first settlement has been completed.
Reality
The trade ministry summoned Korea's four refiners on the 14th to weigh paying more of the freight gap on crude from the Americas, Africa and Southeast Asia. September and October cargoes are already more than 90% secured.
Reality