Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict Danish shipping giant Maersk has raised the lower end of its full-year guidance thanks to Houthi attacks that have disrupted Red Sea shipping. Maersk is now expecting Q1 profits of $208 million on $12.4 billion in revenue. That compares to last year’s $2.3 billion in profit on $14.2 billion in revenue. And in the...

While all attention is on the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war, Moscow is securing key venues in Africa while Western nations withdraw or are forced out. Late on Thursday, Russian troops entered a U.S. airbase in Niger, after the new military junta there evicted the Americans (some 1,000 personnel) in the aftermath of a July 2023 coup. In an eerie...

Oil prices have dipped to their lowest levels in nearly two months, with U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent crude being particularly impacted. These declines reflect a complex interplay of escalating supply levels, subdued demand, and challenging economic indicators, all of which signal a potentially extended bearish phase in the oil markets....

1. Shell Remains on the Right Track to Recovery - UK-based energy major Shell was one of the rare oil companies to surpass analyst expectations with its Q1 reported profit of $7.7 billion, buoyed by rebounding LNG production. - Shell’s cash flow rose by 6% from Q4 2023 to $13.3 billion, prompting the oil major to ramp up share repurchases by a further...

Last week, I wrote that while Q1 profits were expected to be down this year and energy stock prices were higher, that didn’t mean that energy wasn’t a place to be for long-term investors. Well, the big oil companies have now reported, so does that still apply? The results have been mixed in terms of how the companies performed versus expectations. On...

Commodity giant Glencore has held early internal discussions about making a potential approach for mining giant Anglo American, which has just rejected an initial takeover offer from BHP, Reuters reported on Friday, quoting two sources. Glencore, which is active in both commodity mining and trading, hasn’t approached Anglo American yet, and it may not...