Политика, геополитика и конфликты
Poland’s state-controlled refiner, Orlen, lost $230 million on a Venezuelan crude deal the moment it wired the money with no collateral and no bank guarantee. Orlen’s Swiss trading arm signed a $345 million contract with Dubai-based Hannon International on November 29, 2023, for six million barrels of Venezuelan crude, and sent the $230 million advance within five days, after Orlen’s Swiss-unit chief, Samer Awad, met Hannon’s 25-year-old founder on a yacht at the 2023 Abu Dhabi Formula 1 weekend. US sanctions had locked Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, out of dollar banking, so the advance moved as Tether instead: brokers in Caracas received USB drives holding tens of millions of dollars in it, one drive at a time. One $135 million conversion returned $85 million; the missing $50 million sits in a UAE court proceeding. Six chartered tankers waited off Venezuela for months and left empty, adding $72 million in shipping costs. PDVSA says it loaded no oil because it was never paid. Polish prosecutors put total losses at 1.6 billion z?oty, roughly $424 million, and indicted three former Orlen executives on August 7 over $378 million of that, with charges carrying up to 25 years. Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the reporting “a disgrace in front of the entire world.”
The State Department approved a $24.3B sale of 48 F-35s to Saudi Arabia Thursday, along with 49 engines and support equipment, making Riyadh the first Arab country…
Политика, геополитика и конфликты
Poland’s state-controlled refiner, Orlen, lost $230 million on a Venezuelan crude deal the moment it wired the money with no collateral and no bank guarantee. Orlen’s Swiss trading arm signed a $345 million contract with Dubai-based Hannon International on November 29, 2023, for six million barrels of Venezuelan crude, and sent the $230 million advance within five days, after Orlen’s Swiss-unit chief, Samer Awad, met Hannon’s 25-year-old founder on a yacht at the 2023 Abu Dhabi Formula 1 weekend. US sanctions had locked Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, out of dollar banking, so the advance moved as Tether instead: brokers in Caracas received USB drives holding tens of millions of dollars in it, one drive at a time. One $135 million conversion returned $85 million; the missing $50 million sits in a UAE court proceeding. Six chartered tankers waited off Venezuela for months and left empty, adding $72 million in shipping costs. PDVSA says it loaded no oil because it was never paid. Polish prosecutors put total losses at 1.6 billion z?oty, roughly $424 million, and indicted three former Orlen executives on August 7 over $378 million of that, with charges carrying up to 25 years. Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the reporting “a disgrace in front of the entire world.”
The State Department approved a $24.3B sale of 48 F-35s to Saudi Arabia Thursday, along with 49 engines and support equipment, making Riyadh the first Arab country to operate the jet if the deal is completed. Trump announced the sale in November 2025, ahead of hosting MBS at the White House. Congress now has 30 days to object, though only a veto-proof two-thirds vote in both chambers could actually stop it. So, instead of direct military help to ward off the Houthis, MBS gets prime fighter jets. (China’s access to F-35 technology through Saudi Arabia’s military ties to Beijing remains an open US intelligence concern, and Israel, the only current Middle East operator of the aircraft, has already objected to losing its edge). But not to fear, separately, the administration notified Congress Tuesday of a $2.8B sale to Israel, including 40,000 heavy bombs, 20,000 Mk84s and 20,000 BLU-117s, the same bombs the Biden administration paused two years ago over Gaza mass-casualty concerns. Most of it is paid for with US taxpayer money routed through foreign military financing, so Israel buys American weapons with American funds. While Riyadh is paying out of its own pocket, Israel isn’t. Congress appropriates $3.3B a year in Foreign Military Financing for Israel, plus $500M for missile defense, under a 10-year agreement running through 2028. That money is a grant, so Israel never pays it back. But Israel can’t spend it freely either: the funds are earmarked to buy American weapons, paid through the US government’s own Foreign Military Sales system or direct contracts with US defense companies. So the money moves in a loop: Congress appropriates it, hands it to Israel, Israel pays it back to the US government to buy the weapons, and that payment lands in the accounts of American contractors like General Dynamics or Boeing (this is the same method that funded Israel’s $8.6 billion F-15IA contract with Boeing in December). Israel also gets terms few other countries receive: cash-flow financing that spreads a huge purchase like this one across several years, and a shortened congressional review window. The American taxpayer funds the purchase, Israel is the pass-through, and the money ends up back with the US defense industry that built the weapons in the first place. It follows a $6.67B package in January and a $3B sale last year that skipped normal congressional review entirely.
Iran is missing $11B of its own oil money, according to Tehran’s budget committee chairman, who told lawmakers that the country sold $21B in oil in 2025 and collected only $13B, blaming the gap on private middlemen specializing in moving sanctioned oil, steel, and petrochemical revenue through UAE, Turkish, and Omani front companies. The U.S. Treasury’s “Economic Fury” campaign is targeting this same network, and the US naval blockade on Iran’s oil shipments is leaving these middlemen without means to meet existing commitments. Now they will be squeezed on both ends. Additionally, the U.S. is targeting the payment network Iran uses to collect fees from ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz. Treasury on Thursday sanctioned Iranian crypto exchange BitBank, saying it processed payments collected through Hormuz Safe, Iran’s maritime insurance system, and transferred the money to the government. BitBank is controlled by previously sanctioned Iranian financier Babak Zanjani.
A Russian drone strike on the main rail route between Kyiv and Poland came within minutes of trains carrying former British PM Boris Johnson and former CIA Director David Petraeus. Ukrainian Railways said Johnson was aboard a diplomatic train carrying former European leaders and EU security officials that left Yahodyn station early after a drone warning, while Petraeus was on another train at the station. The jet-powered drone struck a locomotive on the route about 15 minutes after an evacuation order, and Petraeus said the blast hit an adjacent track and a nearby gas station without causing injuries. Ukrainian officials said the diplomatic train may have been the intended target.
Сделки, слияния и поглощения
The US Treasury extended Citgo Petroleum’s creditor-protection license through November 5, according to a posting on the department’s website Wednesday — at least the fourth deadline shift since February, following prior extensions running through March 20, May 5, and June 19. Delaware District Judge Leonard Stark approved Amber Energy’s bid for Citgo parent PDV Holding on November 25, 2025 — $5.892 billion in cash plus a $2.125 billion transition-services agreement, roughly $8 billion combined — closing a court-run auction meant to pay down more than $20 billion in creditor claims against Venezuela, with ConocoPhillips holding the largest single claim at $8.5 billion. That approval is a court ruling, not a closing: the sale still needs a separate OFAC “specific license” naming Amber Energy, a different instrument from the general protection license Treasury keeps rolling forward on Citgo itself. Interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez, recognized by Washington after the January capture of Nicolas Maduro, has asked the Trump administration to keep Citgo in Venezuelan hands and moved to install a new PDVSA-appointed board at the company — a board Washington had already rejected once, as of April reporting. Neither Caracas nor PDVSA collects proceeds from the Amber Energy sale under the terms approved in Delaware, regardless of which license OFAC eventually signs.
Continental Resources is moving into Venezuela, signing an agreement with PDVSA to develop the Ayacucho 2 block in the Orinoco Belt, where the company estimates some 30 billion barrels of oil in place. The Harold Hamm-founded producer expects to negotiate a PSC within weeks that would give it a 100% working interest and operatorship, with first production possible within 18 months.
Shell and its partners could approve the second phase of LNG Canada as early as October, doubling the Kitimat terminal from 14 million to 28 million tonnes a year just as the Iran war forces Asian buyers to look harder for LNG outside the Middle East. The first C$40 billion phase began exports this year, giving Canadian gas direct access to Asia from the Pacific coast without the Panama Canal or Strait of Hormuz. Phase 2 would add another two liquefaction trains, potentially making LNG Canada one of the larger export plants in the world.
Открытия и разработки
OMV has declared its Essar oil discovery in Libya’s Sirte Basin commercially viable, with studies putting recoverable resources at up to 43 million barrels. The Austrian producer holds 12% of concession C 103, while Zueitina Oil Company will develop the field, which lies close enough to existing production and processing infrastructure to allow a relatively quick and low-cost tie-in. OMV resumed exploration in Libya at the end of 2024 after more than a decade away, joining a wider return by international producers as Tripoli tries to lift output from roughly 1.4 million bpd to 1.6 million bpd by the end of this year and eventually 2 million bpd. The discovery follows Libya’s first exploration licensing round in 18 years, which saw new acreage awards for international groups (Eni, Repsol, QatarEnergy, MOL and TPAO).