The US administration has auctioned more than 81 million acres of oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico amid a massive rise in domestic crude inventories. At the same time, Russian refining runs are projected to contract to multi-year lows, while Hungary takes emergency steps to secure its nuclear power generation.
Global market
The Trump administration launched a major auction of oil and gas leases covering over 81 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, August 12. This sale, mandated under President Donald Trump’s 2025 tax and spending law, represents the second lease offering since the US-Israeli conflict with Iran broke out in February, which pushed Brent crude prices above USD 89 per barrel. Coinciding with the auction, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported an unprecedented 17.4 million barrel surge in US crude oil stockpiles for the week ending August 7, bringing total commercial inventories to 424.4 million barrels. In Norway, the GPFG (Government Pension Fund Global, commonly known as “Norway’s oil fund”) posted a record-high profit of USD 185 billion for the first half of 2026, boosting its total valuation to USD 2.3 trillion.
Concurrently, severe natural gas shortages in South America forced Norwegian aluminum producer Norsk Hydro to slash output by 50% at its Alunorte alumina refinery in Brazil, driving London Metal Exchange (LME) aluminum prices to a seven-week high of USD 3,373 per metric ton. Meanwhile, in the Red Sea, the majority of oil tankers loading crude at the Saudi Arabian port of Yanbu disabled their Automatic Identification System (AIS) tracking in response to escalating Houthi strikes on local energy infrastructure.
Russia & CIS
Russian oil refining runs are projected to plummet to 4 million barrels per day (bpd) in August due to unscheduled maintenance and equipment outages, according to a market review by analysis firm Kpler. This volume represents a 5% contraction from July’s output of 4.2 million bpd and a 2.5% decrease from June’s low of 4.1 million bpd, marking a multi-year low for Russian processing facilities. Despite these supply contractions, Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) reported that average domestic retail gasoline prices declined by 0.7% (53 kopecks) over the week, with retail price drops registered across 45 Russian regions.
In corporate developments, preferred shares of Bashneft plunged by 9.36% to 924.5 rubles on the Moscow Exchange after the regional head of Bashkiria announced plans to sell the republic’s remaining stake in the oil producer to majority shareholder Rosneft. On the regional trade front, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze confirmed that a private Georgian company has dispatched a fuel cargo to Abkhazia to mitigate a severe regional fuel shortage. Additionally, Russian air defenses downed 11 Ukrainian drones over the Nizhny Novgorod region, with falling debris temporarily disrupting flight schedules at Strigino Airport, while high-precision strikes destroyed a fuel tanker in the port of Odessa.
Armenia
Armenia’s domestic market for gasoline, diesel, and natural gas remains stable, but regional energy supply chains are facing increased climate-related and military vulnerabilities. According to reports from Armenian news agency News.am, the government of Hungary initiated emergency measures to raise water levels in the Danube River to prevent a forced shutdown of its Paks Nuclear Power Plant, where cooling water volumes have reached critical lows. This disruption highlights the growing exposure of baseline nuclear plants to summer droughts, a trend closely monitored by energy experts in Yerevan.
Additionally, Sputnik Armenia highlighted the Russian Ministry of Defense’s confirmation of a targeted high-precision strike on a military fuel tanker in the port of Odessa supplying Ukrainian forces. Against this background of maritime trade and baseline generation instability, Armenia’s ongoing trade integration within the EAEU continues to serve as a vital economic buffer. This multilateral framework secures predictable imports of Russian petroleum products and natural gas at fixed tariff rates, fully isolating local consumers from the sharp price fluctuations seen on global spot markets governed by highly volatile international market price assessments.
📊 I can compile a data visualization comparing the seasonal drop in Russian refinery runs with recent trends to help you analyze the impact of unscheduled outages.