Author: BlackMask Financial

Ukrainian drones hit an oil depot and an electric substation in Russia, Ukraine’s Channel 24 reported on Monday citing a source. According to the source, Ukraine’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were hovering over the Belgorod and Lipetsk regions, located on the Russian territory, overnight, striking the aforementioned objects and damaging them. Meanwhile, earlier, Moscow shared that its forces intercepted 31 Ukrainian drones, alongside 16 missiles.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are said to have deployed additional troops in an attempt to go deeper into the Jabalia refugee camp, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera Arabic reported on Monday. According to the media, the Israeli military opened fire on the camp’s shelter centers and Palestinian ambulances that attempted to reach the wounded in the aftermath of the reported Israeli airstrikes in the area. Hamas previously claimed to have launched an attack against Israeli soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip’s al-Mabhouh area.

Hamas strikes Israeli forces in northern Gaza

Hamas’s military faction, the Qassam Brigades, on Sunday, asserted that they targeted Israeli troops and vehicles in the northern Gaza Strip’s al-Mabhouh area. Moreover, the group claimed to have launched mortar shells at Israeli forces stationed in a residence in eastern Jabalia, leading to casualties. Al Jazeera previously reported that Israeli forces were active in the Jabalia Refugee Camp. NN: This is a escalating war.

The United States is willing to offer support to Israel if it abandons plans to invade Rafah, the Washington Post reported. The aid includes “sensitive intelligence to help the Israeli military pinpoint the location of Hamas leaders and find the group’s hidden tunnels,” according to four people familiar with the matter. Israel has ordered Palestinian civilians to evacuate from parts of Rafah and has vowed to press on with the operation in spite of vocal international opposition.

The United Nations General Assembly member states voted in favor of granting Palestine its full membership in the United Nations on Friday, with 143 countries backing the decision. Nine countries voted against the draft resolution, including the United States and Israel. Another 25 nations abstained from voting. The vote acknowledges Palestine as meeting the criteria for eligibility to join the United Nations and recommends the Security Council to “reconsider the matter favorably,” but does not formally provide Palestine with membership. “Thank you to the peoples of the world, nations, & majority of States who voted for Palestinian self-determination, for Palestinian existence & future,” the Palestinian mission to the United Nations said in the statement.

The Israeli security cabinet is said to have given the green light overnight to a plan aimed at broadening the operational zone in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, sources told Axios’ correspondent Barak Ravid on Friday. According to the people familiar with the matter, this plan represents a “measured expansion” that would not cross US President Joe Biden’s “red line” as the sources described it. However, one of the sources cautioned that specific actions approved by the security cabinet last night might potentially represent a “red line” for the US president. Namely, the security cabinet instructed the Israeli delegation to continue efforts to reach an agreement that would secure the release of hostages from the Gaza Strip. The sources told the Axios journalist that Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich voted against this.

Following several weeks of declines, oil prices are now rising once again on a combination of geopolitical risk, rising demand, and supply concerns. Oil prices are once again climbing after several weeks of declines. Falling US crude inventories and robust Chinese imports have sparked some bullish sentiment in oil markets. Brent futures are set to post their first weekly gain since early April, moving closer to $85 per barrel, further boosted by the easing of the US labor market (jobless claims the highest in eight months) and Israel’s Rafah operation.   According to media reports, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump vowed to reverse the Biden administration’s environmental rules and halt the current freeze on new LNG export terminals, asking them to raise $1 billion for his campaign.  China’s oil imports have risen year-over-year to about 10.88 million b/d last month, a 5.5% increase compared to April 2023, with refinery activity boosted by high-flying activity during the Labour Day holiday and also improving manufacturing activity. The US Department of Energy issued a solicitation for a new refill of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve now that WTI prices dropped to $79 per barrel, seeking to purchase 3.3 million barrels of oil for an October delivery to the Big Hill storage facility.  The US Treasury is poised to target Iran’s export capacities by targeting service providers in Singapore and Malaysia as approximately half of the Middle Eastern country’s exports carry out ship-to-ship transfers in the Malacca Strait, to be further shipped to China.  Despite Saudi Aramco’s decision to cut back its production capacity expansion, the Saudi NOC reported a 23.8% increase in capital expenditure in Q1 2024, boosted by new investments into natural gas, renewables, and lower-carbon fuels.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken (pictured) is set to present a “highly critical” report to Congress later today concluding that Israel has breached the conditions for using US weapons, Axios reported on Friday, citing three US officials. According to the sources, Blinken’s report will detail a series of incidents that occurred during the conflict in Gaza, ultimately concluding that Israel has violated international law and subsequently US President Biden’s national security memorandum. The same media also stated that Israel had previously assured the US that it would adhere to international law when using American weapons in the Gaza Strip.

Israel: Sufficient ammunition for Rafah, other military ops

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Thursday that his government owns enough munitions for upcoming military missions including the one in Rafah. Answering a question about the readiness of Israel after Washington paused one shipment of weapons, Hagari noted that “the IDF has armaments for the missions it is planning, and also for the missions in Rafah. We have what we need,” he mentioned. His remarks also follow those of US President Joe Biden, who warned that he would stop sending arms to the Middle Eastern country if it launched a full-scale invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, prompting reactions from the Israeli war cabinet and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Chinese imports of crude oil rose by 5.45% in April compared to the same month last year as refiners stocked up on crude to prepare for the five-day local Labor Day weekend that began on May 1, China’s official statistics showed on Thursday.    Last month, Chinese refiners imported 10.88 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, up compared to 10.4 million bpd imported for the same month of 2023, per data from the General Administration of Customs cited by Reuters. However, Chinese crude imports in April this year slumped from the levels from the previous month.   In March, Chinese imports of crude oil fell by 6% compared to the same month last year but stood at 11.55 million bpd. While lower by 6.2% compared to the March 2023 volumes of over 12 million bpd – when China was recovering from the eased Covid-related restrictions – the imports in March were higher than the January-February average and contributed to a 0.7% increase in Chinese crude imports in January to March 2024. In fact, much of the increase in Chinese crude oil imports in the first quarter of 2024 was due to cheap abundant flows of Russian crude, which – hampered en route to India by the U.S. sanctions – has found a home in the world’s top crude oil importer, analysts say. But in April, imports fell compared to March amid rising oil prices at the time cargoes were contracted. “China’s crude buying slowed down on strengthened crude oil prices and weakened domestic diesel demand,” Lin Ye, an analyst at Rystad Energy in Beijing, told Reuters. Manufacturing recovery in China was again muted in April, while the property crisis continues to weigh on construction-intensive fuels such as diesel.   Going forward, new fuel export quotas and the recent slide in oil prices could spur crude buying from Chinese refiners. Earlier this month, China allocated more export quotas for refined petroleum products for 2024, issuing a second batch that nearly matches the volumes in the first batch