The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on members of an international smuggling network accused of generating revenue for Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the foreign arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

As much of the world continues to battle with energy shortages and rising oil and gas prices, it has become clear just how much we continue to rely on a few specific powers to provide the world with much-needed fossil fuels.

Petrochemical and oil by-product exports, however, rose, partly offsetting the low crude and product exports.

Russia’s finance ministry has slashed its forecast for taxable oil production for next year, a draft budget seen by Reuters showed on Friday.

Chinese refiners have increased their crude oil purchases ahead of the year’s end as they see higher fuel exports in the final months of the year.

Causes of the current spike in oil prices worldwide lie in systemic mistakes in the energy sphere, committed by Western nations, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a plenary session of the Valdai International Discussion club on Thursday.

Russian oil companies lowered oil and gas condensate production by 1.9% monthly to 44.2 mln tonnes in September 2022 (up 0.6% annually), the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said on Wednesday.

In January – September 2022, gasoline output surged by 5.7% year-on-year to 31.8 mln tonnes and diesel fuel output added 5.4% to 62.5 mln tonnes.

With the current market price, the government provides astronomical subsidies, the diplomat noted.