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    Oil Prices Slide Further on Plans to Increase Supply

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    U.S. oil prices fell to around $56 a barrel after the OPEC Plus cartel said it would bring more oil to market.Oil prices resumed their downward slide after the OPEC Plus cartel of oil producers said over the weekend that it would pump more oil, despite concerns that President Trump’s trade war will curb demand.The U.S. benchmark oil price fell to around $56 a barrel, from $58 on Friday. For many companies, the steady decline means it will not be profitable to drill wells in the United States despite Mr. Trump’s calls for increased production.Prices were last around this level in early April, just before Mr. Trump said he would pause reciprocal tariffs on most countries for 90 days. That announcement led to rallies in both the stock market and the oil market, though oil prices have since waned.That is partly because OPEC Plus is raising output at the same time that economists are warning that higher tariffs on most American trading partners will slow global economic growth and potentially cause a recession in the United States.The eight countries that make up the OPEC Plus cartel said on Saturday that they would further ramp up production in June.Lower commodity prices are causing some companies to pull back. There are about 9 percent fewer rigs drilling wells in the Permian Basin, the top U.S. oil field, than there were this time last year, when oil was trading near $80 a barrel, according to Baker Hughes.On Friday, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the two largest U.S. oil and gas companies, reported their lowest first-quarter earnings in years. Those financial results reflect the market before Mr. Trump further escalated tariffs on China in early April.“It is clear that this uncertainty is weighing on economic forecasts, causing significant volatility and raising the prospects of slower growth,” Darren Woods, Exxon’s chief executive, told analysts. More

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      Why OPEC Plus Is Increasing Oil Supplies Despite Falling Prices

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      The group agreed to raise output in June, a sign that Saudi Arabia and its allies appear to be weary of cutting output and may be trying to appease President Trump, who has pushed for lower prices.Oil prices are falling. Economists are cutting forecasts for global economic growth. Oil giants are reporting lower profits.But on Saturday, eight countries that belong to the oil cartel known as OPEC Plus said they would add about 411,000 barrels of oil a day in June. The move, which follows a similar step by the group to increase oil production at their April meeting, is a major shift in policy that will ripple through the wider energy industry, hitting profits of oil companies and forcing cutbacks.The group said in a statement that the market was “healthy” and noted that oil inventories remained low.Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of OPEC Plus, is signaling that it is reluctant to hold back millions of barrels a day of oil that it could produce, especially when other members of the group, like Kazakhstan and Iraq, are not observing their agreed-upon production ceilings.“The view from Saudi Arabia, in particular, is that they no longer want to be the ones carrying the heaviest burden if other countries in the group are not showing sufficient commitment to doing their part,” said Richard Bronze, the head of geopolitics at Energy Aspects, a London research firm.Demand for oil has not weakened significantly. Oil consumption increased by 1.2 million barrels a day in the first quarter of 2025, the most since 2023, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris. Analysts there and elsewhere, though, are cutting their forecasts for demand in anticipation of disruption from global trade tensions, which has already slammed prices.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      House Votes to Block California Plan to Ban New Gas-Powered Cars in 2035

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      Republicans, joined by a handful of Democrats, voted to eliminate California’s electric vehicle policy, which had been adopted by 11 other states.The House on Thursday voted to bar California from imposing its landmark ban on the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035, the first step in an effort by the Republican majority to stop a state policy designed to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles.The 246-to-164 vote came a day after Republicans, joined by a few Democrats, voted to block California from requiring dealers in the state to sell an increasing percentage of zero-emission, medium and heavy-duty trucks over time. And, lawmakers also voted on Wednesday to stop a state effort to reduce California’s levels of smog.All three policies were implemented under permissions granted to California by the Biden administration. They pose an extraordinary challenge to California’s longstanding authority under the 1970 Clean Air Act to set pollution standards that are more strict than federal limits.And the legality of the congressional action is in dispute. Two authorities, the Senate parliamentarian and the Government Accountability Office, have ruled that Congress cannot revoke the waivers.California leaders condemned the actions and promised a battle.Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, called the move “lawless” and an attack on states’ rights. “Trump Republicans are hellbent on making California smoggy again,” Governor Newsom said in a statement.“Clean air didn’t used to be political,” he said, adding, “The only thing that’s changed is that big polluters and the right-wing propaganda machine have succeeded in buying off the Republican Party.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Chevron Must Pay $745 Million for Coastal Damages, Louisiana Jury Rules

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      The verdict will likely influence similar lawsuits against other oil companies over coastal damage in the state.A jury in Louisiana has ruled that Chevron must pay a parish government about $745 million to help restore wetlands that the jury said the energy company had harmed for decades.The verdict, which was reached on Friday, is likely to influence similar lawsuits filed by other parishes, or counties, in the state against other energy giants and their possible settlement negotiations.The lawsuit, filed by Plaquemines Parish, is one of at least 40 that coastal parishes have filed against fossil fuel companies since 2013.The lawsuit contended that Texaco — which Chevron bought in 2000 — violated state law for decades by failing to apply for coastal permits, and by not removing oil and gas equipment when it stopped using an oil field in Breton Sound, which is southeast of New Orleans.A state regulation in 1980 required companies operating in wetlands to restore “as near as practicable to their original condition” any canals that they dredged, wells that they drilled or wastewater that they dumped into marshes.Oil industry infrastructure in coastal waters in Plaquemines Parish, La.William Widmer for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Oil Tanker and Container Ship Collide in the North Sea

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      Britain’s coast guard said it was “coordinating the emergency response to reports of a collision between a tanker and cargo vessel,” and that a fire had broken out.A container ship collided with a U.S.-flagged oil tanker off the northeastern coast of England, according to emergency responders, who scrambled to the scene on Monday morning. Initial images shared by the BBC showed fire and thick black smoke rising from the ships, and local authorities said that a number of people had been taken to area hospitals.The British coast guard said it was “coordinating the emergency response to reports of a collision between a tanker and cargo vessel off the coast of East Yorkshire,” and that an alarm was first raised at 9:48 a.m. local time. More

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      Finland Lets Eagle S Tanker Depart to International Waters

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      The Finnish authorities suggested that the ship, which was seized on suspicion of involvement in the cutting of undersea cables, had ties to Russia.The Finnish authorities said on Sunday that they had released an oil tanker seized in December over suspicions that it had deliberately cut vital undersea cables but that a criminal investigation into the episode would continue.The authorities said last year that the ship, the Eagle S, appeared to belong to Russia’s shadow fleet — older tankers that covertly transport Russian crude oil around the world — escalating concerns about a covert campaign to sabotage European infrastructure.On Sunday, the Finnish police said that since the criminal inquiry “has progressed,” the aging tanker was free to leave and that border officials had escorted the ship out of the country’s territorial waters.Petteri Orpo, Finland’s prime minister, said in an interview with Yle, the country’s public broadcaster, that “the criminal process and investigation will continue.”Investigators were still examining materials gathered after an onboard “forensic investigation” and would continue to interview the crew, according to the police.Eight crew members are suspected of criminal offenses, including aggravated criminal mischief and aggravated interference with communications, the police said in a statement. Five were allowed to leave Finland last week, while the other three were still barred from leaving, according to the statement.The police said the authorities hoped to conclude the investigation by the end of April.The cutting of the cables under the Baltic Sea in late December came on the heels of a series of similar incidents and prompted NATO to bolster security in the region. In January, the Swedish authorities also seized a ship and said they suspected “gross sabotage” after a different undersea cable was damaged. Last month, the European Union vowed to increase security after another cable break.The Eagle S, registered in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, had been sailing from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Port Said, Egypt, when it was seized.Western officials have long feared that Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet could be used to circumvent sanctions imposed over the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The episodes of severed cables raised worries that the shadow fleet might also be used for sabotage.The Kremlin has denied involvement in sabotage, and Russian officials have condemned the seizure of the Eagle S. More

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      Oil Companies Wanted Trump to Lower Costs. Tariffs Are Raising Them.

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      President Trump’s promise during last year’s election to make it far easier to drill for oil and gas thrilled energy executives who believed his policies would lower their costs and help them make a lot more money.Those hopes are now fading. Thanks to Mr. Trump’s tariffs, the oil and gas industry is contending with rising prices for essential materials like steel pipes used to line new wells.That has not yet translated into a meaningful change in U.S. drilling activity or production expectations, but companies have begun revising budgets to reflect higher materials costs. Decisions made today about which wells to drill will affect production many months from now.Oil refineries are separately bracing for a tariff on Canadian oil, which some of them need to produce gasoline, diesel and other fuels.At the same time, consumers have grown jittery about the economy and the price of oil has fallen about 10 percent since just before Mr. Trump took office, to around $70 a barrel. Oil companies tend to drill less when prices fall.The combination could complicate Mr. Trump’s stated desire to juice U.S. oil and natural gas production, which are already at or near record highs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine Rejects U.S. Demand for Half of Its Mineral Resources

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      President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly faulted the American offer, which is tied to continued aid, because it did not include security guarantees.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, during a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, rejected an offer by the Trump administration to relinquish half of the country’s mineral resources in exchange for U.S. support, according to five people briefed on the proposal or with direct knowledge of the talks.The unusual deal would have granted the United States a 50 percent interest in all of Ukraine’s mineral resources, including graphite, lithium and uranium, as compensation for past and future support in Kyiv’s war effort against Russian invaders, according to two European officials. A Ukrainian official and an energy expert briefed on the proposal said that the Trump administration also sought Ukrainian energy resources.Negotiations are continuing, according to another Ukrainian official, who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the talks. But the expansiveness of the proposal, and the tense negotiations around it, demonstrate the widening chasm between Kyiv and Washington over both continued U.S. support and a potential end to the war.The request for half of Ukraine’s minerals was made on Wednesday, when the U.S. Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, met with Mr. Zelensky in Kyiv, the first visit by a Trump administration official to Ukraine. The Treasury Department declined to comment about any negotiation.After seeing the proposal, the Ukrainians decided to review the details and provide a counterproposal when Mr. Zelensky visited the Munich Security Conference on Friday and met with Vice President JD Vance, according to the official.It is not clear if a counterproposal was presented.Mr. Zelensky, speaking to reporters in Munich on Saturday, acknowledged he had rejected a proposal from the Trump administration. He did not specify what the terms of the deal were, other than to say that it had not included security guarantees from Washington.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Which Interest Rate Should You Care About?

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      The Fed’s short-term rates matter, but the main action now is in the 10-year Treasury market, which influences mortgages, credit cards and much more, our columnist says.Watch out for interest rates.Not the short-term rates controlled by the Federal Reserve. Barring an unforeseen financial crisis, they’re not going anywhere, especially not after the jump in inflation reported by the government on Wednesday.Instead, pay attention to the 10-year Treasury yield, which has been bouncing around since the election from about 4.8 to 4.2 percent. That’s not an unreasonable level over the last century or so.But it’s much higher than the 2.9 percent average of the last 20 years, according to FactSet data. At its upper range, that 10-year yield may be high enough to dampen the enthusiasm of many entrepreneurs and stock investors and to restrain the stock market and the economy.That’s a problem for the Trump administration. So the new Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has stated outright what is becoming an increasingly evident reality. “The president wants lower rates,” Mr. Bessent said in an interview with Fox Business. “He and I are focused on the 10-year Treasury.”Treasuries are the safe and steady core of many investment portfolios. They influence mortgages, credit cards, corporate debt and the exchange rate for the dollar. They are also the standard by which commercial, municipal and sovereign bonds around the world are priced.What’s moving those Treasury rates now is bond traders’ assessments of the economy — including the Trump administration’s on-again, off-again policies on tariffs, as well as its actions on immigration, taxes, spending and much more.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More