Economy
Company that put India behind wheel now faces its biggest test
For about four decades, Suzuki cars have been a fixture on Indian roads.
By relentlessly keeping prices and operating costs low, the Japanese automaker helped millions buy cars, while hatchbacks made by its Indian unit, Maruti Suzuki, accounted for between half and four-fifths of the country’s new car sales in recent decades.
But as Indians got richer, they gravitated to bigger and flashier rides – and the automaker’s emphasis on affordability started to become a drag. Maruti Suzuki’s share of the world’s third-largest auto market now lingers at around 39%, near an all-time low.
Suzuki’s struggles reflect how cost-sensitive managers in Japan were slow to adapt to the changing tastes of newly affluent Indians, four people familiar with its business told Reuters. Executives, the people said, for years felt that demand for sunroofs, advanced technology and SUVs hadn’t trumped questions of affordability for Indians.
It marks the first report that details the deliberations between Indian and Japanese executives at Suzuki as they struggled to pivot beyond a long-successful strategy that emphasized value before almost everything else.
Maruti Suzuki managers first floated the idea of adding sunroofs about a decade ago, the people said. But Japanese bosses considered the feature – which has become a symbol of upward mobility in India – impractical given India’s extreme heat and dusty roads. They worried that adding a more powerful air conditioning unit and strengthening the cabin to accommodate the panel would increase costs and distract from Suzuki’s mission of providing affordable transport.
The carmaker didn’t introduce sunroofs until 2022. By then, fast-growing domestic rivals Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra – which both currently have a market share of around 14% – had sunroofs as standard features on between a quarter and a third of their cars sold in India, according to data from auto research firm JATO Dynamics.
This account of the missteps that eroded Suzuki’s iron grip on India and its subsequent efforts to woo customers back is based on interviews with more than 20 people, including executives, suppliers and others with direct knowledge of the automaker and its Indian business. Most spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk to the media.
Maruti’s head of corporate affairs, Rahul Bharti, said in an interview that Japanese managers were not reluctant to embrace the changing tastes of local customers. Instead, he said, they had prioritized factors such as cost and climate, as well as emissions and safety considerations.
Indian and Japanese executives engage in “extensive” talks before introducing products and new features, Bharti said. Maruti’s market share had declined recently because of a collapse in demand for small cars, the automaker’s slow rollout of SUVs and its 2020 decision to stop selling diesel cars, he added.
While it is committed to building affordable and compact models, Suzuki has now directed local managers to “pay more attention to the Indian customer,” Bharti said.
To be sure, Maruti Suzuki still runs a lucrative business in India. Revenue has more than doubled over the last five years to $19 billion and profit tripled to $1.5 billion as margins improved. About 60% of the 3.3 million cars Suzuki sold in the last financial year were in India, and Maruti contributed nearly half of its profits. But while it is making more money from selling fewer cars, the company has fallen short of chief executive Toshihiro Suzuki’s goal of owning half the market.
Maruti Suzuki also risks being seen by younger drivers as a “brand for their parents or grandparents,” said Toshihide Kinoshita, an automotive analyst at Nomura Securities.
In India, the typical buyer of a new car is in their mid-30s. The average age in the United States is 51, according to data from Cox Automotive.
The people’s car
Japanese car manufacturers increasingly see India, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, as a lifeline.
Many face an existential threat in traditional strongholds like Southeast Asia from the low costs and fast-paced innovation of Chinese rivals. They are also being squeezed by tariffs in the United States and slow growth at home as Japan’s population shrinks.
Chinese EV makers, however, are largely shut out of India, which has increased scrutiny of investments from China after a deadly border clash between the two countries in 2020. Japanese carmakers sense the opportunity: Toyota and Suzuki have announced plans to spend a cumulative $11 billion to expand manufacturing and other operations in India by 2030.
Maruti Suzuki is now a symbol of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push to turn India into a global manufacturing hub.
Suzuki first invested in Maruti in the early 1980s when the Indian brand was state-owned. Then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wanted to provide a “people’s car” to fulfill the dream of her late son Sanjay, an auto enthusiast who had sought to bring affordable mobility to the middle class.
The Maruti 800 arrived in 1983. It was priced at around $9,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars and became synonymous with India’s modernization. Over three decades, Maruti sold nearly 3 million of the small hatchbacks. Such was the scale of Suzuki’s dominance in India that its former CEO Osamu Suzuki said he aimed to keep a 50% market share “for eternity.”
India’s economy has grown some 18-fold since Suzuki entered the market. Yet Suzuki’s cost-control culture meant managers initially faced resistance when they lobbied to offer advanced driver assistance systems that Mahindra introduced around 2021, some four years before Maruti, three people said.
For many buyers, the modernity and aspiration that Maruti once represented is found in Tata and Mahindra’s feature-laden SUVs, rather than Maruti’s workaday models. Maruti does not have “the bells and whistles” that customers now want, said JATO Dynamics president Ravi Bhatia.
One erstwhile loyalist looking elsewhere is Anil Tiwari, who is seeking a car to supplement his family’s 17-year-old Maruti Alto hatchback. The insurance agent has narrowed his choices down to a Mahindra or a Toyota SUV after his wife and children demanded a sunroof and a large infotainment display, among other technologies.
“My wife and children want the best,” he said.
Fightback?
Maruti has been here before. Its market share dipped below 40% in 2011, though newer models and an expanded sales network helped it recover.
This time, competition is fiercer. Better-equipped rivals and the fall in market share mean Suzuki now faces its toughest situation in India “in the last 40 years,” chief executive Suzuki told reporters at the Tokyo auto show last year.
In an attempt to regain dominance, Suzuki is expanding R&D teams at Maruti and giving executives flexibility to make more decisions locally, five people told Reuters. It aims to cut the average product development time to 36 months from 48 months, four sources added.
Maruti has also built more car-testing labs in India to speed up design and execution, Bharti told Reuters.
Maruti has introduced pricier and more design-forward cars, including a three-row minivan that starts at about $25,000. It plans seven more SUVs by 2030, which will join a recently released model that has a sunroof and advanced driver assistance systems.
The brand is also reversing its decision not to use large display screens in some vehicles, according to three sources, who said Japanese executives had felt they would be a distraction for drivers.
Bharti confirmed that Maruti and Suzuki executives had discussed those concerns. Large displays and similar features are always “on the cards,” he said, though the company continues to weigh customer demand against the realities of Indian driving conditions.
One open question is whether Maruti’s more expensive cars will sell. The brand’s association with affordability means Indians willing to spend more usually don’t consider Maruti, six people told Reuters. Less than 3% of Maruti’s sales come from cars priced above $15,500, compared with over 21% for the rest of the industry, according to JATO Dynamics.
That perception is shaping the choice for buyers like Deepanshu Singhal, a sales executive who plans to upgrade to a Mahindra or Toyota SUV from the Maruti Dzire sedan he has driven for seven years.
“I’d rather spend a little more money for a better car that has some freshness and newness,” he said.
Turkish apparel retailer Koton said Tuesday that part of the company’s stock held for its online operations in Russia was damaged after recent Ukrainian drone strikes hit warehouses operated by Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries.
In a filing to the Public Disclosure Platform (KAP), Koton said the logistics hubs were hit during drone attacks carried out on July 17, with initial assessments showing that some of its inventory stored at the facilities had been affected.
Separately, the Kremlin said on Tuesday that businesses were suffering in the wake of Ukrainian attacks on warehouses owned by Wildberries, Russia’s largest online marketplace.
The two warehouses are located in the cities of Kotovsk, in the Tambov region, some 360 kilometers (220 miles) from the border with Ukraine, and Elektrostal, about 50 kilometers east of Moscow.
The attacks sparked fires and disrupted operations at Wildberries, which handles over 20 million orders per day. The company later said a logistics center in Koledino near Podolsk had also been evacuated as a precaution, but that operations had since resumed.
Reports said attacks had killed seven Wildberries warehouse workers and injured dozens more.
“The situation is indeed difficult because of the losses suffered both by the company itself and by representatives of small and medium-sized businesses,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
He denied accusations from Ukraine that Wildberries handles military supplies used for Russia’s war effort.
Koton said the value of damaged stock represented approximately 0.4% of its total assets reported in its financial statements dated March 31.
It said it does not expect the damage to have a significant impact on its financial position, operations or business continuity.
Wildberries is continuing damage assessment work at the warehouses and has announced that it will introduce support measures for business partners affected by the incident, Koton said.
The Turkish company added that it is closely monitoring damage assessment and compensation procedures for affected inventory under its existing insurance policies, in coordination with local and regional insurance brokers.
More than four years into Russia’s invasion, Ukraine relies primarily on drones for counterstrikes on Russian territory.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 50% tariff on a broad range of Canadian imports on Monday, citing alleged trade discrimination against American-made cars, alcohol and dairy products.
The move could unleash a new wave of economic chaos, with risks of higher inflation and further fraying of relations between two nations that had been closely woven together before Trump’s return to the White House.
The administration official previewing the action said that Canada was one of the few nations, other than China, that retaliated against Trump’s previous tariffs and must be held accountable.
The official insisted on anonymity on a call with reporters to preview the president’s actions and said that Trump signed three proclamations to launch the tariffs under Section 338 of the 1930 Trade Act. Several Democratic lawmakers last year proposed repealing the section because they said Trump could use it to destabilize the economy.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office said that the tariffs would apply to nearly $20 billion of imports from Canada. That’s about 5.2% of the $382 billion worth of goods that the U.S. imported from Canada in 2025, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
The new levies would exclude energy products, potash, fish and critical minerals, but they would include goods that had previously been protected from import taxes by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. That 2020 trade pact was not renewed by the U.S., triggering a new set of negotiations that could run until 2036.
The White House said in a fact sheet that the tariffs would go into effect in 30 days, meaning there is time for negotiations, as Trump has not always followed through on his announced tax hikes on imports.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement that his government believes in the “benefits of free and fair trade,” having signed “more than 20 new economic and security partnerships.” He said Canada is prepared to negotiate with the Trump administration.
“This trade dispute has raised costs for families, particularly in the U.S.,” Carney said. “Canada stands ready to engage intensively to address outstanding issues with the U.S. to the mutual benefit of our citizens.”
Risk of broader trade war
Still, the tariffs could escalate into a wider trade war as Canada seeks to defend its economy. Ontario Premier Doug Ford saw a possible showdown ahead.
“If these tariffs proceed, Canada should respond tariff for tariff, dollar for dollar,” Ford posted on social media.
Candace Laing, CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said the Trump administration’s moves were “regrettable” but the two countries need to use the 30-day window before the tariffs start “to make meaningful progress in advancing formal talks.”
Chris Swonger, CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, also called for a deal: “We encourage policymakers on both sides of the border to pursue a negotiated solution that restores market access for U.S. spirits and avoids further harm to the U.S. hospitality sector.”
But the use of a Great Depression-era law to impose the tariffs broadens some of the risks, as those tariffs could be applied to other U.S. trading partners, not just Canada, and inject “massive uncertainty” into the global economy, said Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
“We crossed the Rubicon,” Lincicome said. “The invocation of 338 is the nuclear option for Trump tariffs.”
Political challenge for Trump
The new tariffs carry serious political and economic risks for Trump ahead of the November midterm elections for control of Congress. His “Liberation Day” tariffs last year in April provoked a financial market meltdown over concerns about inflation and a recession, prompting him to walk back the rates for a period of negotiation.
The Supreme Court ruled this February that Trump had lacked the legal authority to impose the tariffs by declaring an economic emergency, causing the administration to find alternative ways to raise import taxes based on a series of legal authorities.
Tariffs are taxes on imports, which companies can then pass along to consumers in the form of higher prices. The president maintains that the costs created by tariffs will cause manufacturing to relocate to the U.S., though there is little evidence of that in the economic data.
“These new taxes will raise prices on American families and likely lead to retaliation against the very industries Trump purportedly wants to protect,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., who is chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The latest import taxes could worsen Trump’s weak ratings on the economy.
He promised voters when running for the presidency that he would bring prices down, but the annual inflation rate has risen since he became president because the tariffs and the war in Iran are pushing up oil prices.
Trump repeatedly targeted Canada
The Trump administration official said the president had also requested that his aides look into additional tariffs on Canada because its wildfires hurt air quality in the U.S. He had publicly threatened to do so in social media posts.
At the World Cup final on Sunday, Trump watched the game with Carney. The Trump administration official said their time together at the game was not a working visit to discuss trade and tariffs.
Trump claims in the proclamations that Canada discriminates against American autos, alcohol and cheese relative to other nations, but his argument rests in large part on retaliatory actions taken by Canada after the U.S. president imposed tariffs on Canada under the pretext that it should do more to stop fentanyl smuggling.
Trump noted in his auto proclamation that Canada maintained, starting in April 2025, a 25% tariff on the imports of U.S. motor vehicles that did not qualify for preferential treatment under the USMCA.
The White House said that, regarding alcohol, all but two Canadian provinces and territories halted the purchase and retailing of American alcoholic beverages beginning last year, which was also a response to Trump’s tariffs and taunts of making Canada the 51st state.
But Trump has long objected to Canada’s treatment of U.S. cheese, saying in his proclamation that Canada discriminates against the U.S. compared to Europe on dairy products.
Trump and Carney have had a frosty relationship, with Carney, a former central banker, pledging to go “elbows up” for Canada during his election campaign last year.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, Carney called out Trump – without naming him – by saying that the “most powerful” countries are using the economy to coerce less powerful nations.
Trump responded at the time by saying: “Canada lives because of the United States.”
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis announced Monday they would impose a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia, further throttling a global energy market already greatly restricted by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
This is why it matters and what it means for the Iran war and the global energy crisis.
How big is risk to global energy markets?
It is not clear how the Houthis would carry out a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, its northern neighbor along the Red Sea coast, or whether it would include a return to attacks on shipping.
Yemen sits on the Bab el-Mandeb strait – the southern gateway to the Red Sea – and closing that would open up a new front in the energy crisis and Iran’s overarching conflict with the U.S.
With the Strait of Hormuz already disrupted, the Red Sea has become a critical alternative outlet for Gulf oil and other products. A serious disruption would mean both of the Middle East’s major oil export routes are shut simultaneously.
Iran’s partial blockade of the Strait of Hormuz after Israel and the U.S. attacked it on Feb. 28 disrupted most oil and other exports from the Gulf, raising prices and delivering a global energy shock.
Saudi Arabia responded by diverting more than 70% of its normal daily crude exports to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Ships from Yanbu bound for Europe go north through the Suez Canal. Those heading to Asia go south through Bab el-Mandeb.
Shipments from Yanbu averaged 4 million barrels per day in recent weeks according to data from Kpler and Signal Ocean, up from around 973,000 bpd a year earlier.
Total petroleum volumes transiting Bab el-Mandeb amounted to 7.4 million bpd in June, or about 7% of global oil output, according to Kpler data, up from 4.2 million bpd last year.
That has provided a lifeline for the energy market, helping to keep down global oil prices. Saudi Arabia is considering an expansion of its crude oil pipeline to the Red Sea coast, Reuters reported last week.
When the Houthis launched attacks on Red Sea shipping in November 2023, Gulf oil exports were flowing freely.
Are Houthis closing Red Sea energy routes on behalf of Iran?
The Houthis have been in a civil war against the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government for more than a decade and have attacked Gulf neighbors with missiles and drones.
However, a 2022 truce between the country’s warring sides largely held until last week, when Yemen’s internationally recognized government said it had struck Sanaa airport to stop an Iranian plane landing.
The Houthis said Saudi Arabia was responsible and, in response, fired missiles at Abha airport in the kingdom’s mountainous southwest.
A senior Houthi official, politburo member Mohammad al-Farah, then warned in an interview on Iran’s Press TV website that if the situation kept escalating, Bab el-Mandeb would be closed.
The U.S. says Iran has armed, funded and trained the Houthis with help from Hezbollah. The Houthis deny being an Iranian proxy and say they develop their own weapons.
It is not clear how far the group’s stance on Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea stems from its own strategic priorities or is being made on Iran’s behalf.
What happened when Houthis attacked Red Sea ships before?
After Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, the Houthis began firing at Israel and on shipping in the Red Sea, saying they were doing so in support of Palestinians.
The attacks severely disrupted global shipping, prompting Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and other major companies to divert around Africa – a far longer, more expensive route.
Red Sea traffic has not recovered since, with traffic through the Suez Canal down 52% in 2025 versus 2023 levels and at its lowest in at least 50 years, Suez Canal Authority data shows.
A U.S.-led mission to restore free navigation in the Red Sea involved repeated strikes on Houthi targets and a campaign that shot down hundreds of drones and missiles.
But some Houthi attacks continued until last summer, only ending completely with the Gaza cease-fire in October.
Last month, the Houthis said they would ban ships linked to Israel from the Red Sea after Israel renewed military attacks on Iran.
However, that threat was never acted on and shipping groups Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd are resuming some Red Sea routes that they had abandoned during the Houthi attacks last year, Maersk said this month.
What have they done during the latest Iran war?
While Hezbollah and the Iraqi groups joined the war early with rocket and drone fire after the first U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the Houthis had been comparatively quiet.
The group’s leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on March 5: “Our fingers are on the trigger at any moment should developments warrant it.”
Iranian commanders have repeatedly warned that the Houthis could join the war. The Houthis launched a few missile and drone attacks on Israel in late March and early April.
Revolutionary Guards Quds Force commander Esmaeil Qaani said on June 1 they could choke off the Red Sea.
That may now have changed with their announcement of the blockade on Monday against Saudi Arabia in retaliation for what they called the kingdom’s siege of its ports and airports, including last week’s strike.
Hungarian authorities announced on Monday they had launched an investigation into a major foreign investment deal with BYD that was brokered by a former foreign minister who last week stepped down from Parliament to accept a top position at the Chinese automaker.
Peter Szijjarto’s announcement last Wednesday that he would take the job at the world’s top electric carmaker prompted accusations of a conflict of interest and criticism over his role in facilitating substantial government subsidies to the company while in office.
Prime Minister Peter Magyar told lawmakers on Monday that Szijjarto, a close ally of former Prime Minister Viktor Orban, had helped BYD while he was in office “with hundreds of billions (of forints) in public money, diplomatic support and state infrastructure.”
“We will examine all the decisions, negotiations and state commitments made by Peter Szijjarto that were related to the BYD Hungary investment,” Magyar said Monday.
He added the investigation would look into all subsidies, tax breaks, permits, environmental exemptions and publicly funded investments given to large multinational firms during Orban’s tenure.
“We will investigate who made these decisions, who prepared them, what professional warnings were ignored, and how much burden they left on Hungarian taxpayers, workers, local communities and the environment,” Magyar said.
Neither Szijjarto nor BYD have responded to Magyar’s allegations of conflict of interest while Szijjarto was in office. The former foreign minister has posed his new job as a “prestigious” opportunity to work for one of the “greatest success stories” in the automotive industry.
While serving in government, Szijjarto was instrumental in securing foreign investments in Hungary from Chinese companies, including his now-employer BYD, which received considerable state subsidies during his tenure.
In 2023, Szijjarto announced that BYD would open its first European factory in Hungary – allowing the conglomerate to skirt European Union import tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles imposed to protect the continent’s domestic auto manufacturing sector.
In 2025, Szijjarto also announced BYD would locate its European headquarters and a research and development center in Budapest and receive 20 billion forints ($63.7 million) in government assistance.
The investments were part of the Orban government’s push to make Hungary a global hub for lithium-ion battery manufacturing, largely by attracting Chinese battery manufacturers, who opened a series of plants across the country.
The moves led local residents, environmentalists and opposition politicians to protest over fears the new industry would exacerbate existing environmental problems, hit the country’s precious water supplies and further undermine its economy to China.
While foreign minister, Szijjarto also maintained close relations with Russia despite its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Breaking with nearly all of his EU counterparts, he frequently traveled to Moscow to negotiate agreements on purchasing Russian oil and gas and to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whom he referred to as his “friend.”
He was embroiled in controversy during Hungary’s 2026 election campaign when The Washington Post reported that he made regular phone calls to Lavrov during high-level EU meetings with “live reports on what’s been discussed.”
Szijjarto has dismissed the report while acknowledging that he conferred with Lavrov before and after EU foreign minister meetings about their agenda and decisions.
During a government news conference last week, Magyar said that “as far as I know,” an investigation had been launched concerning Szijjarto’s connections to the Russian government.
Diesel- and liquefied petroleum gas-powered cars in Türkiye’s vehicle fleet continue to decline steadily, as hybrid and electric vehicles maintain their rapid growth, the official data showed.
The total number of registered motor vehicles in Türkiye rose 6.7% year-over-year to 34.55 million by the end of June, from 32.37 million a year earlier, according to the data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).
Passenger cars accounted for 51.7% of all registered vehicles, followed by motorcycles at 21.5%, light commercial vehicles at 14.4%, tractors at 6.8%, trucks at 3.1%, minibuses at 1.6%, buses at 0.6% and special-purpose vehicles at 0.3%.
Of the 194,740 vehicles newly registered in June, motorcycles made up 49.4%, while passenger cars accounted for 37.8%.
The transition in Türkiye’s auto market has leaped since 2020.
Gasoline-powered cars increased their share of the passenger car fleet to 31% by the end of last month, up from 24.4% in 2020. Their number rose to 5.55 million from 3.20 million over the period.
Diesel-powered cars remained the largest fuel category by number, increasing to 5.74 million from 5.01 million, but their share of the fleet fell to 32.1% from 38.3%.
LPG-powered cars rose in absolute terms to 5.25 million from 4.81 million, although their share declined to 29.4% from 36.7%.
Hybrid vehicles recorded the fastest growth among conventional powertrains, with registrations climbing to 846,813 by the end of June from just 33,690 in 2020. Their share of the passenger car fleet increased to 4.7% from 0.3%.
Electric vehicle adoption also accelerated. The number of registered battery-powered cars rose to 445,939 by the end of June, compared with only 2,797 in 2020. Their share of the passenger car fleet reached 2.5%, up from 0.1% in 2022.
Overall, Türkiye’s passenger car fleet grew to 17.87 million vehicles by the end of June, compared with 13.10 million in 2020.
As the United States and Israel went to war with Iran at the end of February, analysts predicted the price of crude oil could hit $150 a barrel or even rise as far as $200, with the fifth of global supply that transits the vital Strait of Hormuz suddenly cut off from world markets.
But, Brent crude futures peaked around $126 – comfortably below 2008’s all-time high of $147 – and averaged just $101 a barrel between the start of the conflict on Feb. 28 and June 11 when U.S. President Donald Trump called off strikes on Iran, before briefly retreating to pre-war levels of $70 in early July.
Below are some of the reasons why the oil price hasn’t gone crazy. Yet.
1. Chinese surprise
The biggest surprise was China, the world’s largest oil importer, which had slashed crude imports to the lowest in nearly a decade by June. Fuel exports were curbed, its population started using electric taxis instead of personal cars and its petrochemical sector also reduced volumes.
2. U.S. pumps more
The United States, the world’s largest oil producer, pumped more crude, with production reaching a record 13.93 million barrels per day by April. It also freed crude from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of a record 400 million-barrel release coordinated by the International Energy Agency in March, helping cushion supply disruptions.
3. Trump burns bulls
U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly wrong-footed oil market bulls by making statements about peace agreements and the resumption of flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil market liquidity has dropped as many traders have become reluctant to make large bullish bets amid the risk of sudden market reversals.
“Everybody is bullish now, but nobody is long,” said Ilia Bouchouev of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
After driving their bullish position in Brent futures to its smallest this year in early July, funds then made their largest addition in six months in the week to July 14, according to data from the ICE exchange on Friday.
However, at around $14.8 billion based on Monday’s prices, this position is still more than 50% below late March’s six-year peak.
The market is suffering from headline fatigue, which reduces the price impact of fresh announcements, said Saxo Bank head of commodity strategy Ole Hansen.
4. Hormuz flows rebound
Saudi Arabia, the biggest Gulf oil exporter, sharply increased shipments from its Red Sea Yanbu port, helping to offset the loss of barrels via the Strait of Hormuz.
Hormuz shipments briefly restarted in June, easing concerns about crude availability, but dropped again in July as the fighting resumed.
5. Amply supply of prompt physical cargoes
Traders say there is an ample supply of physical oil, limiting the price reaction to the latest escalation in the conflict. Crude oil differentials in Europe, such as North Sea Forties, that help set the global dated Brent benchmark have fallen to a discount from a record premium in April.
“There is a lot of prompt crude around for now,” said veteran trader Adi Imsirovic. “It may not last!”
-
Daily Agenda3 days agoNew statements emerged in the Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu investigation! Unreasonable defense for contacting FETO member Adil Öksüz 152 times
-
Daily Agenda2 days agoMinister Gürlek’s statement about Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu: We will go to the end
-
Politics21 hours agoFidan meets Qatar emir, FM as Türkiye reaffirms support to Doha
-
Refugees18 hours agoWhite House says Trump will fly old Air Force One for about a month
-
Politics2 days agoFidan to visit Qatar for talks on regional security, strategic ties
-
Economy2 days agoIraq, US ink 48 deals during PM’s visit, mainly in oil sector
-
Politics2 days agoAnkara criticizes EU document saying it lacks strategic vision
-
Daily Agenda1 day agoFrom torture cells to memory museum – Breaking News