Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday it had intercepted an explosives-laden boat off the Red Sea port of Yanbu after maritime security firms cited “unconfirmed reports” of an attack on a vessel in the area. A Saudi defense ministry statement on state media did not say whether there had been any damage as a result of the operation by the Saudi navy to intercept and destroy the remote-controlled boat. Still, the report gave oil a risk boost.
 
Breitbart reported that, “John Kerry, did not share any secret information when he allegedly told his Iranian counterpart about more than 200 Israeli operations in Syria, the U.S. State Department suggested Monday. In leaked audio first obtained by the London-based Iran International and shared with the New York Times, Iranian Foreign Minister (FM) Mohammad Javad Zarif reportedly claimed that “to his astonishment,” Kerry told him about the Israeli operations in Syria.
 
John Kerry, the architect of the Iranian nuclear accord, may find it harder to get a deal as Iran’s military seems to be running the show and continues to be provocative. Reports broke from the Wall Street Journal that a group of boats from Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps harassed two U.S. Coast Guard ships earlier this month in the Persian Gulf, Navy officials said, the first such incident in a year. The incident occurred Apr. 2, just as the U.S. and Iran announced they would conduct negotiations toward renewing the 2015 multilateral nuclear accord.

Those talks began earlier this month in Vienna. The episode hasn’t been previously disclosed. U.S. Navy officials confirmed that three fast-attack crafts and one ship are known as Harth 55, a 180-foot, twin-hulled support vessel, swarmed the two Coast Guard ships while they were patrolling international waters in the southern portion of the Persian Gulf as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

More concerns that the nuclear talks with Iran are a waste of time as the real power in Iran is in the military and not with those doing the negotiating. In the meantime, Iran becomes a bigger threat and trying to appease them does not seem to be changing their aggressive behavior.

Oil still is, short term, trying to find its way. OPEC yesterday acknowledge that India demand is a risk but the Joint Technical committee kept its outlook for demand unchanged. OPEC is optimistic on-demand and with good reason.

Natural gas is getting a boost as the EU acknowledges that the best way to get to net-zero emissions is to transition with natural gas! Yikes, a moment of reality in the world of climate panic!