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John Schneider pulled the curtain back on how NFL insider reporting reverberates throughout both an NFL locker room and front office.

Middle East War Triggers New Global Refining Boom

Submitted By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

For the second time this decade, a war has upended global oil markets and sent oil prices and refining margins to multi-year highs, benefiting the world’s biggest oil companies and top refiners.

The war in Iran has tightened fuel supply as crude oil has struggled to move through the Strait of Hormuz, triggering reduced refining throughput in Asia and a temporary Chinese ban on exports. The fuel markets tightened even more than the crude market to send refining margins to record highs.

And the biggest refiners benefited from the new refining boom, with Big Oil reporting their highest second-quarter earnings since the previous outbreak of a war, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The bumper earnings were driven not only by the jump in oil prices between April and June—the contribution of the refining and trading divisions was also fundamental for fueling the high profits.

Record Refining Margins

Despite the slump in crude prices and the extreme volatility in the past five months, the refined product market continues to tighten with refining margins at record highs because the supply of petroleum products is much tighter than crude supply.

Refining margins held at record highs even as crude oil prices soared to $100 per barrel and above. That’s because global gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel supply is tightening and has been tightening for months amid a combination of factors, most stemming from the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

Last month, refining margins for gasoline and diesel jumped to new record highs amid on-and-off escalation in the Middle East, Russia’s ban on diesel exports, and crumbling global fuel inventories.  

In a rare statement last month, Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said that “There is no room for complacency on oil security amid the escalation in hostilities and a continued drawdown of available commercial inventories.”

While assuring markets that IEA countries still hold more than 1 billion barrels of government-controlled stocks, Birol said that “Refinery activity and product supplies have not picked up as much as crude deliveries, meaning that markets for refined oil products, including diesel and gasoline, are considerably tighter than those for crude.”

Big Oil’s Bumper Profits

As a result of the tight fuel markets and soaring refining margins, the world’s biggest international oil companies reported their strongest earnings for the second quarter since at least 2022. They also expect refining to continue providing high earnings in the short term amid distorted fuel markets with restricted supply and refining capacity.

Shell, for example, more than doubled its second-quarter earnings from a year earlier, as higher oil and gas prices, record refinery utilization, and strong trading boosted profits to above analyst expectations.

Refinery utilization at Shell was 102% in April to June, compared with 99% in the first quarter of 2026, mainly due to lower planned and unplanned maintenance activities. Strong refining and chemical margins also boosted Shell’s earnings in the past quarter.

Shell’s global indicative refining margin rose to $24 from $17 per barrel in the first quarter, while the global indicative chemical margin doubled to $270 per ton, from $139 per ton.

“The operational performance of Refining has been excellent,” CEO Wael Sawan said on Shell’s earnings call.

TotalEnergies’ adjusted net income jumped by 68% from a year earlier to $6 billion for the second quarter of 2026 as the jump in oil prices and refining margins boosted earnings and cash flows.

The European Refining Margin Marker for the supermajor rose by 19% quarter-to-quarter and soared nearly threefold year-to-date compared to the first half of 2025, to $12.4 per barrel, up from $4.3 a barrel.

“Refining and Chemicals performed in an exceptional way leveraging market conditions, managing well the tensions on supply of refined products to maximize captured margins,” TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné said on the earnings call.

The U.S. supermajors, ExxonMobil and Chevron, also reported their highest earnings in years, drawing criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, who this week said they are making “too much money” and “They’re going to give some of that back to the public and they better cut the retail price, the consumer price.”

Chevron had record refinery throughput of over 1 million barrels per day for the second quarter, CEO Mike Wirth said on the earnings call on Friday.

“Middle distillates are really the tight spot right now. Initially, it looked like jet, now diesel,” the executive noted, saying that European diesel demand could soon start rising from relatively weak levels in Q2 amid restocking of heating oil ahead of winter.

“That lands on top of the export ban from Russia, refinery outages in Russia, the obvious constraints that exist in the Strait,” Wirth added.

China and its demand is a big unknown for the market now, but Chevron doesn’t see a significant scale of demand destruction, said the executive, adding “I think we're going to see some upward pressure on product pricing here into the third quarter and perhaps beyond that.”

Exxon’s CEO Darren Woods said the supermajor expects continued “very robust refining market with very high margins.”

Even if supply disruptions are resolved by the end of the year and crude and fuels flows from the Middle East are restored, low global inventories and the need to restock could support the global refining complex for a few more quarters.

Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 11:50

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Progressive El-Sayed Wins Michigan's Democratic Senate Primary

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Progressive Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated establishment candidate Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) to win the Michigan Democratic Senate primary in a contentious race that became a proxy fight for the broader battle within the party over its direction.

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed speaks at a rally in Canton, Mich., on July 29, 2026. Jacob Burg/The Epoch Times

El-Sayed beat his centrist opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), 48.5 percent to 47.5 percent, with 99 percent of the votes tabulated. The Associated Press called the race at 9:54 a.m. ET on Aug. 5.

The progressive will take on Republican Mike Rogers in November in the race for Michigan's battleground Senate seat.

El-Sayed faced more than $60 million in outside spending in support of Stevens, compared to around $4.6 million spent to support his campaign.

The race became a flashpoint in a wider ideological battle taking place nationwide in the Democratic Party between progressives and establishment centrists.

A number of progressive leaders, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) endorsed El-Sayed ahead of the Aug. 4 primary.

Stevens received support from outgoing Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), as well as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.).

A Rhodes Scholar and epidemiologist, El-Sayed was the director of the Wayne County Health Department from 2023 to 2025. He ran on a platform supporting Medicare for All, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in favor of bringing back the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), passing a moratorium on U.S. data centers, and ending U.S. military support for Israel.

Stevens began her political career working on the 2008 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, before pivoting to President Barack Obama's campaign after he clinched the nomination that year. She then served as chief of staff for Obama's auto rescue program - experience she championed throughout her campaign for Senate.

Running on a broadly liberal platform of lowering costs, rebuilding the auto industry, and bringing back manufacturing to Michigan, Stevens faced criticism from progressives like El-Sayed for defending continued U.S. military support of Israel and for accepting record financial support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) this year.

AIPAC and its associated groups - which supported Stevens' successful primary battle against then-Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) in 2022 - had spent $30.6 million on the race by July 30, its largest election expenditure in history.

El-Sayed highlighted the record expenditures on the campaign trail over the past month, telling rallygoers that AIPAC was trying to "buy" the race away from Michiganders.

Asked about AIPAC's ongoing financial support for her during a July 27 debate, Stevens said her support for Israel was more nuanced but didn't address the record spending.

"I believe in a two-state solution. [El-Sayed] has attacked me for supporting that people in Palestine and Israel deserve to live side by side peacefully. And [Benjamin Netanyahu] has attacked me by name, and they both represent the extremes," Stevens said.

After a rally in a coffee shop in Canton Township on July 29, El-Sayed told reporters that he believes American taxpayer money is being wasted to support foreign militaries overseas.

"We pay more for all we have to buy. We pay less for the work we do. [We] watch as our tax dollars get misappropriated to drop bombs and buy tanks for foreign countries instead of building schools and healthcare for our own," El-Sayed said.

Electability Argument

The closing argument of Stevens' campaign was that she is more electable in a November matchup against Rogers, who lost to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) by less than 20,000 votes in 2024, when President Donald Trump won Michigan.

In a flurry of text messages sent out in the twilight hours of the primary race, Stevens claimed she was the only Democrat who could defeat a Republican in purple Michigan.

The congresswoman seized on a July 28 Glengariff Group poll that measured hypothetical matchups of Stevens vs. Rogers and El-Sayed vs. Rogers.

That poll gave Stevens a 0.8-point advantage over Rogers, while by contrast, the Republican led El-Sayed by more than 10 percentage points.

"Poll after poll shows I'm the strongest Democrat to beat Mike Rogers. But MAGA Republicans and their billionaire donors are trying to boost my opponent to shut down our momentum," Stevens wrote in a campaign text sent on Aug. 2.

However, a Mitchell Research poll released on July 31 found Rogers and El-Sayed tied in a hypothetical matchup, whereas Stevens trailed the Republican by 4 percentage points.

"Highly electable candidates don't usually need $60 million to come in to help them get elected. That is a historical amount of money," El-Sayed told The Epoch Times after his rally in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on July 30.

"If you can't get elected without $60 million, you're not electable," he added.

And of course, Trump has some thoughts about 'her':

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