Oil and gas prices resume rise after Iran attacks production facilities
Oil and gas prices have risen again after Iran carried out attacks on production facilities for the first time since the start of the war with the US and Israel.Brent crude, the international benchmark oil price, climbed 3% to $103.2 (£77.52) a barrel on Tuesday and was up nearly 50% from levels before the war began on 28 February.Wholesale gas prices rose nearly 3% to €52 (£45) a megawatt hour, compared with about €30 before the war.
For the first time, Iran successfully targeted oil and gas production facilities, rather than just refineries, terminals and storage,The United Arab Emirates said a drone struck the Shah natural gasfield – one of the largest in the world – on Monday and set it on fire,Operations remained suspended on Tuesday while officials assessed the damage,An oilfield in Iraq, Majnoon, and the UAE’s biggest port and oil storage facility, Fujairah, were also hit by Iranian drones and missiles as the war entered its third week,A tanker was hit by an unknown projectile off the port of Fujairah in the Gulf of Oman.
The attack caused a fire in the port, a vital export terminal where oil loading by the state company Adnoc has been halted.When operating normally, Fujairah is the outlet for more than 1m barrels of oil a day.The disruptions threaten to completely cut off the UAE’s remaining crude export outlet from global markets as the Middle East crisis deepens.Daily crude oil output from the UAE, the third biggest producer within the Opec cartel, has more than halved since the conflict started.The UAE’s other export hubs are located within the Gulf, which has in effect been cut off from the world by Iran’s stranglehold of the strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which a fifth of the world’s oil shipments and a fifth of gas supplies pass in normal times.
Gulf Arab states, including the UAE, have faced more than 2,000 missile and drone attacks since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran, targeting US diplomatic missions and military bases as well as oil infrastructure, ports, airports and residential and commercial buildings,The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, denied a report that he had been in contact with Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff,The price of Brent crude remains well below the peak of $119,50 a barrel hit during the war,Analysts at Goldman Sachs said the largest oil market shock on record would have a bigger impact on products such as jet fuel and diesel than on crude.
“Prices have rallied much more for many refined products than for crude,” the analysts Yulia Zhestkova Grigsby and Daan Struyven said in a note, according to Bloomberg.The severe disruptions seen in supplies of medium-heavy crude put the production of diesel, jet fuel and fuel oil at risk.Saul Kavonic, the head of energy research at the Sydney-based research firm MST Marquee, said: “Mixed messages are coming from the Trump administration on the war’s duration, as the market focuses more on the actions on the ground that remain escalatory.”Blackouts have increased in Asian countries alongside a shift to coal, as most of the oil and gas flowing through the strait of Hormuz normally goes to Asia.Sri Lanka declared every Wednesday a holiday for public institutions to conserve fuel.
“We must prepare for the worst but hope for the best,” the president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, said at an emergency meeting with senior officials on Monday.Bangladesh has brought forward Ramadan holidays in universities and introduced planned blackouts across the nation to conserve energy.In Thailand, the government has asked civil servants to wear short-sleeved shirts rather than suits to reduce reliance on air conditioning, and to take the stairs instead of lifts.
Seth Meyers on Pete Hegseth: ‘The face of a man war-fighting with his colon’
Late-night hosts dug into the Trump administration’s vague intentions for the war in Iran, the conflict’s oil-price effect and a Maga rally in Kentucky with Jake Paul.On Late Night, Seth Meyers checked in on Donald Trump’s now two-week-old war in Iran. “The president is maybe sort of threatening/teasing that he might put boots on the ground in Iran? But Republicans can’t seem to agree on whether they support that idea, or for how long, or why,” he explained.The confusion comes from the top: Pete Hegseth, the “defense secretary/morning show host/fifth-year senior who just found out that yeah, he’s gonna need to do a sixth year” who made a big deal about turning the defense department into “the department of war” and “refocusing on the core mission: war fighting”.“And before we go any further: was there a problem with the term ‘warfare’?” Meyers wondered
Sydney Biennale 2026: politics is everywhere – but with nuance, beauty and heart
According to its critics, this year’s Biennale of Sydney, under the leadership of Emirati artistic director Hoor Al Qasimi (the first Arab appointed to the role in the festival’s 53-year history) was destined to be a “hate Israel jamboree” at worst; a hotbed of pro-Palestinian politics at best. These fears – which appear to have originated from pro-Palestine statements Al Qasimi and her parents made in the past – are not borne out by the festival itself, which opens this weekend across five key venues, spanning from the inner city out to Penrith and Campbelltown.In an unusual move for the biennale, Al Qasimi wasn’t present at the vernissage – but with or without her, the resulting festival, the event’s 25th, is complex and nuanced. It’s light on spectacle and slogans; not a political chant but rather a polyphony of voices – more than 80 artists from 37 countries – singing their own songs. The theme, “Rememory” – taken from Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved – is reflected in works that look to the past to find answers to present dilemmas and envision better futures
Naples museum to allow visually impaired visitors to experience art through touch
The Sansevero Chapel Museum in Naples will allow dozens of visually impaired visitors to take part in a rare tactile experience, letting them touch celebrated works of art including the Veiled Christ, which is widely regarded as one of the most striking masterpieces in the history of sculpture.On 17 March, the museum will host an initiative called La meraviglia a portata di mano – Wonder within reach – organised in partnership with the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired of Naples, offering about 80 blind and partially sighted visitors a chance to encounter the marble masterpieces.Visitors will be guided through the chapel by guides who are also visually impaired in a programme designed to place accessibility at the centre of the museum experience.The protective barrier surrounding the sculptures will be removed, allowing participants, wearing latex gloves, to explore by touch the intricate marble surface of the sculptures including Giuseppe Sanmartino’s Veiled Christ, which depicts Jesus covered by a transparent shroud made from the same block as the statue. The tactile route will also extend to the reliefs at the feet of the sculptures La Pudicizia and Il Disinganno
Jimmy Kimmel on Pentagon splurging on doughnuts: ‘Is this My 600lb Defense Department?’
On late-night shows, hosts poked fun at the Trump administration’s inconsistent messaging on the Iran war, Pete Hegseth splurging on high-end food at the Pentagon and New York’s John F Kennedy Jr lookalike contest.On what Jimmy Kimmel called “day 11 of Jabba the Hutt’s war on Iran”, the host focused on Trump’s mixed messages over the Middle East conflict.“Trump said yesterday that the war could end very soon, which would be encouraging, had be not also told us he’d end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours,” said Kimmel.“He’s going to make a huge mess and walk away like it’s the new toilet in the Lincoln bathroom.”Kimmel then turned to reports that Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, spent $93bn of US taxpayer money last year, including millions of dollars in September on luxury food items: “$2m on Alaskan king crab, $6
Rapper Lil’ Kim to headline both Vivid Sydney and Melbourne’s 2026 Rising festival
The pioneering female rapper Lil’ Kim will headline both Vivid Sydney and Melbourne’s Rising this year, as each festival revealed its programs on Wednesday.The performances at Sydney’s Carriageworks and Melbourne’s Festival Hall will be Lil’ Kim’s first Australian shows in 15 years, celebrating her landmark multiplatinum records Hard Core – which turns 30 this year – and The Notorious KIM.Both Vivid and Rising are staged annually in winter.Rising’s artistic director and chief executive, Hannah Fox, said the 51-year-old rapper, who broke out as a member of Junior MAFIA and was mentored by the Notorious BIG, was on “a really exciting return to form”.“Hard Core and Notorious KIM really did carve a path – there are so many women rappers and femcees now who absolutely followed in her tiny footsteps, her funked-up, sex-positive vibe,” Fox said
Stephen Colbert on US war in Iran: ‘We’re still no closer to learning what the goal is’
Late-night hosts looked into the murky goals, economic impact and disrespect for military protocol of Donald Trump’s war in Iran.“We’re on day 10 of the Iran war,” said Stephen Colbert on Monday evening, “and we’re still no closer to learning what the goal is. Is it regime change? Is it ending a nuclear program? Is it changing the name to Donald Trump’s Iran-a-Lago?”“But we are learning more about the cost,” he noted, as the first week of the war alone is estimated to have cost about $6bn. “Do you know what you could buy with $6bn? Twenty-seven Kristi Noem horsey commercials!” he joked before clips of the very expensive, controversial ad campaign that likely ended Noem’s tenure as secretary of homeland security.Despite the exorbitant cost, Trump said over the weekend that this new surprise war would stop only after Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, to which Iran replied: “That’s a dream that they should take to their grave
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