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Venezuela has been suffering from a fuel shortage due to sanctions imposed by the U.S government. Iran and Venezuela are targets of United States sanctions and therefore Iran has stated its willingness to aid Venezuela as a fellow target of U.S sanctions. In August, the United States seized the cargo of four ships carrying fuel from Iran to Venezuela. Throughout this year, five Iranian vessels were set to aid in Venezuela’s shortage and earlier this year, only one of the five made it to Venezuela with the much-needed cargo. The other four never made it and the cargo of these vessels was seized by the U.S Administration, the cargo totaled 1.116 million barrels of petroleum.

As the world looks to become greener, the travel industry continues to look for alternative fuel sources. This week, Airbus unveiled their new concept for hydrogen powered commercial airliners, which would be the world’s first zero emission commercial aircraft. They released three visual concepts that they hope to have in use by 2035. The three concepts that were released are the; turbofan design, turboprop design and a blended-wing body. Guillaume Faury, the CEO of Airbus, said "This is a historic moment for the commercial aviation sector as a whole, and we intend to play a leading role in the most important transition this industry has ever seen. The concepts we unveil today offer the world a glimpse of our ambition to drive a bold vision for the future of zero-emission flight". He went on to discuss how the use of hydrogen has the potential to drastically reduce the industries impact on the environment.

With the markets slowly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, the oil demand in Asia is starting to return to pre-pandemic levels. Saudi Aramco’s chief executive Amin Nasser said, “We are seeing a partial recovery in the energy market as countries around the world take steps to ease restrictions and reboot their economies”. This positive news echoes the statement that Nasser made at the end of June, when he stated that the worst of the demand destruction was over and there is an optimistic outlook for the second half of the year. In June, the global oil demand was about 90 million barrels per day (bpd) which was up from the 75-80 million bpd that we saw in April.

While most of the trucking industry has seen rising unemployment rates during the COVID-19 pandemic, the “Final-Mile” segment has experienced quite the opposite. U.S. citizens have been relying heavily on e-commerce, thus stimulating this business segment. Since the beginning of the pandemic in March, the U.S. has seen almost 49 million people apply for unemployment for the first time. Conversely, the trucking industry has gained 8,100 seasonally adjusted payroll jobs in the month of June, which is good, but still less than expected. The month of June is historically a busy month, but the 8,100 jobs added back are just a fraction of what was lost in the beginning of the pandemic. Avery Vise of the FTR Transportation Intelligence noted “that in June, payroll jobs were still down 86,600 from what they were in February.”

India has announced plans to auction off 41 coal mines which would put an end to 4 decades of state-controlled coal mining. The Indian government hopes the privatization of coal mining will solve a fuel shortage that is threatening the country. India has felt the economic toll steaming from the COVID-19 pandemic and they are hoping the auctions will also help aid the economic struggles.