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Andrew Wheeler, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency re-introduced the Cleaner Trucks Initiative (CTI) at a livestock exchange in Marshall, Virginia earlier this week.  The policy aims to reduce oxides of nitrogen, NOx, and other pollutants for highway heavy-duty engines by establishing more rigorous emission standards.  Wheeler is calling for public participation in drafting the initiative through his issuing of an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

Saudi Aramco had its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO) last week debuting on the Tadawul, Saudi Stock Exchange at a valuation of $1.88 trillion.  Aramco’s public debut made it the world’s largest IPO ever, toppling the previous record holder Alibaba in 2014 when they raised $25 billion.  When the market closed today in the capital city of Riyadh, Aramco had a market value of over $2 trillion.

According to recent data and forecasts from Rystad Energy, Brazil’s national oil company Petrobras, is on track to become the world’s largest oil producer among publicly listed companies by 2030.  Earlier this month, Brazil held an oil deposit auction on four blocks with the hopes of receiving interest from international exploration and production companies.  The results of the auction were underwhelming with only two of the four blocks being sold and many of the world’s biggest oil firms not participating.  This led to Petrobras being the sole winner of the Itapu block, while being a ninety percent stakeholder in the Buzios block with Chinese state-owned oil firm CNOOC and CNODC owning the remaining ten percent.

The nation of South Sudan plans to hold an oil licensing auction, inviting oil companies from around the world to bid for 14 oil exploration blocks.  The young country intends to officially launch the tender for the licenses at a conference in the capital city of Juba on October 29-30 with results being declared toward the end of the first quarter of 2020.

On Monday October 7, Occidental Petroleum chartered the Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) Maran Andromeda to carry oil to South Korea for a record rate of $13.25 million that is set to depart the United States toward the end of November.  The reasons for the spike in freight rates recently for VLCCs is related to sanctions imposed by the United States on China, which is causing oil shippers globally to scramble to find unsanctioned vessels to transport its crude oil.