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ISTANBUL — KLM Royal Dutch Airlines said on Thursday that it will not resume flights to Dubai, Riyadh and Dammam until May 17, citing safety considerations as the US-Israeli war in Iran continues.

According to Anadolu Ajansi, the Dutch carrier said the safety of its passengers and crew remains its top priority and that it continues to closely monitor the situation while staying in contact with relevant authorities.

Previously, the carrier announced that it had halted flights to Dammam, Riyadh and Dubai until March 28, and to Tel Aviv until April 11.

The move comes as several major international airlines have also extended flight suspensions to key Gulf destinations due to ongoing regional security tensions.

British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Aegean Airlines are among carriers that have prolonged suspensions to some Gulf hubs until at least April or May, while Eurowings has extended some cancellations as far as late June.

KLM did not disclose how many flights or passengers would be affected by the extended suspension. — BERNAMA-ANADOLU

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LYNAS Rare Earths Ltd. has started producing samarium — a metal used across advanced industries — at its plant in Malaysia, bolstering the company’s standing as an alternative to China in supplying critical materials.

The first batch of samarium was made ahead of an April target, the Australian firm said in a statement, and adds to production of terbium and dysprosium that started last year. The three materials are known as “heavy” rare earths, and have become highly prized since Beijing restricted their exports last year.

“The addition of samarium oxide means that we can provide an expanded suite of light and heavy rare earths that customers will use to produce high-performance permanent magnets,” Chief Executive Officer Amanda Lacaze said in the statement.

Samarium’s main use is in powerful samarium-cobalt magnets found in everything from high-precision weaponry to advanced medical equipment and electric vehicles. A cutoff of samarium flows posed a bigger risk to the US economy than disruptions in any other single commodity, a United States Geological Survey study concluded last year.

Lynas, one of only two major rare earth miners outside China’s orbit, has revamped a long-term supply deal with its Japanese buyers and signed a four-year, $96 million agreement with the Pentagon for sales of rare earth oxides.

MP Materials Corp., a US producer, expects to commission its separation plant for heavy rare earths in mid-2026 and start production of terbium and dysprosium later year, its executives said on an earnings call last month. “We think we will be the largest producer of heavy rare earths in the Western hemisphere, from now for as long as you can imagine,” said Chief Operating Officer Michael Rosenthal. –BLOOMBERG

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EUROPE’S major airlines warned they’ll have to pass on higher fuel costs to their passengers as the war in Iran escalates and oil tankers remain stranded in the Persian Gulf.

Many of the continent’s carriers are well-hedged, protecting them in the short-term from spiking oil markets, but any extra costs for them will lead to higher ticket prices, Ryanair Holdings Plc Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary said. He sees a 4% increase in fares if the war ends before summer, but a significantly higher percentage if it doesn’t.

“The average profit in my company is about 10 euros per passenger,” Deutsche Lufthansa AG CEO Carsten Spohr said at an industry conference Thursday in Brussels. “There’s no way you can absorb additional cost.”

The protracted war is sparking concerns around fuel shortages as oil tankers are prevented from crossing the Strait of Hormuz. Fuel is one of the biggest expenses for airlines, and the jolt from Brent crude soaring past $119 a barrel forced some carriers to implement surcharges and even cancel some flights.

In response, flyers are rushing to buy tickets to lock in lower prices. US airlines were the first to note the surge in demand, saying they’re seeing some of their strongest booking business as premium leisure and business travelers secure seats in advance.

Ryanair is seeing a surge in bookings to Spain, Italy, Greece and Morocco, O’Leary said in a sideline interview. Lufthansa added 40 extra flights to Asia after removing capacity from the Middle East, and those services “filled within days,” Spohr said.

Demand is “very healthy” on Air France-KLM’s new capacity into Asia and Africa, CEO Ben Smith said.

“In terms of any real capacity action, I would expect it to be for the winter season,” said Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association industry group.

Still, European carriers can’t fully replace the seats lost because Gulf carriers are drastically reducing service in dangerous skies, he said. 

More than 50,000 flights scheduled in and out of the Middle East were canceled starting Feb. 28, when the US and Israel launched their joint attack on the Islamic Republic.

However, several executives cautioned not to count out rivals such as Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways. Walsh said they’ll eventually recover and regain their footing by discounting seats.

“When all of this finishes, you’re going to see the Gulf carriers come back massively price dumping,” O’Leary said in the interview. “They’re going to restore tourism by engaging in low-cost selling.” –Bloomberg

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THE price of oil and natural gas jumped as escalating attacks in the Persian Gulf caused long-term damage to major energy facilities.

European gas futures surged as much as 35% to more than double their pre-war level. Brent crude touched $119 a barrel, close to its highest since 2022, and European diesel futures topped $190 a barrel at one point, underscoring the wider inflationary risks from the conflict.

An Iranian missile strike on the Ras Laffan complex in Qatar caused extensive damage to the world’s largest liquefied natural gas plant. Two facilities that produce 17% of the country’s LNG exports, or about 13 millions tons a year, were affected and it will take three to five years to repair them, QatarEnergy Chief Executive Officer Saad al-Kaabi told Reuters.

Separately, oil loadings on Saudi Arabia’s west coast, a vital export route for the country amid the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, were briefly halted by an attack. A gas facility in Abu Dhabi was shut after being hit by falling debris from an intercepted strike and two oil refineries in Kuwait were set ablaze by drones.

The attack on Qatar in particular raises the specter of long-term inflationary pressure in energy prices resulting from the US and Israel’s war on Iran. While oil and gas flows through the Strait of Hormuz could resume once the conflict ends, severe damage to any production facilities in the region will have a lasting impact on the global economy.

“The latest wave of attacks on energy infrastructure in the Gulf just underpins the dire supply outlook from the region,” said Florence Schmit, energy strategist at Rabobank. The world now faces an LNG shortage, she said. 

President Donald Trump responded to the attack on Qatar by pressing for a de-escalation. He said Israel would refrain from further strikes on Iran’s South Pars gas field — the attack that prompted Tehran’s retaliation against Qatar. However, he also threatened to “massively blow up the entirety” of South Pars if Iran targets Qatar’s LNG facilities again. 

Tehran’s response to Israel’s assault on South Pars “is underway and not yet complete,” the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency cited a military spokesman as saying on Thursday.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US will continue to take steps to add supplies to oil markets. That could include removing sanctions from Iranian crude on that’s already in tankers on the water, and a new unilateral release of emergency reserves, he said in an interview with Fox Business. He reiterated that the US isn’t intervening in derivatives markets.

Global Impact

QatarEnergy said several of the LNG facilities inside its Ras Laffan Industrial City were attacked by missiles, “causing sizable fires and extensive further damage.” Shipments from the LNG plant had already been halted earlier this month due to the war.

While Asian countries buy most of the LNG shipped from the Middle East, any prolonged disruption to flows would shrink the global supply balance — keeping prices elevated worldwide. Natural gas futures in the US, also a major exporter of LNG, rose as much as 6.7% on Thursday. 

Shell Plc’s Pearl gas-to-liquids plant also sustained damage, the company said. A fire has been extinguished and the facility is in a “safe state” and the extent of the damage is being assessed, according to a statement.

The QatarEnergy CEO told Reuters that the attack won’t just affect the country’s exports of LNG. Shipments of a light oil called condensate will be reduced by about 24%, ​liquefied petroleum ⁠gas will fall 13%, helium by 14%, and naphtha and sulfur by 6%. The damaged units cost about $26 billion to build and generated about $20 billion in annual revenue, he said. 

In Kuwait, two oil refineries were struck by drones. A limited fire at an operational unit of the 346,000 barrel-a-day Mina Al-Ahmadi oil refinery has now been extinguished, as has a blaze at the 454,000 barrel-a-day Mina Abdullah refinery, according to state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. and its refining arm Kuwait National Petroleum Co.

A drone fell on Saudi Arabia’s Samref refinery in Yanbu on the western coast, a facility jointly owned by Aramco and Exxon Mobil Corp. A ballistic missile heading toward the port in the region, currently a vital exit route for Saudi Arabia’s oil exports, was intercepted, the kingdom’s ministry of defense said.

Yanbu is critical for Saudi Arabia and the global oil market and Thursday’s attacks mark the first time in this war that it has been targeted by Iran. The kingdom has boosted crude exports from the port after the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, while Samref is one of the plants the company is relying on to provide fuels like diesel to Europe.

Aramco declined to comment on the status of the refinery and didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the port’s status.

Oil has surged more than 50% since the start of the war. More intensive targeting of upstream energy infrastructure, either in Iran or across the wider region, could push prices even higher, according to Rystad Energy A/S.

Disruptions to key infrastructure such as the port of Yanbu could remove 5 million to 6 million barrels a day from the market and potentially push oil prices to $150 or higher, Rystad’s Vice President Aditya Saraswat said in a note on Thursday. –Bloomberg

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WHITE sugar hit the highest level since October as a rally in oil prices and the ongoing disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz stoked fears about supplies across the Middle East as well as shipments from the region.

The most-active contract rose as much as 3.9% to $454.10 a ton, bringing its premium over the raw, unrefined variety to the widest gap in six months. 

The Strait of Hormuz is a major route for delivering raw sugar to refineries in the Middle East that convert the product into white sugar. The strait has been essentially closed off since the Iran War erupted. 

That’s hit roughly 6% of the world’s sugar trade, according to Claudiu Covrig of Covrig Analytics. Vessels carrying raw sugar to major refining hubs in the Middle East are stranded or rerouted, constraining output of refined sugar at a time when regional demand remains strong, he said. 

Gulf sugar refineries typically rely on steady inflows of raw sugar from Brazil and other exporters, but delays and diversions are creating supply gaps across the Middle East, East Africa and parts of Asia, Covrig added.

Raw sugar futures rose as much as 4.4% in New York, touching levels last seen in late October. The rally comes amid the “unwinding of a record short” position from non-commercial traders, with higher prices also likely triggering more automated buying, according to Mike McDougall, an analyst at McDougall Global View. 

The market has broadly followed crude prices higher, as traders watch to see if Brazil’s national oil giant Petrobras will raise domestic gasoline prices to tackle higher energy costs. Any such move would incentivize the country’s sugar mills to divert more cane into ethanol instead, reducing global availability of the sweetener.

With Indian flows limited by lower output and sluggish exports, the market is increasingly dependent on Brazil’s production mix, where the allocation between sugar and ethanol output will be critical in determining global supply in the months ahead, StoneX analyst Murilo Aguiar wrote in a note. –Bloomberg

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BENCHMARK oil prices are soaring as war in the Middle East disrupts crude flows, but the advance is also sparking the biggest discount for US crude in more than a decade as the rally spreads unevenly across the globe. 

West Texas Intermediate traded at a discount of more than $20 a barrel to the global Brent benchmark at one point on Thursday, the most since 2013. The nearest US futures contract is close to $97 a barrel, while some grades in the Middle East, like Oman crude, have topped $150 as the hostilities escalated.

That’s partly a reflection of diverging supply outlooks between regions as the conflict rages on. 

Oil and gas infrastructure sites in Iran and other nations around the Persian Gulf were targeted overnight, sending non-US benchmarks soaring. The types of barrels the US produces haven’t been hit as hard, and the announcement last week of a giant release of emergency reserves is bolstering supplies for Gulf Coast refiners. 

Asian buyers are heavily reliant on Middle Eastern barrels — Japan gets about 90% of its crude from Persian Gulf nations — which have been severely disrupted by the de facto halt to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The region’s processors have been scouring the globe for supplies and paying up to secure them, adding to the premiums for other benchmarks.

“This is partly due to the US being the world’s largest oil producer and the US market being well supplied with light WTI crude,” said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst at A/S Global Risk Management. “There is a shortage of medium-to heavy-crude from the Middle East.”

The huge discount has drawn the attention of Washington. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent touted the large US discounts when talking to Fox Business on Thursday, claiming they were a function of US energy independence. The country is a net exporter of refined fuels, but remains a net importer of crude. 

Bessent also reiterated that the US isn’t intervening in oil derivatives markets. The deep discounts have sparked intense speculation among traders that the US would take such steps. 

On other fronts, the Trump administration may decide to consider a crude-oil export levy, or possibly a ban, to combat surging energy prices caused by the war in the Middle East, according to RBC Capital Markets LLC. Speculation of US protectionist policies have exacerbated WTI’s discount, traders said. 

Oil Release

In the US, the 172 million-barrel release of oil stockpiles is already reshaping the futures curve. Traders are selling the nearest portion of the curve and buying later months as they seek to hedge the release, which is structured as an exchange whereby barrels are sold near and given back with interest at a later date.

The relative weakness in WTI is in part a reflection of that hedging, said Scott Shelton, an energy specialist at TP ICAP Group Plc. “Due to the liquidity and lack of shorts left, prices can drop very easily. Correlation is breaking down, so strong global crude is doing little to stop it.”

The outsized impact on oil prices in Asia has forced traders to zero in on activity far away from the world’s major derivative-trading centers of London and New York. Key news landing during Asian hours is drawing activity during times of the day that are usually the most quiet.

The imbalance has also contributed to significant losses for Chinese and Japanese refiners, which typically take short positions on derivatives priced off Asian benchmarks.

“Dubai trading around $150 reflects the physical reality of tightness in the region, while WTI is trading more in line with expectations around possible government intervention, whether that’s an SPR release, an export restriction, or tax changes designed to keep more barrels at home,” said Rebecca Babin, a senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth Group. –Bloomberg

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BANGKOK — Thailand has assured that petrol and diesel supplies remain sufficient despite a sharp surge in demand driven by public anxiety.

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said the country continues to secure crude oil imports from multiple sources, with no disruption to supply, even as fuel consumption has risen significantly above normal levels.

He said daily fuel consumption has increased from around 67 million litres to 84 million litres, while production and imports remain stable.

“The issue now is that when people become anxious, demand surges despite stable supply—much like an automated teller machine (ATM) where no matter how much cash is added, it is never enough,” he said, adding that efforts are underway to stabilise distribution and restore normal supply conditions.

He added that public concern has driven the surge in fuel consumption, with authorities working to manage the situation, reduce anxiety and ensure fuel distribution to service stations returns to normal as soon as possible.

He also urged all parties to help reassure the public and prevent panic buying.

Earlier, Anutin chaired a meeting of the Centre for Managing and Monitoring the Situation of the Conflict in the Middle East (CMCMME) to address the domestic fuel situation.

He said the government has adjusted its energy measures to address distribution challenges and ease public concern, including setting a fuel price ceiling, increasing delivery hours to service stations and promoting alternative energy.

“These measures aim to restore fuel distribution to pre-crisis levels and ensure motorists can refuel under normal conditions. Prices will continue to follow market mechanisms, while the state introduces measures to minimise the impact on the public,” he said.

Meanwhile, Commerce Minister Suphajee Suthumpun said consumer goods prices remain stable, with the government maintaining a diesel price cap at 33 baht per litre to cushion the impact of rising global energy costs.

She added that the cap will be adjusted gradually by 50 satang per litre from March 18 as part of efforts to balance price stability and fiscal sustainability.

Earlier this month, the government introduced measures to curb energy consumption, including work-from-home arrangements for public sector employees, limiting official travel and setting air-conditioning temperatures at 26–27 degrees Celsius.

Authorities have also temporarily suspended fuel exports and stepped up efforts to secure additional oil supplies from outside the Gulf region to safeguard domestic availability.

In comparison with Malaysian fuel prices, Gasohol 95 in Thailand is priced at 31.05 baht (RM3.73) per litre, higher than Malaysia’s subsidised RON95 price of RM1.99 per litre under the BUDI MADANI RON95 (BUDI95) programme, but slightly above the unsubsidised rate of about RM3.27 per litre.

Diesel B7 in Thailand is priced at 29.94 baht (RM3.60) per litre, compared with about RM4.72 per litre in Malaysia. — BERNAMA

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