** The number of active drilling rigs in North Dakota showed no daily movement, maintaining a level consistent with early April.
Bakken Wire Staff · Morning Wire · Saturday, April 25, 2026
The number of active drilling rigs in North Dakota's oil fields remained unchanged at 23 on Saturday, April 25, according to live rig data from Bakken Wire. There were no new rigs added, no rigs removed, and no rigs that moved location since the prior day's report.
This steady figure continues a pattern of remarkable stability for the Bakken formation over the past month. The current count of 23 rigs is identical to the level reported 24 days ago, on April 1. Over the most recent week, activity has seen minimal fluctuation, ticking up by one rig from 22 active rigs on April 18.
A rig count in the low-to-mid 20s has become the established norm for the Williston Basin in recent years, reflecting a disciplined capital spending approach by operators focused on generating free cash flow and returning capital to shareholders rather than pursuing aggressive volume growth. This strategy emphasizes drilling only the highest-return wells within the core of the Bakken and Three Forks formations.
The consistent count suggests that major Bakken producers are executing steady, maintenance-level drilling programs. Operators typically require a certain number of active rigs to hold production flat or achieve modest growth, offsetting the steep decline rates inherent to shale wells. With oil prices remaining in a manageable range, companies have shown little impetus to significantly ramp up or cut back drilling activity in the short term.
The stability in the rig count is a key indicator for service companies and communities in western North Dakota, providing a predictable level of demand for pressure pumping, hauling, and other oilfield services. It also suggests that statewide oil production, which has plateaued near 1.3 million barrels per day, is likely to remain near current levels in the coming months, barring any major price shocks or significant changes in operator strategy.
While the daily and weekly numbers show little movement, market watchers monitor the rig count for any sustained shifts that could signal a change in producer sentiment. For now, the data indicates a continued focus on capital discipline and efficiency within the Bakken shale play.
Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez (right) and Colombian President Gustavo Petro deliver statements after a bilateral meeting at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas on April 24, 2026. —AFP
CARACAS: Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez and her Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro pledged military cooperation to combat “mafias” on their shared border, as Petro became the first foreign leader to visit Venezuela since the ouster of strongman Nicolas Maduro.
Petro met with Rodriguez, who took over on an interim basis after the toppling of her former boss Maduro by US forces in January. Petro said the joint military effort will be aimed at “freeing border areas from the mafias engaged in a range of illegal businesses, starting with cocaine, illicit gold, human trafficking and rare minerals.”
“Both countries have undertaken the task of making...military plans, but also the immediate establishment of mechanisms for sharing information and for developing intelligence,” Rodriguez said for her part.
Rodriguez assumed power in Venezuela after a lightning US military raid on Caracas on January 3 captured socialist president Maduro and brought him to New York to face drug trafficking charges.
President Donald Trump´s administration backs Rodriguez´s interim government, which has opened Venezuela´s oil industry to US companies.
On Friday, the new head of the US diplomatic mission in Venezuela, John Barrett, met with Rodriguez, with state broadcaster VTV airing footage of the encounter at the Miraflores presidential palace.
Rodriguez on Thursday had said the relationship between Venezuela and the United States meant “cooperation that is a win-win for both countries.” The US embassy resumed operations in Caracas at the end of March. Petro fiercely criticized the US operation and has been vilified by Trump, who accuses the leftist leader of not doing enough to combat drug production.
A summit between Petro and Rodriguez had been scheduled for March in the Colombian border town of Cucuta, but was cancelled at the last minute.
The area around Cucuta is home to numerous drug-running, left-wing guerrilla groups, which Colombia has long accused Venezuela of funding and protecting.
After the shots rang out. After someone shouted, “Get down!” After what seemed like an eternity staring at my colleagues’ shoes. After watching Trump’s cabinet rushed out—terror etched on many of their faces—by men with their fingers on their triggers. After a Capitol Police officer asked me if I’d seen the congresswoman he thought might have been at the next table. After being told to leave, and trooping up an elevator past men in ballistic helmets with long guns going down the other elevator. After gathering with my colleagues and trying to process what happened, I went to the elevator and pressed 10, because I wanted to go to my room.
When I walked down the darkened, sinuous corridor to room 10235, one door short of the very end, I was stopped by a polite man in a suit and an earpiece. “Sorry, sir, you can’t come through,” he said. And I saw that further down the turn of the corridor behind him were at least five men, one in an FBI bulletproof vest, another with a Secret Service Police windbreaker.
We were hustled past agents in vests on the way out of the ballroom. This was exactly where we gathered without any security checks. Hugh Dougherty/The Daily Beast
The man who stopped me, wearing a Hilton security badge, told me, “Come back in 20 minutes, it’s for all our protection.” I assumed they had thrown a protectee into a room. Odd, I thought. But the evening was already more than odd. I went back down on the elevator, and we gathered around a laptop to listen to Donald Trump dismiss the security risk, a gunman charging the ballroom I was in, as a fact of life.
This was the scene which greeted me as I tried to get to room 10235. Hugh Dougherty/The Daily Beast
When I went back upstairs to get into 10235, the 20 minutes I’d been asked to wait were long gone.
The Hilton worker was much nearer the elevator this time. There were many more uniformed men behind him. “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t let you go further,” he said. “I know you were here earlier.”
“When do you think I can get back in?” I asked. “I don’t know, sir,” a man in a Metropolitan Police uniform next to the Hilton worker said. “We’re waiting on a judge.”
In that moment, I had a flash of realization: The police needed a judge because they needed to search the room. Already, security sources had said that they were working on the theory that the gunman had been a hotel guest.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (left) as well as White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller and his wife Katie Miller were escorted from the ballroom. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
I knew then that I had been next door to the man who wanted to turn the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner into a mass shooting. Maybe I had slept the night with an assassin in the next room.
“He was next door to me?” I asked the Hilton worker. “I can’t tell you anything, sir,” he said. An officer in a Metropolitan Police Department “detective” windbreaker turned to me and said, “I’m sorry, sir.”
Another officer said, “Sir, just to let you know, this will be an FBI crime scene when they get here. We’re waiting for a judge. When exactly did you check in?”
That was apparent confirmation that, yes, the gunman had been the guest next door—and that I might actually be a witness to this whole case.
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooter. Truth Social
And it was then that I began to piece together the security fiasco that had taken place in the room next door.
Quite simply, a man who wanted to kill people—many people, maybe me, maybe my colleagues—had checked into the Washington Hilton, just like I had. He had used his access to move from floor 10 to the ballroom lobby, just like I had. And he had left a room which police had closed off, but which for all they feared could now be filled with explosives.
I asked the detective another question. “Do you want to talk to me? I mean, I was next door.”
I gave him my business card, then told him the only things I could think of that might be relevant. I knew when I had checked in. I knew when housekeeping had been in my room in the morning. I had seen no guests in the rooms beside mine at the end of the corridor.
Then I was left incredulous by what he did. The detective said to the Hilton worker, “I need the cleaning logs for the room.”
They hadn’t thought of this? It was almost three hours since I had been lying on a floor, the echo of gunshots in my head.
“We’ll be in touch, sir.”
When I returned to the first floor, I went outside and made a phone call. To my utter disbelief, uniformed men and women trooped past me in vests marked “Bomb Squad.” And one said to the other, “Do you think they’ve got a layout of the corridor and the room?”
I had first gone to my room two hours after the shooting. Another hour had gone by. And only now was law enforcement taking seriously the possibility that the room next door to 10235 had been booby-trapped.
Unbelievably, my colleague went up to his room on the 10th floor a few minutes later. He watched as even more of the bomb squad passed him. One asked the other, “Is it clear above? Clear below?”
It does not take a security expert to unravel the layers of failure that happened at a Washington, D.C. hotel on Saturday night.
How on earth could someone with a disassembled long gun check into a room at a hotel where the president was going to speak? I can answer that: Nobody even looked at my luggage on Friday afternoon. Worse, my colleague arrived on Saturday at 5 p.m. Nobody looked at his luggage either: No magnometers, no hand checks, no I.D. checks. Nothing.
How on earth could that person get downstairs and assemble a long gun? I can answer that too. I moved up and down from Floor 10 all day. Nobody ever stopped me and asked me anything. I have never shown my I.D., except to the clerk who checked me in; I have never been searched or frisked when I checked in, or moved in and out of the hotel. To get down from my room to the dinner, I simply flashed my ticket. It could have been a photocopy.
The only time I went past a checkpoint was at the same magnetometers that Cole Allen, 31, sprinted past with his gun.
Another colleague was outside; I texted them a copy of their ticket. That allowed them to get into the hotel as far as those same magnetometers, entirely unchecked.
How on earth could that be considered safe?
And how could agents not have realized, after they knew who Cole Allen was, that the gunman had been a hotel guest, and that even after he had been neutralized, that other people might be in danger? How could it take three hours—yes, three hours—to wonder if the bomb squad should come round?
The Washington Hilton has seen the attempted assassination of a president before. I walked past the plaque commemorating that spot a few hours before the shooting.
I didn’t expect that I would be living through history again, in the room beside 10235.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.Vahid Salemi / AP / TASS
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Russia on Monday to seek support from President Vladimir Putin, following a flurry of weekend diplomacy aimed at ending the war with the United States and Israel.
"I am confident that these consultations and coordination between the two countries in this regard will be of particular importance," Araghchi told Iranian media, according to Al Jazeera.
He said his meeting with Putin later in the day would be "a good opportunity to discuss developments in the war and review the latest situation."
Araghchi's arrival in Russia comes after his trips to Oman and Pakistan, where he met with officials trying to mediate an end to the conflict. Hopes of reviving peace efforts were dashed this weekend when U.S. President Trump called off a trip to Pakistan by special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Yet, in a sign that informal backchannels remain active, Iran's Fars news agency reported that Tehran had sent "written messages" to the United States through Pakistani mediators detailing its red lines, including nuclear issues and the Strait of Hormuz.
On Sunday, Axios reported that Iran had floated a new proposal to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz by decoupling the maritime crisis from nuclear negotiations, which would be postponed.
While the ceasefire between Iran and the United States has held, the global economic shockwaves of the conflict show little sign of receding. Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz continues to paralyze the flow of oil and gas, sending prices skyrocketing and stoking fears of food insecurity in developing nations.
Indian giant Reliance Industries reported a drop in fourth quarter profits on Friday as higher crude, freight and insurance costs weighed on its core oil-to-chemicals arm.
The conglomerate led by billionaire tycoon Mukesh Ambani is India’s most valuable company by market capitalisation.
It said net profit came in at 169.71 billion rupees ($1.80 billion) for the January-March quarter, down 12.5 per cent from the same period last year.
Analysts had on average predicted a profit of 201.16 billion rupees.
Revenue from operations rose nearly 12.9 per cent year-on-year to 2.98 trillion rupees.
However, that was accompanied by a 20 per cent increase in the ‘cost of materials consumed’. Despite its aggressive push into retail, telecoms and green energy, Reliance still relies on its traditional oil business for profits.
The conglomerate owns and operates the world’s largest refinery complex in the Indian state of Gujarat.
Reliance said ‘multiple headwinds curtailed margin capture’, including a ‘sharp rise in crude premiums on physical barrels’ and a spike in transport expenses.
‘Lower crude prices in January and February 2026 were offset by a sharp increase in March, driven by heightened geopolitical tensions amid Middle East conflict and disruptions to crude and product flows through the Strait of Hormuz,’ it said in an earnings release.
Reliance’s consumer-facing businesses have long been fast-growing bright spots but its retail division saw a drop in margins for a second straight quarter.
Its telecoms unit, which is gearing up for a public listing this year, saw its average revenue per user rise 3.8 percent year-on-year
The company attributed the slight uptick to ‘higher customer engagement’ and greater demand for 5G services.
Reliance Industries shares have slipped more than 15 per cent this year, underperforming the benchmark Nifty index.
https://www.newagebd.net/post/mis/297966/reliances-quarterly-profit-falls-as-war-hits-oil-trade
The head of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) is sharpening his criticism of several oil companies as lawmakers weigh legislation that would allow year-round, nationwide sales of gasoline blended with 15 percent ethanol, a change farm groups say would deliver a significant boost to U.S. corn producers and the domestic ethanol industry.
Jed Bower, an Ohio farmer who serves as NCGA president, said companies including Delek U.S. Holdings, Cenovus Energy, CVR Energy, HF Sinclair, Parr Pacific Holdings and Suncor Energy are working to block the measure by pursuing exemptions from federal biofuel blending mandates intended for smaller refiners.
At the center of the dispute is a proposed legislative fix that would remove a longstanding seasonal restriction in the Clean Air Act, which currently prevents E15 from being sold in much of the country during the summer months. Backers of the change argue that making E15 available year-round would expand demand for corn-based ethanol, creating a more stable and robust market for farmers while encouraging additional investment in biofuel production.
Under the Renewable Fuel Standard, refiners are required to blend renewable fuels into the nation’s gasoline supply, with smaller facilities eligible for exemptions if they can demonstrate economic hardship. Bower and other advocates contend that some companies have exploited those waivers despite strong financial performance, undermining the program and slowing progress on broader reforms.
Farm groups and ethanol producers say a nationwide, permanent E15 standard would not only strengthen rural economies but also provide greater certainty for biofuel producers, who have long faced policy volatility tied to seasonal restrictions and regulatory waivers. They argue that increased ethanol blending could translate into higher corn demand, improved farm incomes and expanded production capacity across the Midwest.
Supporters also point to potential savings for drivers, noting that E15 often sells at a discount to conventional gasoline. But for agricultural interests, the larger stakes lie in securing a consistent, long-term market for one of the country’s most widely grown crops.
The House is expected to consider the amendment in the coming days, setting up a consequential test of whether lawmakers are willing to align energy policy more closely with the economic priorities of America’s farm sector.
In a significant move to stabilize public sentiment, the Indian government has officially dismissed viral reports of a looming hike in fuel rates.
On Sunday, April 26, 2026, petrol and diesel prices across the country remained unchanged for the consecutive day.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas took to social media to label speculations regarding a ₹25-₹28 per litre increase as 'mischievous and misleading,' providing much-needed relief to commuters and the logistics sector alike.
Despite the domestic price freeze, the international energy landscape remains fraught with tension. Global crude oil prices continue to witness sharp fluctuations due to the ongoing conflict in West Asia involving Israel and Iran. Concerns are mounting over potential supply chain disruptions at the Strait of Hormuz, a vital maritime artery that handles nearly 20% of the world's oil supply. While Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) typically adjust rates daily at 6 AM based on global benchmarks, the current domestic stability suggests a strategic buffer against international inflation.
The retail prices of fuel continue to vary across states due to local taxes such as Value Added Tax (VAT) and freight charges. As of this morning, New Delhi maintains its petrol price at ₹94.72, while Hyderabad continues to see some of the highest rates among metros.
The daily price revision, practiced by major refiners like Indian Oil (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum (BPCL), and Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL), is intended to maintain transparency and reflect real-time market shifts. Industry experts note that while refiners are facing pressure from elevated crude costs, the government's firm denial of a price hike suggests a commitment to controlling domestic inflation. Consumers are encouraged to check official OMC apps or SMS services for the most precise local rates throughout the weekend.
Azerbaijan’s Yelo Bank has been subject to European Union sanctions following investigations into its possible ties to entities linked to Russian businesses and sanctioned individuals.
Yelo Bank was founded in 1994 under the name Ulpar Commercial Bank.
In 2002, it was renamed Nikoil Bank after Nikoil Investment Banks Group/Lukoil acquired a controlling stake.
In November 2019, the financial institution adopted its current name—Yelo Bank. As of July 2025, the bank ranks 9th among Azerbaijan’s banks in terms of total assets (approximately 1.32 billion manat) and specializes in lending to small and medium-sized businesses, as well as retail banking.
Until August 2022, the controlling stake belonged to Topaz Investment Limited, a company linked to Russian oligarch Vagit Alekperov. Following the imposition of sanctions in the UK, the EU, and Canada, he stepped down as chairman of Lukoil.
Following changes in Yelo Bank’s ownership structure, 98.94% of the bank came under the control of Marina Kulishova, who has chaired the bank’s supervisory board since 2016 and has been a member of the board of directors since 2008.
On the eve of being added to the UK sanctions lists, Morcell Ltd, a company linked to Alekperov, sold an 80% stake in the British shipping company OEG Group Ltd to a group of individuals, including Sukhorukhin, Novosyolov, and Marina Kulishova.
According to public records, Kulishova holds British and Azerbaijani citizenship, resides in Monaco, and is listed in a number of companies previously linked to Russian business structures.
EU financial regulators have drawn attention to the bank’s possible indirect ties to individuals and entities that are subject to sanctions or were previously linked to them. These factors specifically formed the basis for including Yelo Bank in the sanctions regime.
The decision is seen as part of a broader EU policy to strengthen control over financial flows and prevent the circumvention of sanctions through third parties and corporate structures.
On April 23, EU member states approved the 20th package of sanctions against Russia, which imposes restrictions on 46 vessels of the “shadow fleet” and 60 entities supporting the Russian military-industrial complex. The new measures include stricter export restrictions on dual-use goods and sanctions against 20 credit and financial institutions.
European Union leaders are insisting on actively advancing the preparation of the 21st package of sanctions against Russia.
https://ua.news/en/world/azerbaidzhanskii-yelo-bank-opinivsia-pid-sanktsiiami-es-cherez-zviazki-z-rf
By Alex Kimani - Apr 26, 2026, 6:00 PM CDT
Last month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced the coordinated release of over 400 million barrels of oil from global strategic reserves to combat high energy prices amid the Middle East turmoil. The U.S. was to contribute approximately 172 million barrels of this total, with the release taking place over 120 days starting late March 2026 to help lower gasoline costs. And now reports have emerged that theTrump administration has authorized the release of millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), with Europe emerging as a key buyer. According to Bloomberg, the U.S. has so far released 79.7 million barrels to 12 companies, with nearly 50 million barrels going to UK’s Vortexa Ltd. Global trading houses and Big Oil companies have been the main recipients of the oil, with Trafigura receiving 21.4 million barrels; Shell Plc (NYSE: SHEL) has received 18.1 million while Marathon Oil (NYSE:MRO) and BP Plc (NYSE:BP) have purchased 9.7 million barrels and 6.0 million barrels, respectively.
According to shipping data and maritime intelligence firm Kpler, supertanker Eagle Versailles is currently en route to Rotterdam, Netherlands, carrying a cargo of approximately 2.1 million barrels of Bryan Mound medium sour crude oil. The oil is sourced from the Bryan Mound Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) site in the US. The Texas SPR site holds approximately 250 million barrels of crude oil, making it the largest repository in the U.S. reserve system. The oil is also flowing to Asia and Latin America, with Peru’s state oil company purchasing a cargo of Bayou Choctaw crude in March to be delivered in May. However, the recent fall in oil prices might dampen Asian demand.
U.S. sour crude from the SPR is being offered to European buyers at discounts of about $5 per barrel relative to local grades, providing some relief as Brent crude remains elevated near $105 per barrel. The oil is being sold on an exchange basis, to be returned at a later date. A Strategic Petroleum Reserve oil exchange is a legal mechanism utilized by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to address supply shortages, such as during severe weather events or pipeline disruptions. Under this mechanism, the government loans oil from the emergency stockpile to refiners or traders, who are then required to return the same quantity of crude oil plus a premium, usually additional barrels, at a specified future date.
The return of loaned oil is expected in tranches. For some 2026 loans, the DOE requires high sulfur (sour) crude to be returned by 2028 with up to 22% interest, often in sweeter, more valuable crude grades. Following the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the Biden administration loaned out millions of barrels, with returns delayed until 2026 to avoid market tightening. Europe was the destination of ~21 million barrels of crude from America’s SPR release four years ago, good for 10% of the total.
The U.S. SPR has a total authorized storage capacity of approximately 727 million barrels of crude oil. These reserves are stored in 60 underground salt caverns located at four sites along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast, designed for long-term emergency supply. The SPR held ~415 million barrels before the release began, good for roughly 60% of total capacity.
That said, SPR releases often fail to significantly impact oil prices because they are short-term, temporary solutions deployed to address structural supply issues. SPR releases constitute only a fraction of global demand: Standard Chartered estimates that the war has cut off ~8 million barrels of crude from global markets, meaning the IEA’s combined strategic release would be enough to bridge the deficit for only 50 days.
The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed to most commercial shipping, with Iranian officials stating it will remain closed because of blatant violations of the current ceasefire by the U.S. and Israel. Iran has granted priority passage to vessels from non-hostile nations, including China, Russia, India, Iraq, and Pakistan provided they pay tolls and follow Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) protocols. Iranian authorities are reportedly charging tolls of over $1 million per ship and requiring all vessels to secure permits from the IRGC. Shipping firms remain hesitant due to the presence of sea mines, drone attacks, and the threat of seizure, with only about 5% of pre-conflict shipping levels currently transiting the waterway. Meanwhile, insurance premiums have surged up to 10x since the war began, rendering the route untenable.
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, on February 10. AP Yonhap News
Asahi Shimbun reported on the 23rd that Tokyo Electric Power Company released images taken during the first investigation of the inside of a reactor pressure vessel at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station since the explosion during the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Asahi reported that while the stainless-steel wall surrounding the nuclear fuel showed no major deformation, radiation levels in the reactor pressure vessel indicated the presence of melted nuclear fuel debris (debris). This is the first time the interiors of the pressure vessels of Units 1∼3 at Fukushima Daiichi, where core meltdowns occurred during the accident, have been examined.
Tokyo Electric Power, the operator of Fukushima Daiichi, inserted a fiber-optic endoscope capable of withstanding strong radiation into piping of Reactor 2 from the 14∼17, photographing the stainless-steel wall surrounding the fuel over a vertical span of 6 m and measuring radiation levels.
Ono Akira, head of the Fukushima Daiichi Decommissioning Company at Tokyo Electric Power, told Asahi, “The results supported the expectation that a considerable amount of fuel debris remains in the Unit 2 pressure vessel.” Radiation levels were higher below the position where the fuel had originally been. Asahi reported that melted fuel may be influencing this.
Tokyo Electric had planned to begin the survey in 2024, but it was delayed due to the time required for equipment development. Information obtained through the internal inspection will be used to estimate the amount of fuel debris remaining in the pressure vessel and to review methods to be used in future full-scale debris removal.
Tokyo Electric plans to begin large-scale removal of fuel and other debris after 2037, starting with Reactor 3 at Fukushima Daiichi. Last month, ultraminiature drones filmed inside the Unit 3 containment vessel, revealing a melted appearance of the lower part of the pressure vessel and attachments that may be debris. Tokyo Electric is also working on creating internal 3D imagery and estimating radiation levels.
An estimated 880 t of fuel debris is thought to be present at Fukushima Daiichi, but the amount removed by Tokyo Electric so far is only 0.9ｇ.
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Gold and silver may face some selling pressure this holiday-shortened week as traders track peace talks between the US and Iran, crude oil rates and the Federal Reserve's policy decision, analysts said.
Domestic commodity markets would remain closed on Friday on account of Maharashtra Day.
"Focus in the coming week will remain on the progress in peace talks between the US and Iran, and their potential impact on oil, gold, and broader financial markets," Pranav Mer, Vice President, EBG - Commodity & Currency Research, JM Financial Services Ltd, said.
On the macroeconomic front, traders will monitor monetary policy decisions from the US Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan, Bank of England and European Central Bank.
Besides this, key US data on housing, Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) inflation and consumer confidence, along with factory activity numbers from major economies later in the week, will also guide sentiment, he added.
Analysts said the April 29 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting will be the last chaired by Jerome Powell, making the policy statement and post-meeting press conference particularly significant for precious metals prices.
On the Multi Commodity Exchange, gold futures dropped Rs 1,910, or 1.23 per cent, to close the week at Rs 1.54 lakh per 10 grams, while silver plunged Rs 12,506, or 4.9 per cent, to settle at Rs 2.44 lakh per kilogram.
According to analysts, gold's downside in the domestic market was limited by a weaker rupee, which declined around 1.4 per cent during the past week.
In the international markets, Comex gold fell $138.7, or 2.8 per cent to close the week at $4,740.9 per ounce, and silver declined $5.4, or 6.6 per cent to $76.41 per ounce.
"Gold prices pared some of the recent gains last week after failing to breach past $5,000 per ounce in the international market and were weighed by multiple factors, including profit-booking after a gain of 10-12 per cent in the previous four weeks," Mer said.
Meanwhile, the US-Iran blockade of the Strait of Hormuz pushed crude oil prices above $100 per barrel.
Mer added that the demand for the US dollar and Treasury bond yields remained firm. Stronger-than-expected US retail sales, weekly jobless claims and consumer sentiment data supported the greenback and weighed on gold and silver.
He further stated that buying and selling activity among global central banks remained mixed, while uncertainty over future interest rate cuts or hikes amid higher commodity-led inflation may keep bullion prices volatile.
Going ahead, analysts expect gold to find support near lower levels but remain vulnerable to further correction if the dollar stays firm and geopolitical risks ease. Silver may remain more volatile due to its dual role as both a precious and an industrial metal.
Any escalating tensions in West Asia, particularly developments around the Strait of Hormuz or dovish signals from major central banks, could revive buying interest, analysts added.
Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) is included among the 10 Best Dividend Aristocrat Stocks to Buy in 2026.
On April 21, Bank of America raised its price recommendation on Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) to $525 from $520. It maintained a Buy rating on the shares. The analyst said commodity markets moved sharply higher through March and into April, driven by the Iran conflict. That shift is expected to lift upstream forecasts for 2026 starting in Q2, while at the same time putting pressure on downstream producers, according to the firm’s preview of the US chemicals group.
Earlier, on April 13, Citigroup analyst Patrick Cunningham raised the firm’s price target on Linde to $580 from $545 and kept a Buy rating. The changes came as part of a Q1 preview for the specialty chemicals sector. The firm said it continues to favor industrial gas exposure, noting the group is “relatively insulated” from the current inflationary environment.
Linde plc (NASDAQ:LIN) is a United Kingdom-based global industrial gases and engineering company. It operates across the Americas, EMEA, APAC, and Engineering segments. Its primary products in its industrial gases business.
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/linde-lin-one-best-dividend-155518069.html
