1. The Pentagon is sending a third aircraft-carrier strike group and additional Marine Corps ships to the Middle East, according to U.S. officials, adding 9,000 to 10,000 more troops to the region as President Trump considers renewing strikes on Iran after the midterm elections. The ships, jet fighters, Marines and sailors will arrive in the region by the end of November, the officials said. Trump recently told aides that he expects to resume bombing Iran that same month. The additional service-members on the warships that deployed this week will add to the more than 50,000 troops already in the region, one of the officials said. (Source: wsj.com)
2. Iran’s foreign minister suggested in private talks that his country was willing to restore nuclear inspectors’ access to bombed facilities in exchange for sanctions relief, people familiar with the discussions said, a concession that could help break deadlocked peace talks with the US. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi raised the idea in meetings at the United Nations with European and Middle Eastern diplomats while he was in New York for the annual General Assembly, which ended earlier this week, according to the diplomats, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. (Source: bloomberg.com)
3. The return of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz was supposed to bring down the price of crude, gasoline and diesel, taming inflation and lowering the world’s borrowing costs. It isn’t happening. Even as U.S. forces have worn down Iran’s grip on the waterway, helping oil shipments rebound toward prewar levels, the global crude-futures benchmark jumped 4.4% Thursday to $102.31 a barrel. Average U.S. gas prices tracked by AAA were hanging above $4.41 a gallon. And the 10-year Treasury yield, a rough proxy for interest rates on many types of loans, this week notched its highest level in 24 years. (Source: wsj.com)
4. Gasoline crack spreads surged to $68.74/bbl midweek, before easing to just above $60/bbl at Friday’s close, three times their year-ago level, helping push the benchmark 3-2-1 crack to a record $80.63/bbl. (Source: rbnenergy.com)
