Beacon brief: Monday, October 26, 2026

The Borr Drilling-owned jack-up Prospector 5 lost stability and sank at 20:37 local time on October 24 during jacking ahead of a drilling campaign on the BW Energy-operated Dussafu Marin licence off Mayumba, Gabon, per BW Energy. Of 115 on board, 110 are accounted for; Reuters reports one person, an Indian national, found dead and four still missing, while Gabon's authorities still list five missing. Borr says preliminary information points to a punch-through during preload; Gabon's petroleum ministry has ordered a technical investigation. BW Energy says its MaBoMo platform is shut under standard procedure for drilling preparations, with no damage or discharge reported.^1,2,3

Ras Al Khaimah closed all its beaches until further notice on October 24 and Umm Al Quwain closed its beaches and coastal areas, while Sharjah shut Al Hamriyah Beach as a precaution, as the UAE works to contain oil leaking from a tanker offshore, per Reuters. The environment ministry is running an environmental assessment and told fishermen to avoid affected areas; residents of Ajman, Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain reported odors the ministry said pose no health risk. Authorities have not named the tanker, given a volume or said what caused the leak. The spill was first reported off Umm Al Quwain on October 23.^4,5

Asian refiners roughly halved orders of US crude for November delivery to 24 to 26 million barrels, which would be a seven-year low if the pace holds, per Kpler and Vortexa data reported by Bloomberg. Chartering a VLCC from the US Gulf Coast to China cost almost $60 million on October 22, against an average below $8 million in the five years before the war, per Baltic Exchange figures. Valero's Randy Hawkins put the cost at $30 to $35 a barrel and blamed slow ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman, insurance and fuel for tying up tankers. The premium for Permian crude for export at Magellan East Houston fell to 25 cents from more than $3 six weeks earlier.⁶

Chevron will add a second rig in June 2027 and a third around early 2029 at El Trapial, its wholly owned Vaca Muerta block producing about 40,000 boe/d, as it seeks government approval for a $13.8 billion, 30-year plan for the block disclosed in June, per Pipeline & Gas Journal. The company targets tripling its Argentina output to 195,000 boe/d by 2035, and shale chief Gerbert Schoonman said he hopes the rigs bring that forward by a year or two. Chevron says a well costs about 30 percent more to bring online than in the Permian, and frac sand is trucked nearly 1,240 miles because local sand has not met quality requirements. Chevron also holds a stake in the planned Vaca Muerta Oil Sur export pipeline.⁷

BP agreed to pay Louisiana a single accelerated lump sum of $350 million in place of $373 million still owed over the next seven years under the 2015 Deepwater Horizon settlement, per Reuters. BP said remaining coastal zone lawsuits brought by Louisiana parishes will be resolved, without giving details. Governor Jeff Landry said the state has now settled with all but one of the major defendants in the coastal cases, without naming it. The 2015 settlement committed BP to up to $18.7 billion, including $4.9 billion to five states over 18 years.⁸