Peace talks amid pipeline shocks

Hello, this is Hui Jie writing to you from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.

Statements from the BRICS summit over the weekend had a common thread: Nations want peace in the Middle East.

But developments in the region could hardly be further from peaceful. The East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia was closed after drones launched from Iraq damaged it, disrupting a crucial relief pathway for crude exports.

Meanwhile in tech, OpenAI has ruled out an IPO this year as concerns grow about the safety of increasingly powerful AI systems.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that “peace and tranquility” in the border areas is essential for developing bilateral relations with its neighbor China.

Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping also called separately for peace in the Middle East. But the rhetoric doesn’t seem to be meeting reality.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country will not surrender in the U.S. Iran war, as negotiations between the U.S. and Tehran show no signs of resuming.

Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said in a post on X that there will be “No negotiations. Until Iran’s terms are met, talks are futile.”

A vessel was struck in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre.

More critically, Saudi Arabia has shut down its East-West pipeline, after drones launched from Iraq damaged the key oil export channel.

The Saudi pipeline, which can carry 7 million barrels per day, has played a key role in easing the severe oil supply disruption triggered by the Iran war.

In fact, the pipeline has played a more important role in stabilizing oil markets than the massive release of strategic reserves led by the U.S., Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said on the company’s August earnings call.

For more coverage on the energy markets, U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary James Danly joins CNBC’s “Access Middle East” at 12.30 p.m. Singapore time.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had published a Saturday essay calling for the AI companies to slow how quickly they improve their most advanced models, a move that followed