The Mar’25 Brent futures contract strengthened from this morning’s low of $80.25/bbl around 0730 GMT up to almost $81.15/bbl at 0950 GMT, before falling back down to $80.30/bbl at 1050 GMT (time of writing). Crude oil prices remain elevated as US sanctions on Russia continued to stimulate bullish sentiment, with the sanctions expected to take 700-800kb/d of Russian crude off the market, according to Reuters. In the news today, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the US of seeking to disable the TurkStream gas pipeline, a key route for Russian gas supplies to Turkey and Europe. Lavrov stated “the US does not tolerate competition in any sphere, including energy” and “are encouraging their Ukrainian proxies to disable TurkStream following the sabotage of Nord Stream”. In other news, six European Union members—Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Sweden—have urged the European Commission to reduce the current $60 per barrel price cap on Russian oil, arguing it would reduce Moscow’s revenues without causing a market shock, as per Reuters. Finally, BP said that lower production and weak refinery margins would see its Q4’24 profit, to be released 11 Feb, fall around $300 million from the previous quarter. BP’s net income in Q3’24 was $2.27 billion, the weakest since the fourth quarter of 2020. At the time of writing, the Mar/Apr’25 and Mar/Sep’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $1.29/bbl and $5.24/bbl, respectively.
