The Mar’25 Brent futures contract has been on a decline since 16 January, continuing to fall this morning from just under $80.70/bbl at 0610 GMT down to $80.17/bbl at 0955 GMT, before recovering to $80.40/bbl at 1045 GMT (time of writing). Bearish sentiment in crude oil prices was driven in part by official data showing an average 1.15mb/d surplus in China’s crude oil inventory levels for 2024, up from 760kb/d in 2023, according to Reuters. In the news today, President-elect Trump is due to be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States this afternoon. Trump is expected to sign around 100 executive orders during his first days in office, which could include opening up federal lands to drilling and energy exploration. In addition, Trump is preparing to declare a national energy emergency as part of his plan to boost domestic energy production and reverse President Joe Biden’s climate change policies, as per Bloomberg. In other news, the director general of Turkish Petroleum, Ahmet Turkoglu, stated that the company is ready to invest billions in developing offshore oil fields in Libya, speaking at the Libya Energy and Economic Summit in Tripoli. Turkoglu stated the funds could be invested in exploring new blocks and improving the performance and efficiency of current fields. Finally, a gasoline tanker exploded in north-central Nigeria in the early hours of Saturday, with the death toll estimated at 86. The blast happened near the Suleja area of Niger state after gasoline was attempted to be transferred from a crashed oil tanker into a truck using a generator, according to Bloomberg. At the time of writing, the Mar/Apr’25 and Mar/Sep’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $1.14/bbl and $5.13/bbl, respectively.
