May’25 Brent futures has been supported this morning, increasing from $70.30/bbl around 0610 GMT up to $70.75/bbl at 0855 GMT, moderating to $70.45/bbl at 1045 GMT (time of writing). We saw small gains in crude oil prices this morning, in part due to slow progress toward a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire. In the news today, the Kremlin confirmed that US envoy Steve Witkoff met President Putin late last night. Since the meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated there are grounds for “cautious optimism” regarding a ceasefire, but there “is still a lot to be done”, according to Reuters. In other news, as China, Iran, and Russia meet in Beijing today, the three countries have called for an end to US sanctions on Iran and a restart to multinational nuclear talks. This followed further US sanctions yesterday, as the Treasury Department issued sanctions against Iran’s oil minister Mohsen Paknejad along with three entities engaged in the Iranian oil trade in China. Finally, Russia is using cryptocurrencies in its oil trade with China and India to evade Western sanctions, as per four sources cited by Reuters. According to one source, crypto transactions are in the tens of millions of dollars per month for one Russian oil trader’s sales to China, using USDT (Tether) and a variety of other currencies. Sinopec and Zhenhua Oil have halted Russian oil purchases this month due to sanction concerns, while PetroChina and CNOOC have reduced March-loading Russian oil volumes. At the time of writing, the May/June’25 and May/Nov’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.51/bbl and $2.51/bbl, respectively.
