May’25 Brent futures ultimately moved sideways this afternoon, trading down from $70.55/bbl at 1245 GMT to $69.95/bbl at 1435 GMT, before making a recovery to $70.50/bbl at 1740 GMT (time of writing). In the news today, President Putin has said that Russia will spare the lives of Ukrainian soldiers in its western Kursk region if Ukraine tells them to surrender, as per Reuters. This came as President Trump urged the Russian president to prevent a “horrible massacre” of the Ukrainian troops “completely surrounded” by the Russian military, stated in a social media post. In other news, Shipload Maritime is now the first Singapore-based company to be hit with US sanctions for assisting with oil transfers at sea, as per Bloomberg. Shipload Maritime was sanctioned for using a tug boat in December to facilitate a ship-to-ship transfer with an Iranian-flagged tanker near Indonesia, according to a statement from the US Department of State. Finally, in macroeconomic news, the US consumer sentiment index released by the University of Michigan fell in March to 57.9 from 64.7, now at its lowest level since early 2023. This is largely a result of ongoing concerns surrounding tariffs and inflation, alongside the sell-off in equities. At the time of writing, the May/Jun’25 and May/Nov’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.54/bbl and $2.61/bbl.
