Reports

The Jan’25 Brent futures contract has weakened this afternoon, falling from $73.05/bbl at 12:00 GMT to $72.45/bbl at 17:50 GMT (time of writing). EIA data for the week to 22 Nov showed a larger-than-expected draw of 1.84mb in US crude oil inventories, compared to a build of 0.5mb the prior week. In the news today, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned the US today to halt a “spiral of escalation” over Ukraine, stating “you mustn’t supply Kyiv with everything they want”, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, Russian state news agency TASS quoted an official saying Moscow was working to put its Sarmat ICBM, part of its strategic nuclear arsenal, on combat duty. In other news, the Kazakh Energy Ministry has proposed widening the current six-month ban on fuel exports to gasoline, jet fuel and bitumen, starting January 2025, according to Interfax. Finally, Prax is continuing to work toward buying Shell’s minority stake in the Schwedt oil refinery in east Germany, as per Bloomberg. The shareholder structure of the Schwedt refinery has been complicated by the involvement of Russia’s Rosneft, whose stake was seized by the German government. At the time of writing, the Jan/Feb’25 and Jan/Jul’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.60/bbl and $1.68/bbl, respectively.

The Feb’25 Brent futures contract declined marginally from $72.90/bbl at 12:00 GMT to a touch under $72.75/bbl at 17:50 GMT (time of writing). In the news today, Russian President Putin said Moscow launched more than 90 missiles and 100 drones that hit 17 targets in Ukraine, leaving more than 1 million people without power…

The Jan’25 Brent futures contract has weakened this afternoon, falling from $73.05/bbl at 12:00 GMT to $72.45/bbl at 17:50 GMT (time of writing). EIA data for the week to 22 Nov showed a larger-than-expected draw of 1.84mb in US crude oil inventories, compared to a build of 0.5mb the prior week. In the news today, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned the US today to halt a “spiral of escalation” over Ukraine, stating “you mustn’t supply Kyiv with everything they want”, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, Russian state news agency TASS quoted an official saying Moscow was working to put its Sarmat ICBM, part of its strategic nuclear arsenal, on combat duty. In other news, the Kazakh Energy Ministry has proposed widening the current six-month ban on fuel exports to gasoline, jet fuel and bitumen, starting January 2025, according to Interfax. Finally, Prax is continuing to work toward buying Shell’s minority stake in the Schwedt oil refinery in east Germany, as per Bloomberg. The shareholder structure of the Schwedt refinery has been complicated by the involvement of Russia’s Rosneft, whose stake was seized by the German government. At the time of writing, the Jan/Feb’25 and Jan/Jul’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.60/bbl and $1.68/bbl, respectively.

The Jan’25 Brent futures contract initially traded rangebound around high $73/bbl levels this afternoon, before falling to $72.30/bbl level at 18:00 GMT (time of writing). There was a brief spike to $74.25/bbl just before 14:45 GMT as a Bloomberg report revealed that OPEC+ had begun talks on delaying the restart of oil production again.

The Jan’25 Brent futures contract declined this afternoon from $75.15/bbl at 12:00 GMT down to around $73.10/bbl at 17:40 GMT (time of writing). Bearish sentiment prevailed this afternoon while markets turned focus to talks of an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire. A senior Israeli official said today that Israel’s cabinet would meet on Tuesday to approve a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, a senior US official told Axios today that both Israel and Lebanon agreed to the terms of a ceasefire agreement with a 60-day transition period during which the Israeli military would withdraw from southern Lebanon. In other news, a Reuters report stated that incoming US President Trump is drafting an energy package to expand domestic oil and gas drilling, in addition to expediting LNG export permits. Finally, Kazakhstan could increase its crude oil exports out of Turkey’s port of Ceyhan, with Kazakhstan’s Energy Minister Almasadam Satkaliyev claiming exports via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline could increase to 20 million metric tons a year from the current 1.5 million, not specifying an exact time frame. At the time of writing, the Jan/Feb’25 and Jan/Jul’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.57/bbl and $1.74/bbl, respectively.