The Dec’24 Brent futures contract strengthened marginally this afternoon, trading at $73.96/bbl at 12:00 BST and reaching $74.20/bbl at 17:50 BST (time of writing). We saw volatility in price action throughout the afternoon amid the release of the IEA October oil market report, alongside concerns of conflict escalation in the Middle East. In the news today, the IEA has released their oil market report for October, showing global oil demand is set to increase by just 862kb/d this year due to decelerating demand in China. This latest estimate is down from the 903kb/d forecast published in the September IEA report. In other news, Israeli troops have begun clearing landmines near Golan Heights, signalling a potential expansion of ground operations against Hezbollah for the first time further east along Lebanon’s border, according to Reuters. Finally, Russian refinery maintenance has pushed the country’s oil exports to their highest level in three months. Average oil exports inched up by 7kb/d to 3.33mb/d in the four weeks to 13 Oct, as per data compiled by Bloomberg. At the time of writing, the front month (Dec/Jan’25) and six-month (Dec/Jun’25) Brent futures spreads are at $0.37/bbl and $1.53/bbl, respectively.
