The Dec’24 Brent futures contract was initially rangebound between $71.00 and $71.50/bbl before dipping to a low of $70.93/bbl around 14:45 BST and strengthening shortly after up to around the $72.00/bbl level at 17:30 BST (time of writing). In the news today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking to world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York, has vowed the IDF will continue its bombardment of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon and decisively announced there would be no immediate truce. Netanyahu dedicated part of his speech to threatening Iran, stating “there is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach”. In other news, labour strikes at major East and Gulf Coast ports in the US are due to start early next week, with a total of 14 ports and some 25,000 workers involve, according to the United States Maritime Alliance. Finally, Indian refiners are expected to raise their total refining capacity by up to 800 kb/d by the end of the fiscal 2030 year, boosting their base capacity up to 5.92 mb/d, according to data from Crisil Ratings. At the time of writing, the front month (Dec/Jan’25) and six-month (Dec/Jun’25) Brent futures spreads are at $0.32/bbl and $0.74/bbl, respectively.
