Nov’24 Brent Futures flat price saw a volatile afternoon but ultimately weakened, trading at $72.67/bbl at 12:00 BST and spiking to $73.21/bbl at around 15:25 BST, followed by a descent to $72.26/bbl at 17:30 (time of writing). The sell-off may be attributed to traders not wanting to keep long positions over the weekend, in addition to key Louisiana terminals reopening following now-tropical storm Francine. In news today, the port of New Orleans and the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port are back online, according to the US Coast Guard. Texas ports have also started accepting and servicing tankers, as per vessel monitoring data from LSEG. Meanwhile, Shell stated today that production is ramping up at five of their platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, however, the Perdido, Auger and Enchilada/Salsa platforms will remain shut due to other unspecified downstream issues. In other news, Macquarie revealed in a Friday note that its forecast for Brent crude has lowered by $2/bbl to $80/bbl for the rest of 2024, seeing potential for a heavy surplus of oil in 2025. The bank’s prediction follows both OPEC and the IEA lowering their global oil demand forecast this week. Finally, a Gazprom Neft-owned Moscow oil refinery has resumed operations, after a drone attack on 1 Sep halted production at refining unit Euro+, according to Reuters. The Euro+ unit accounts for half of the facility’s total production, with a refining capacity of 6 million metric tons of oil per year. At the time of writing, the front month (Nov/Dec’24) and six-month (Nov/May’25) Brent futures spreads are at $0.59/bbl and $1.48/bbl, respectively.
