Nov’24 Brent futures flat price was volatile this morning, strengthening from $79.14/bbl at 07:00 BST to a high of $79.49/bbl at 08:25 BST before declining to $78.81 at 11:20 BST (time of writing). In the news today, OPEC’s secretary general visited Baghdad, Iraq, securing assurance on full conformity with compensation cuts, which plan to reduce Iraq’s output to between 3.85-3.9 mb/d in September. In other news, Reuters confirmed this morning that no oil spill has been detected off the coast of Yemen, after an abandoned 274-metre-long oil tanker, containing around 1 mb, was attacked by Houthi rebels. An oil spill of this magnitude with 150,000 tonnes of crude would be more than half the size of the largest ever spill recorded from a ship, according to the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Limited (ITOPF). Finally, Shell has decided to cut 20% of its workers in oil and gas exploration units, focused in the US, Netherlands, and Britain. At the time of writing, the front month (Nov/Dec’24) and six-month (Nov/May’25) Brent futures spreads are at $0.87/bbl and $2.81/bbl, respectively.
