The Oct’24 Brent futures contract softened this morning, falling from above $77/bbl around 05:30 BST to $76.65/bbl around 08:35 BST. The contract finally fell even further to $75.45/bbl at 11:20 BST (time of writing). A key story today is the rising fears of a recession in the US, which has brought weakness across risk assets globally. Japanese stocks collapsed, with the Nikkei share average falling by 12.4%, its worst reading in percentage terms since the Black Monday sell-off in October 1987. In other news, Saudi Arabia has raised the price of its flagship Arab Light crude to Asia in September by $0.20 to $2/bbl above the Oman/Dubai average. The NOC also hiked prices for other light grades sold to Asia, but kept Arab Medium and Arab Heavy crude prices to the region unchanged. On the other hand, Saudi Aramco cut prices for other regions, including a reduction of $2.75/bbl across all its crude grades Europe (NWE and Med). Finally, at the time of writing, the Oct/Nov and Oct/Apr’25 Brent futures spreads stood at $0.45/bbl and $1.80/bbl, respectively.
