The Dec’24 Brent futures contract regained strength after initial weakness this morning, falling from $74.60/bbl at 07:00 BST down to $74.20/bbl at 09:10 BST and strengthening to $74.75/bbl at 11:15 BST (time of writing). Prices were sustained at high $74.00/bbl levels amid escalating geopolitical risk in the Middle East, with three journalists killed in an Israeli airstrike as they slept in a residential compound housing media workers in southern Lebanon in the early hours of Friday, an attack condemned as a war crime by the Lebanese government. In the news today, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights, India’s crude oil demand is expected to increase by 50-55kbp/d during festival season, a 4% rise for Q4’24 coinciding with greater agricultural activity post-monsoon. In other news, Brazil has displaced Malaysia as the top supplier of Venezuelan heavy crudes to China in the month of September. Bitumen blend imports from Brazil to China reached nearly 769,900 metric tons in September, accounting for 72.7% of China’s total bitumen blend imports, according to data by S&P Global. Finally, Italian energy group Eni will increase its share buyback programme by 25% to $2.2 billion after beating Q3 profit expectations, as per Reuters. At the time of writing, the front-month (Dec/Jan’25) and six-month (Dec/Jun’25) Brent futures spreads are at $0.35/bbl and $1.53/bbl, respectively.
