Reports

The Jan’25 Brent futures contract initially traded rangebound around high $73/bbl levels this afternoon, before falling to $72.30/bbl level at 18:00 GMT (time of writing). There was a brief spike to $74.25/bbl just before 14:45 GMT as a Bloomberg report revealed that OPEC+ had begun talks on delaying the restart of oil production again.

The Jan’25 Brent futures contract declined this afternoon from $75.15/bbl at 12:00 GMT down to around $73.10/bbl at 17:40 GMT (time of writing). Bearish sentiment prevailed this afternoon while markets turned focus to talks of an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire. A senior Israeli official said today that Israel’s cabinet would meet on Tuesday to approve a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, a senior US official told Axios today that both Israel and Lebanon agreed to the terms of a ceasefire agreement with a 60-day transition period during which the Israeli military would withdraw from southern Lebanon. In other news, a Reuters report stated that incoming US President Trump is drafting an energy package to expand domestic oil and gas drilling, in addition to expediting LNG export permits. Finally, Kazakhstan could increase its crude oil exports out of Turkey’s port of Ceyhan, with Kazakhstan’s Energy Minister Almasadam Satkaliyev claiming exports via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline could increase to 20 million metric tons a year from the current 1.5 million, not specifying an exact time frame. At the time of writing, the Jan/Feb’25 and Jan/Jul’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.57/bbl and $1.74/bbl, respectively.

The Jan’25 Brent futures contract was supported this afternoon, moving up more than $1 from $73.80/bbl at 12:00 GMT to $75.05/bbl at 17:35 GMT (time of writing). Geopolitical tensions remain at the forefront as Ukraine’s ex-military Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny stated “the Third World War has begun” today, speaking at the Ukrainska Pravda’s UP100 award ceremony. In the news, Gunvor has undertaken a temporary economic shutdown of its Rotterdam refinery, with a capacity of less than 80kb/d, due to a “lack of prompt availability of commercially viable feedstock”. Closure will be effective as of 25 Nov according to Bloomberg. In other news, Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field is now producing 10,000 tonnes per day less than planned after repairs, KazMunayGas CEO Askhat Khasenov said. Finally, Russia’s Lukoil is restoring operations of its catalytic cracker complex at their NORSI oil refinery, after breaking down on 13 Nov. NORSI refines about 16 million tons of crude per year, or 5.8% of Russia’s total refined crude, as per Reuters. At the time of writing, the Jan/Feb’25 and Jan/Jul’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.45/bbl and $1.77/bbl, respectively.

The Jan’25 Brent futures contract declined from an intraday peak of $74.37/bbl at 12:30 GMT down to $73.55/bbl at 17:40 GMT (time of writing). In the news today, China is projected to import around 11.4mb/d of crude oil in November, the highest volumes since August imports of 11.56mb/d, according to Reuters citing tanker-tracking and port data by LSEG and Kpler. In other news, Russian refineries are likely to reduce or keep their crude throughputs unchanged in the coming weeks as the gasoline export ban, persistent rail delays, and increases in excise taxes continue to hurt margins, as per S&P Global. Finally, the ICC has issued arrest warrants for Israeli PM Netanyahu, his former defence chief Yoav Gallant, and a Hamas leader, Ibrahim al-Masri, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. According to a Financial Times report, Israel stated in August that Ibrahim al-Masri was killed in an airstrike in Gaza a month earlier. At the time of writing, the Jan/Feb’25 and Jan/Jul’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.41/bbl and $1.38/bbl, respectively.