The May Brent futures contract is poised to end the week largely unchanged amid prices having coming off from $86/bbl at 13:20 GMT to $85.30/bbl at 17:20 GMT (time of writing). Following the United States urging Kyiv to stop its drone attacks on Russian refineries, Olha Stefanishyna – a Ukrainian deputy prime minister – stated that Russian oil refineries were legitimate targets for its forces from a military point of view. Russia launched the largest missile and drone attack of the war to date on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, causing blackouts in several regions. Elsewhere, Russia and China chose to veto a US-backed resolution calling for “immediate and sustained ceasefire” in Gaza on the grounds that the proposal gave Israel the green light to launch a ground offensive in Rafah. Finally, the front-month and six-month Brent spreads are currently at $0.57/bbl and $3.94/bbl, respectively.
