M1 Brent futures fell into yet another lull, with the 50-day moving average still acting like a brick wall for more than two months now. On the products side, CTA net positioning in ICE gasoil and CME heating oil has flipped to net short, based on Flux Insight's CTA model, while positioning in RBOB, Brent, and WTI futures has just been consolidating in the negatives all week. Risk appetite has been eroding into year-end, with open interest in ICE gasoil futures declining for a third consecutive week. On top of that, we seem to be stuck at an impasse on ...

The Feb’26 Brent futures contract rose this afternoon, from $62.57/bbl at 14:40 GMT to $63.50/bbl at 16:50 GMT. In the news, the Trump administration has approved transactions with Lukoil gas stations outside Russia, issuing a narrow waiver to the sanctions imposed by the US in October. According to a US Treasury Department post, these transactions are authorised until 26 April 2026. Elsewhere, Reuters reported that oil exports from Russia’s Novorossiysk and the CPC terminal were roughly 1mt behind schedule in November, due to storms and recent drone attacks that disrupted loading operations. Scheduled loadings of Urals, Siberian Light, and KEBCO ...

See all the updates across the barrel in this week’s Onyx Commitment of Traders report, as well as six contracts to watch. Click on the relevant button below to access your COT report.

The Feb’26 Brent futures contract initially rose from $62.77/bbl at 14:10 GMT to $63.29/bbl at 16:00 GMT, before falling to $62.68/bbl at 17:00 GMT (time of writing). In the news, Reuters has reported that remote-controlled Ukrainian explosives have struck the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia's central Tambov region. This is the fifth Ukrainian attack on the pipeline this year, which supplies Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia; oil supplies are reportedly running through the Druzhba as usual. Meanwhile, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said that the country will challenge a European Union decision to phase out Russian energy sources ...

The Feb’26 Brent futures contract failed to maintain strength above $63/bbl this afternoon, declining from $63.06/bbl at 13:00 GMT to $62.21/bbl at 14:55 GMT. Prices then recovered to $62.83/bbl at 16:30 GMT (time of writing). In the news, Besiktas Shipping, a Turkish owner of an oil tanker that was damaged near Senegal's coast last week after four external explosions, announced that it is suspending all shipping operations related to Russian interests. Citing safety concerns, the company said it would halt operations with Russia immediately. Elsewhere, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) aims to complete all repairs on its SPM-3 at its ...

The North Sea physical differential climbed around $0.70/bbl this week, a significant shift from the negative diffs at the start of November. However, last week’s buy-side bias **has now turned shakier.** We saw a trade house sell-side of Dec weekly rolls and Dec/Jan’26 DFL last week. This flow dissipated as the physical inched higher, with 28 Nov instead seeing a trade house aggressively bidding 1H Dec into 2H Dec rolls. It appears that the prevailing regime has shifted again this week. We saw a trade house flipping to a sell-side axe in Dec'25 weekly structure on 01 Dec, leading to ...

We have seen trading volumes remain extremely low in December. This week, the M1 Brent/Dubai remained in its tight range between -$0.90/bbl and -$0.55/bbl, as it has been for most of November, as it moved sandwiched between the 100-day and 200-day moving averages. The bodies on the candles are short and fail to reveal a pattern, but there has been a trend of higher lows d/d this week. On the other hand, the shadows on the candles shifted from being longer underneath the candles to above them. This shows that although there is better buying at the lower end of ...

The Feb’26 Brent futures contract broke the $63/bbl handle this afternoon, before easing to $62.97/bbl at 17:00 GMT (time of writing). In the news, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) stated that it has resumed oil shipments from Sing-Point Mooring 1 at its Novorossiysk terminal, following a Ukrainian drone attack over the weekend. The CPC accounts for approximately 80% of Kazakhstan's oil exports and handles more than 1% of the world's oil. Elsewhere, former Indian foreign minister Kanwal Sibal has said that the country could reduce its Russian crude imports by 50% but noted that the nations would still seek to ...