The Dec’25 Brent futures contract rose this afternoon, reaching $66.45/bbl at 14:00 BST before softening to $65.61/bbl at 17:30 BST (time of writing). In the news, local Russian media has reported that drones allegedly attacked an oil depot in Russia’s Rostov Oblast. Confirmation of the drones’ origin have yet to been reached. Elsewhere, British Petroleum (BP) has announced the launch of its sixth major oil and gas project of 2025 in the Murlach field of the UK North Sea. This project will add a peak net production of roughly 15kb/d to BP’s ETAP in central North Sea and aims to help BP reach target production of an additional 250kb/d by the end of 2027. In India, Reuters have reported that the state-run Bharat Petroleum Corp will invest roughly $11bn into a new 180-240kb/d refinery in Andhra Pradesh. According to a state government order, 6k acres have been allocated and have asked that commercial operations begin by January 2029. In other news, Taiwan and India have been identified through LSEG data as the main destinations for Russian sea-transported naphtha exports in August. Finally, at time of writing, the front month Dec/Jan’26 and 6-month Dec/Jun’26 spreads are at $0.51/bbl and $1.01/bbl, respectively.
