The Feb’26 Brent futures flat price traded slightly higher overnight Wednesday, as prices encounter its next resistance level around $62.50/bbl, printing $62.48/bbl around 13:00 SGT (time of writing). As onshore inventories fill up, Venezuelan NOC PDVSA has started filling tankers with crude and fuel oil and keeping them in Venezuelan waters. Its ruling-party controlled National Assembly unanimously approved a law on Tuesday that allows prison sentences of up to 20 years for anyone who promotes or finances what it describes as piracy or blockades. The US has surged special-operations aircraft, troops, and naval and air forces into the Caribbean as Trump escalates pressure on Maduro, signaling potential military action while officially citing routing deployments. Libya is attracting renewed interest from global energy firms with a new licensing round offering 22 blocks and an estimated 10bn barrels of available resources plus 18 billion yet to be discovered, though political instability still threatens its goal of lifting output more than 40% to 2mb/d by 2030. Finally, the front-month (Feb/Mar’26) and 6-month (Feb/Aug’26) Brent futures spreads are at $0.52/bbl and $1.16/bbl respectively.
