Throughout the week to 15 Oct, the Dec’24 Brent futures contract ultimately saw weakness, trading from an intraday high of $79.73/bbl on 08 Oct down to around $73.45/bbl in the afternoon of 15 Oct. We saw some support mid-week, rising to an intraday high of $74.54/bbl on 10 Oct, influenced by growing fears of a potential Israeli attack on Iran. However, we saw a sell-off on 14 Oct amid news that Israel would not target Iranian oil or nuclear infrastructure. In line with this weakness, Onyx’s weekly CFTC COT predictor anticipates a reduction in speculative long positions in Brent alongside a slight increase in short positions for the week ending 15 Oct. Notably, we anticipate producer/merchants to increase their long position in Brent futures by 11.4mb while reducing their short position by a modest 58kb, potentially indicating an increase in refiner hedging on weaker crude.
