The Jul’25 Brent futures contract softened this morning, declining from around $62.70/bbl at 03:25 BST to $61.70/bbl at 10:20 BST. At the time of writing (11:15 BST), the contract stands a little higher at $61.90/bbl. China is reportedly “evaluating” an offer from the US to hold talks over the ongoing trade war between the two nations, as per China’s Commerce Ministry. This acknowledgement of an offer signals a possible de-escalation in the trade war, which has injected substantial volatility across global financial markets over the past month. China’s commerce ministry further added that the US should be prepared to correct “erroneous practices” and that it needed to show “sincerity” in any negotiations. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has stated that all purchases of Iranian oil or petrochemical products must cease and that any person or nation purchasing from Iran will immediately be subjected to secondary US tariffs. These talks follow the postponement of the latest US-Iranian talks to negotiate Iran’s nuclear programme, which was initially due in Rome this weekend. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that a new date for these negotiations will be set “depending on the US approach”. Furthermore, the market will monitor this afternoon’s US non-farm payrolls data for April 2025, which is expected to be announced at 13:30 BST. The consensus for this month’s jobs data currently lies at around +130k, following last month’s print of +228k. In other news, the Trump administration is suing four Democratic-led states to prevent them from enforcing “burdensome and ideologically motivated” laws by pursuing lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry over the harms caused by climate change. Finally, British oil major Shell reported a 28% drop in Q1’25 net profit to $5.58 billion, although this still exceeded analyst expectations of $4.96 billion. At the time of writing, the front-month (Jul/Aug’25) and six-month (Jul’25/Jan’26) Brent futures spreads stand at $0.38/bbl and $0.74/bbl, respectively.
