The Sep’25 Brent Futures contract fell to $68.32/bbl at 09:46 BST before recovering to $68.73/bbl at 10:12 BST. Prices have since softened to $68.57/bbl at 11:15 BST (time of writing). In the news, Nigeria’s Dangote Oil Refinery plans to increase its processing capacity from 650 kb/d to 700 kb/d by the end of 2025, according to company president Aliko Dangote. While the RFCC unit is currently running at 85% due to maintenance, all other units are operating at or above full capacity, with some reaching 145%. In July, the refinery sourced 55% of its crude from US WTI Midland. Despite this, the refinery aims to rely solely on Nigerian crude by the end of the year. In other news, Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund Danantara plans to sign an $8 Bn contract with US firm KBR Inc. to construct 17 modular refineries. The deal is part of a broader trade agreement with the US that reduced proposed tariffs on Indonesian goods from 32% to 19%. In total, potential US-Indonesia deals could reach $34 Bn. Norway’s oil and gas production in June surpassed official forecasts by 2.3%, according to the Norwegian Offshore Directorate. Despite exceeding expectations, total output was down 10.9% y/y due to increased maintenance across more than 90 offshore fields. Natural gas production averaged 292.3 mcm/d, beating the forecast of 283.6 mcm/d. Crude oil output declined to 1.68 mb/d from 1.73 mb/d in June 2024, though it still exceeded the projected 1.62 mb/d. Finally the front-month Sep/Oct spread is at $0.79/bbl and the six month Sep/Mar’26 spread is at $2.14/bbl.
