The Jan’26 Brent futures contract eased this afternoon, from $63.05/bbl at 13:15 GMT to $62.31/bbl at 17:00 GMT (time of writing). In the news, discounts for Russian Urals crude at Indian ports have tripled since August compared to Dated Brent, due to US sanctions pushing away major Russian crude buyers. Urals cargoes for December delivery are trading at discounts of $5-6/bbl to Dated Brent as compared to the $1-2/bbl levels seen in August. In a Reuters report, China has imported substantial quantities of crude oil from Indonesia, to which Reuters’ sources have claimed are a method of masking shipments of sanctioned Iranian crude shipping from Malaysia amid scrutiny. Although there have been no official imports of Iranian crude by China since 2022, customs data consistently indicates that Malaysia-sourced oil appears more frequently than Malaysia’s actual production suggests. China’s crude imports from Indonesia rose to 236kb/d in October, per Chinese customs. Indonesian customs report 1.7mt exported from January to September, with only about 25kt going to China. Finally, the front-month Jan/Feb’26 and 6-month Jan/Jul’26 spreads are at $0.62/bbl and $1.17/bbl, respectively.
