The Dec’25 Brent futures contract dipped this afternoon to $65.25/bbl at 14:00 BST before finding support and rising to $65.26/bbl at 17:00 BST. In the news, tanker freight rates for shipping Russian Urals crude to India has risen in late Sep and early Oct, accounting for a dramatic increase in loadings last month. Reuters reported that exports from western Russian ports to India rose by 500kb/d in Sep from Aug to 2.5mb/d. Elsewhere, Belarusian gasoline exports to Russia increased by four times m/m in Sep, due to Russian fuel shortages amid Ukrainian drone attacks. In India, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas data shows that fuel consumption has hit a year’s low in Sep, by 0.5 percentage point m/m, now at 18.6/mt; Sep fuel demand, on the other hand, was up 7% y/y. Kazakhstan has said that it will increase its crude oil exports to Germany in 2026, after Kazakh national oil and gas company KazMunayGas organized a supply deal with Rosneft Deutschland. In other news, Bloomberg earlier reported that the EU plans to impose sanctions on companies that provided forged national flags for Russian shadow fleets. These sanctions are contingent upon the EU adopting a full sanction package, which requires approval from all 27 member states. Finally, at time of writing, the front month Dec/Jan’26 and 6-month Dec/Jun’26 spreads are at $0.49/bbl and $0.94/bbl, respectively.
