The Sep’25 Brent Futures contract saw a volatile afternoon with prices bouncing between $68.47/bbl and $68.03/bbl. Prices then rallied to $68.53/bbl at 17:28 BST (time of writing). In the news, US crude oil inventories dropped by 3.2 mb to 419 mb in the week ending 18 July according to the EIA. The drawdown was supported by higher demand and exports, with crude exports rising to 3.86 mb/d and net imports falling by 740kb/d. Gasoline stocks fell by 1.7 mb to 231.1 mb, while gasoline demand rose to 8.97 mb/d, though still below typical summer levels. Refinery utilisation climbed to 95.5%, its highest since June 2023. Distillate inventories rose by 2.9 mb to 109.9 mb. In other news, Zinc contamination in the US offshore Mars crude stream has been resolved, with levels now back within expected limits, Chevron announced. The issue, traced to the startup of an offshore well earlier this month, had disrupted supplies to Gulf Coast refineries and prompted the US government to release crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to stabilize operations. Chevron is collaborating with Shell to continue monitoring zinc levels in the pipeline system. Angola has boosted its declining oil output with the startup of two offshore projects adding a combined 60kb/d, according to the national oil agency ANPG. Both projects are part of Angola’s strategy to stabilize production, which has fallen by half since its 2008 peak of 2 mb/d. Finally, the front-month Sep/Oct and 6-month Sep/Mar’26 spreads are at $0.72/bbl and $1.99/bbl respectively.
