The Jan’25 Brent futures contract was supported this afternoon, moving up more than $1 from $73.80/bbl at 12:00 GMT to $75.05/bbl at 17:35 GMT (time of writing). Geopolitical tensions remain at the forefront as Ukraine’s ex-military Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny stated “the Third World War has begun” today, speaking at the Ukrainska Pravda’s UP100 award ceremony. In the news, Gunvor has undertaken a temporary economic shutdown of its Rotterdam refinery, with a capacity of less than 80kb/d, due to a “lack of prompt availability of commercially viable feedstock”. Closure will be effective as of 25 Nov according to Bloomberg. In other news, Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field is now producing 10,000 tonnes per day less than planned after repairs, KazMunayGas CEO Askhat Khasenov said. Finally, Russia’s Lukoil is restoring operations of its catalytic cracker complex at their NORSI oil refinery, after breaking down on 13 Nov. NORSI refines about 16 million tons of crude per year, or 5.8% of Russia’s total refined crude, as per Reuters. At the time of writing, the Jan/Feb’25 and Jan/Jul’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.45/bbl and $1.77/bbl, respectively.
