The November Brent Futures contract has seen a strong afternoon, rising from $68.25/bbl at 12:45 BST to a daily high of $69.03/bbl at 16:45 BST before retracing slightly to $68.94/bbl at the time of writing (17:30 BST). In headlines, Iran is brushing off the threat of UN “snapback” sanctions that could be reinstated on September 27 under the 2015 JCPOA, after France, Germany, and the UK triggered a 30-day process demanding renewed inspector access, limits on enrichment, and talks with the US, which quit the deal in 2018 and has since tightened sanctions under its “maximum pressure” campaign. Despite these measures, Iran continues to ship almost all its oil to China, often through shadow fleet tankers and ship-to-ship transfers, even though China’s official customs data has shown no Iranian imports since 2022; unofficially, Beijing accounts for nearly 90% of Iranian crude exports. In other news, Russia’s Novatek has resumed processing at a second gas condensate unit at its Ust-Luga complex on the Baltic Sea, a month after a Ukrainian drone strike damaged all three units, sparked a fire, and briefly shut down operations. One unit restarted within days, the second took several weeks, and repairs on the most seriously hit unit could stretch up to six months, during which Novatek diverted about 70,000 mt of condensate to Novorossiysk on the Black Sea. At the time of writing, the front (Nov/Dec) and 6-month (Nov/May) Brent Futures spreads are at $0.85/bbl and $2.31/bbl, respectively.
