The Dec’24 Brent futures contract began the afternoon weaker, falling to $70.40/bbl at 14:50 BST. While this level brought in support for the soon-to-be-prompt contract, which climbed to $71.60/bbl as of 17:00 BST, it ultimately softened to $71.00/bbl at 17:35 BST (time of writing). This weakness comes alongside fears of increasing supply, with OPEC+ reportedly all set to go ahead with a planned production increase in December, as per Reuters. However, the producer group also announced that the market will first see an output cut by some members, such as Iraq and Kazakhstan, who pledged to cut 123bbl/d in September to compensate for pumping above-agreed levels. In addition, the producer group has denied holding a specific target for oil prices, as per Argus, and has stated that no member of the alliance will abandon market discipline in favour of chasing market share. In macroeconomic news, US weekly jobless claims fell by 4,000 to a four-month low of 218,000 in the week ending 21 Sep, against a Reuters poll forecasting 225,000 claims for this week. Finally, at the time of writing, the Dec/Jan’25 and Dec/June’25 Brent futures spreads stood at $0.28/bbl and $0.55/bbl, respectively.
