Donna Dong
Research Analyst, Flux
Brent Rallies Above $108/bbl
Iran threats lift energy markets; US waives Jones Act, LNG shifts to Europe, and Saudi boosts Red Sea exports.
The May’26 Brent futures contract has rallied from $104.27/bbl at 12:00 GMT to $108.18/bbl at 16:45 GMT (time of writing).
Prices rallied after Iran threatened to retaliate against oil and gas facilities in neighbouring countries, following an attack on its South Pars facility. In the news, US President Trump’s administration has announced a 60-day waiver of the Jones Act shipping law, temporarily permitting foreign-flagged vessels to transport fuel, fertiliser, and other goods between US ports in response to price hikes and supply disruptions caused by the Iran conflict. Relaxing the Jones Act enables coastal refiners and fuel distributors to tap into a broader range of ships, including foreign-flagged vessels, for transporting gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum products between ports. Elsewhere, QatarEnergy has allocated five slots in April for unloading, storage, and regasification of liquefied natural gas at Belgium's Zeebrugge terminal. This indicates that its facilities are likely to remain closed for a longer period than expected. Zeebrugge port operator, Fluxys, confirmed that “all customers have been informed on Monday that 5 LNG standard slots for unloading, storage and regasification operations at Fluxys Zeebrugge LNG Terminal have been made available for the month of April 2026.” In other news, Saudi Arabia's oil exports through its Yanbu port on the Red Sea are expected to reach a new high of 3.8mb/d in March, as per Reuters. Saudi Arabia has been using drag-reducing agents (DRAs) to accelerate oil flows to Yanbu via its East-West pipeline and reduce losses; DRAs are chemicals that decrease friction and can increase flow rates. Finally, at the time of writing, the front-month (May/Jun) and 6-month (May/Nov) Brent futures spreads are at $4.48/bbl and $21.77/bbl, respectively.
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