Donna Dong
The Jun’26 Brent futures contract declined this afternoon from $102.57/bbl at 13:12 BST to $99.07/bbl at 14:50 BST, before regaining to $102.19/bbl at 17:00 BST (time of writing).
In the news, Rosneft is redirecting oil shipments to the Tuapse refinery from the Novorossiysk Black Sea port after the terminal, which accounts for about 14% of Russia's crude exports, was severely damaged in a drone attack. Last week, a Ukrainian drone attack triggered a major fire at the Sheskharis oil terminal in the Novorossiysk port, damaging two key berths and halting all oil exports. The refinery is expected to increase its runs to nearly 800,000 metric tons this month, up from the usual 500,000-600,000 tons. The refinery is increasing capacity amid higher profit margins. Elsewhere, OPEC has reduced its forecast for global oil demand in the second quarter by 500kb/d, in its first public assessment of the Iran war's effect on the market. In comparison, the group sees a smaller hit to oil demand from the war this year than some other forecasters. In other news, US President Trump acknowledged that the prices of oil and gasoline might stay elevated until midterm elections in November. According to GasBuddy, the average price for regular gasoline at US service stations surpassed $4/gal for most of April. In comparison, the average US gas price in February was just under $3/gal, and over the past year it has never exceeded $3.25/gal. Finally, at the time of writing, the front-month (Jun/Jul) and 6-month (Jun/Dec) Brent futures spreads are at $6.45/bbl and $18.41/bbl, respectively.