The Officials

It’s magnetic! Brent just can’t break away from the low-$60s level. Yesterday’s decline turned into another long sideways march through today’s session, as February Brent meandered slowly before dropping in the afternoon to reach the European close at $61.97/bbl. The curve is also getting a belting, as the prompt spread tumbled to 30c by the close, and Q4 spreads are slipping into contango again! Weakness is the name of the game at the moment, in the North Sea too…

In the week ending 5 December 2025, exchange traded futures volumes were significantly higher w/w across instruments in the first three tenors except the February Brent futures contract, which fell 7.29%. But March and April tenors showed robust weekly growth. WTI, on the other hand, showed major increases across all three tenors, with the February contract up over 60%. Heating oil, gasoil and RBOB futures all reported higher traded volumes across the strip, with the lowest increase in April gasoil, which rose just 3.24%.

Saudi allocations for January are in and they are big! Much higher than the softish volumes of recent months. Theallocations totalled 49.5 million bbls vs a paltry 36 mil bbls in December and 39.5 mil bbl in November. It was the big boysgetting more, as allocations to both PetroChina and Rongsheng got an extra 8 mil bbl from the previous month, back to “Bizas usual”, as a source said. Smaller volumes are allocated to the likes of Cnooc and Fujian – and Hengli got nothing at all!

A pipeline leak and temporary shutdown of the 460 kb/d Iraqi West Qurna 2 field sent Brent flat price back up above $63 at lunchtime following the morning slump. Lukoil’s force majeure declaration didn’t lead to a halt in flows but a leaky pipeline is an insurmountable hurdle for the embattled field – it shouldn’t take too long to fix, though. But the market is very tired and quickly slipped back to under that point again, finally reaching the London close at $62.79/bbl.

ADNOC couldn’t catch the speedy Saudis out of the gate this month in the OSP race. The Saudis were very quick last week. ADNOC OSPs came out early this morning and Murban (set as the average of IFAD settlements over last month) for January loading is set at $65.53, down 26c from the December OSP. But it’s in the diffs where things get interesting!

Above $64 for the first time since 19 November! We told ya! Do not believe the super glut narratives, throw them in the bin, above the heads of all the short only consultants, ship trackers and bankers. A surge just before 14:30 GMT from under $63.20 to a high at $64.10 by 15:30. It moved down through the window to hit $63.76/bbl by the close. But the prompt spread didn’t keep up with that and rose only a few cents to 42c before falling back to 40c by the close.

Love and kisses and sweet nothings in the ear. The love, the love… just flowing among long-time friends. Putin and Modi are really the best of friends. Anybody feeling jealous? Trump, Rubio? It is obvious that some like to treat countries with a stick and others with carrots and this approach yields predictable results.

OSPs came early! The Kingdom decided to surprise us on another quiet day and announce their OSPs for January. The Saudis didn’t disappoint and delivered what the change in Dubai structure implied – a 40c cut for Arab Light to Asian destinations, bringing the OSP down to just 60c over the Oman and Dubai average. This is the lowest since 2020 folks! Cuts were seen across all grades: Arab Extra Light was trimmed by 20c to $1.10, while Arab Medium and Arab Heavy were cut by 60c to -55c and -$1.90, respectively.

Rhetoric is ramping. Mr Medvedev isn’t a fan of the idea Europe could use frozen Russian assets, calling it a “casus belli” and threatening they could be returned as reparations “by Russia’s fallen foes”. As a Russian source commented, “Now we have clarification what qualifies as war for Russia”.

The market for hot Russian assets is going hard core today. According to various reports, the owner of pornhub is getting the hots (the word again 🤣) for Lukoil assets and is unexpectedly coming from behind. We thought the assets would be stripped by a more true-blue American company. But hey, you never know, as money can lure a seller even in the cold of the winter. No need to parade, the suitor will come for you!

Deadlock. Status quo. Mexican standoff. Whatever you want to call it, the Russia-Ukraine negotiations are stuck in some super sticky mud. Rasputitsa, as the Russians call it. 🤣 Ukraine refuses to yield, supported by willing European bankrollers, are there any? Or any with money? 🤡 And Russia won’t leave without what it entered Ukraine for. Some waffly nonsense from the Kremlin about being prepared to meet the US as often as necessary to find an agreement didn’t reassure anyone that peace is anywhere near within reach.

Putin doesn’t like the Ukrainian attacks on Russian ships and threatened to retaliate with his own strikes on Ukrainian ships and facilities – and even a naval blockade! He also beat his chest and bristled at Europe, or any country supporting the sea drones, for its unacceptable demands, claiming Russia is ready for war at any time. Nobody wins!!

In the week ending 28 November 2025, exchange traded futures volumes were significantly lower w/w across instruments in the first three tenors – partly impacted by the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. Brent volumes saw the largest drop in the January tenor – down 58.75% – as traders rolled their positions ahead of expiry.

Dear reader, the market is so so boring. Brent trading for a few hours was comatose trading around $63.18 plus or minus a few cents. Pathetic really. ‘Most people closed their trading books for the year, they lost enough,’ said a trader. ‘It is unprecedented how the market does not react to any news, and this is because they got burnt in the past as whatever it is said is flipped around within a few hours.’