Oil Set For Big Weekly Gain As Pressure On Russia Intensifies
Brent traded above $69 a barrel for a weekly advance of 4.4%, while West Texas Intermediate was at more than $65 a barrel.
Oil headed for its biggest weekly gain in more than three months as US President Donald Trump increased pressure on buyers of Russian energy in a bid to end the war in Ukraine.
Brent traded above $69 a barrel for a weekly advance of 4.4%, while West Texas Intermediate was at more than $65 a barrel. Trump pressed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to stop buying oil from Russia and discussed energy security with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, after he earlier this week rebuked NATO members for buying fuel from the OPEC+ producer.
Turkey “has a lot of options,” while Hungary and Slovakia are landlocked, and are “sort of married to one pipeline,” Trump told reporters in the White House.
That comes as Russia’s physical supplies are pressured by Ukrainian drone strikes on energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, European diplomats warned the Kremlin this week that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is ready to respond to further violations of its airspace with full force, including by shooting down Russian planes, according to officials familiar with the exchange.
This week’s gain has failed to lift oil out of the tight trading band it’s been in since early August, as investors weigh a loose market balance against the rising geopolitical tensions. Forecasters including the International Energy Agency anticipate a surplus later this year, driven by increased output from OPEC and its partners, as well as from producers outside the group, especially in the Americas.
Global supplies are set to increase further as exports from the Kurdistan region in Iraq through a pipeline to Turkey’s Ceyhan port are set to resume Saturday. Following a halt of more than two years, the resumption of shipments will initially bring 230,000 barrels a day to international markets, rising to as much as half a million barrels a day in future.
Prices:
Brent for November settlement gained 0.3% to $69.61 a barrel at 8:44 a.m. in Singapore.
WTI for November delivery added 0.4% to $65.23 a barrel
