Sep. 2 at 7:50 PM
Oil Futures Climb on Geopolitical Risk, OPEC+ Outlook
Oil futures advanced Tuesday as renewed Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure fueled concerns of potential supply disruptions. The market is also positioning ahead of the OPEC+ meeting next weekend, with consensus that producers will keep output targets steady after unwinding about 2.2 million b/d of cuts between April and September.
According to Ritterbusch & Associates, Russian refinery outages have a stronger impact on European supply than U.S. supply, widening the Brent-WTI spread. Distillate fuels, crucial to Europe’s market, led the rally: Nymex diesel rose 4.6% and ICE gasoil gained 3.2%.
Crude benchmarks also moved higher: WTI settled at
$65.59, up 2.5%, while Brent ended at
$69.14, up 1.5%. Analysts noted that while core fundamentals for crude remain slightly bearish due to ample inventories and moderate demand growth, the “geopolitical premium” has re-emerged as a driver of short-term price strength.
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