Oil heads for fourth monthly drop as WTI trading halted
Oil headed for a fourth monthly loss, as traders looked ahead to an OPEC+ meeting this weekend and assessed how a potential Ukraine peace deal may affect an already oversupplied market.
Brent steadied above $63 a barrel on Friday, after a modest advance on Thursday, as an outage on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange caused disruptions across equities, foreign exchange, bonds and commodities, News.Az reports, citing Bloomberg.
The global benchmark was on track for its longest streak of monthly declines since May 2023.
West Texas Intermediate futures were near $59 before trading on Nymex froze in the Asian morning. Live trading of commodities futures on the CME has stopped due to technical issues, according to a notice on the CME Group website. Nymex is part of the CME Group. The halt also affected gasoline and diesel futures that are due to expire on Friday.
OPEC+ nations meet virtually on Sunday and will probably stick with a plan to pause output increases in early 2026, delegates said. With that decision locked in, a key focus may be a long-term review of members’ capacity.
Brent oil has fallen 15% this year, with prices hurt by expectations for a global glut after OPEC+ restarted capacity, while drillers outside the alliance also added supplies.
On Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that US President Donald Trump’s proposals for ending the war could be the basis for future agreements and expressed an openness to talks, though sticking points that led to stalemates in previous rounds remain. US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to visit Moscow next week.
An end to the conflict would have significant ramifications for the oil market. Russia is one of the world’s leading producers and its flows are subject to heavy Western sanctions. Any easing of curbs following a deal could unleash restricted supplies to buyers such as China, India and Türkiye.
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