Oil set for weekly loss on decline in conflicts, possible glut

19/10/2025 02:48 AST

Oil prices were slightly higher on Friday, but heading for a weekly loss of nearly 3% after the IEA forecast a growing glut and U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to meet again to discuss Ukraine.

Brent crude futures rose 10 cents, or 0.16%, to $61.16 a barrel at 11:17 a.m. CDT (1617 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures were also up 10 cents, or 0.17%, at $57.56.

Trump and Putin agreed on Thursday to another summit on the war in Ukraine, to be held in the next two weeks in Hungary.

The planned summit comes on top of the cease-fire agreement ending, at least temporarily, the fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

The development in the Ukraine war came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was headed to the White House on Friday to push for more military support, including U.S.-made long-range Tomahawk missiles, while Washington pressured India and China to stop buying Russian oil.

"We've had the once-in-a-generation peace deal in Middle East, Iran is neutralized and now Ukraine; an unprecedented amount of risk has come out of the market," said Phil Flynn, senior analyst with Price Futures Group.

This week's decline was also partly due to rising trade tensions between the U.S. and China, which added to concerns about an economic slowdown and lower energy demand.

"It just demolishes confidence," said Jorge Montepeque, managing director at Onyx Capital Group, who expects the U.S. economy will quickly be impacted.

On Friday, a fire overnight at BP Plc's Whiting, Indiana refinery was expected to impact only the Midwest market, Flynn said.

Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis for GasBuddy, pointed out the market around the Great Lakes was expected to jump.

"Great Lakes spot gasoline prices spiking on the BP refinery fire overnight, could lead to prices cycling soon," DeHaan posted on X. "For now, wholesale prices pointing to about a 20 cent a gallon rise."

Limiting crude prices was the International Energy Agency's outlook for a growing supply glut in 2026. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Thursday that U.S. crude inventories increased by 3.5 million barrels to 423.8 million barrels last week, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 288,000-barrel rise.

The bigger-than-expected build in crude inventory was largely due to lower refining utilization as refineries go into autumn turnarounds.

The data also showed a rise in U.S. production to 13.636 million barrels per day, the highest on record.

Reuters