The Jan’26 Brent futures contract weakened this afternoon, from $64/bbl at 13:00 GMT to $62.98/bbl at 17:00 GMT (time of writing). In the news, Reuters reported that Lukoil’s Volgograd refinery has halted operations after a Ukrainian drone attack in the Southern city. The refinery (capacity 100mb/d) reported that its primary CDU unit and a hydrocracker had been damaged in the attack. In other news, Russian oil is trading at its biggest discount to Brent crude in a year, as Indian and Chinese refiners cut their purchases amid US sanctions on Russian major companies. According to a Reuters report, the gap between Russian Urals and Brent increased by $2/bbl y/y to roughly $4/bbl below Brent for December delivery. Elsewhere, PetroChina is planning to phase out production at 19 inefficient units across its facilities as it looks to trim overcapacity. Finally, at time of writing, the front-month Jan/Feb’26 and 6-month Jan/Jul’26 are at $0.26/bbl and $0.24/bbl, respectively.
