The soon-to-be M1 (Mar’26) Brent futures contract remains highly rangebound, oscillating between $61.30/bbl and $61.70/bbl this afternoon and sitting at $61.45/bbl at 17:15 GMT (time of writing). Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump spoke for a second consecutive day on 29 Dec, as per White House secretary Karoline Leavitt, who called the conversation a “positive call”. The call comes a day after President Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Meanwhile, Reuters reported that oil output in Kazakhstan declined by around 6% in December to 1.93mb/d, led by a decline at the Chevron-operated Tengiz oilfield following the 29 Nov Ukrainian drone attack at the Yuzhnaya Ozereevka oil terminal of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which handles around 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil exports. The report stated that production at the Tengiz oilfield has dipped by 10% m/m to 719.8kb/d in December. In other news, Canadian Frontera Energy’s Colombian unit has signed a prepayment and commercial agreement worth up to $120 million to supply a portion of its crude oil output to Chevron Products Company for the next two years, replacing an existing agreement set to expire at the end of January 2026. Finally, at the time of writing, the Mar/Apr’26 and Mar/Sep’26 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.32/bbl and $0.60/bbl, respectively.
