Oil falls 2pc but concerns over supply disruptions provide support

HOUSTON: Oil prices fell 2% on Friday but were unchanged on the week as concerns about supply disruptions in Russia provided support while there was continued uncertainty about a potential peace deal in Ukraine.

Brent futures fell $1.80, or 2.35%, to $74.68 a barrel by 1:17 p.m. ET, while US West Texas Intermediate crude fell $1.81, or 2.5%, to $70.67.

Both benchmarks are set to end the week unchanged versus last week.

Investors have taken a relatively neutral yet nervous stance on crude oil prices, said Ole Hansen at Saxo Bank, with Brent trading near the middle of the expected range for the year, between $65 and $85 a barrel.

Traders’ focus was also on oil supply disruption.

Russia said Caspian Pipeline Consortium oil flows, a major route for crude exports from Kazakhstan, were reduced by 30-40% on Tuesday after a Ukrainian drone attack on a pumping station.

However, oil flows from Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oilfield via CPC are uninterrupted, Russian news agency Interfax reported on Friday, citing Tengizchevroil.

Kazakhstan has pumped record high oil volumes despite damage to its CPC export route via Russia, industry sources said on Thursday. It was not immediately clear how Kazakhstan had been able to pump record volumes.

The Ukrainian drone attack helped support crude prices this week, said Alex Hodes, analyst at StoneX in a note on Friday, also pointing to analysts’ expectation that OPEC+ will delay its production cut once again, in light of crude prices remaining below $80/bbl.

Elsewhere, relations between Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and US President Donald Trump deteriorated this week after Zelenskiy criticised US and Russian moves to negotiate a peace deal without Kyiv’s involvement. The rift was widened by Trump comments blaming Ukraine for starting the three-year-old conflict.

Trump denounced Zelenskiy as “a dictator without elections” on Wednesday after Zelenskiy said Trump was trapped in a Russian disinformation bubble, a response to the US president suggesting Ukraine had started the war.

“Any immediacy of an ending to the war is disappearing and so are oil trading positions driven by an idea of a Russian future without sanctions,” said PVM analyst John Evans. But after a meeting with Trump’s envoy for the Ukraine conflict on Thursday, Zelenskiy said Ukraine was ready to work quickly to produce a strong agreement with the United States on investments and security.

Pressuring crude prices on Friday was a rise in US crude oil stockpiles, while gasoline and distillate inventories fell last week as seasonal maintenance at refineries led to lower processing, the Energy Information Administration said on Thursday.

Meanwhile, US energy firms this week added oil and natural gas rigs for a fourth week in a row to the highest level since June, energy services firm Baker Hughes said in a report on Friday.

The oil and gas rig count, an early indicator of future output, rose by four to 592 in the week to February 21.

On the demand front, JPMorgan analysts expect cold weather in the US and a post-holiday increase to industrial activity in China to contribute more demand in the coming week.