NEW YORK: Oil prices were little changed on Tuesday after recovering earlier losses, as the market weighed increases in Middle Eastern crude exports and a planned Group of Seven release of emergency diesel and crude stockpiles against supply concerns related to attacks by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis.
Brent futures rose 26 cents, or 0.3%, to settle at US$100.58 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose one cent to settle at US$89.44.
Around 12 million barrels per day of crude oil and 2 million bpd of refined products – volumes needed to dampen price pressure – have left the Middle East on tankers in the last seven to 10 days, the CEO of commodity trading giant Vitol said on Tuesday.
Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Tuesday that oil pumped through the East-West Pipeline, which runs to the kingdom's Red Sea export hub of Yanbu, had reached 5.8 million barrels as of Tuesday morning.
Oil price declines, however, have been limited by the possibility of further Middle East supply disruptions.
Saudi Arabia's airports in Jazan and Najran were targeted in two attacks on Monday evening, injuring three people and causing limited damage, the Saudi aviation authority said, as hostilities between the kingdom and Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis escalated.
The attacks occurred as Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces pressed a major offensive to retake territory from the Houthis, after weeks of rebel advances, with Riyadh stepping up airstrikes in support of the campaign.
Separately, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine said on Tuesday that the latest intelligence suggested Russia was preparing a "massive attack."
Russia was the world's third-biggest crude oil producer behind the US and Saudi Arabia in 2025, according to US energy data. Sanctions designed to keep Russian energy out of global markets have helped support oil prices since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. A deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war could allow Russia to export more energy.
In the US, meanwhile, the National Hurricane Center said there was a 100% chance a cyclone could form over the next seven days in the Gulf of Mexico. A storm in the US Gulf could boost oil prices by shutting oil and natural gas production and damaging other energy infrastructure.
The International Energy Agency will meet next week to work out the details of a diesel stock release as market confusion grows over how many barrels Europe and the US plan to make available to address shortages and record-high prices, sources said.
The surge in diesel prices has turned the fuel, which underpins trucking, agriculture and industry, into a global political and economic concern. The wars in Iran and Ukraine have curtailed exports and damaged refineries, helping drive the rise in prices.
Under pressure from US President Donald Trump, the Group of Seven major economies agreed on Friday to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude oil from emergency reserves and pledged to refrain from imposing energy export restrictions.
With the war in Iran disrupting the flow of Middle East oil supplies, the US Energy Information Administration projected on Tuesday that world petroleum production would drop from a record 106.3 million bpd in 2025 to 101.1 million bpd in 2026, and world oil demand will drop from a record 104.4 million bpd in 2025 to 102.4 million bpd in 2026.
In 2027, however, EIA projected world oil supply and demand would rise back to record highs of 109.6 million bpd of production and 104.6 million bpd of consumption.
In the US, meanwhile, the oil market was watching for weekly storage reports from the American Petroleum Institute trade group on Tuesday and the EIA on Wednesday.
Analysts estimated energy firms added 1.7 million barrels of crude to US storage during the week ended October 2.
If correct, it would mark the first time since August that crude stocks increased for three weeks in a row and compare with an increase of 3.7 million barrels in the same week last year and an average increase of 1.7 million barrels over the past five years (2021 to 2025). — Reuters
