Weekly Oil Trading Market Review - 2025 - 17th to 21st February

A steady to firm Donald driven week finally caved in on Friday evening as prices fell sharply under a weight of selling.

ICE Brent looked happy around $76 a barrel for three days but whilst Donald carried on his backbiting routine with Ukraine and Europe continued to faff over every sentence that left his lips there were real events going on which legitimately left the oil markets very nervy.

The first was an interesting remark from Goldman Sachs on Thursday which warned swaggering global stock markets could run into trouble and Wall Street stocks could face a correction because of expiring market options the following day.

Goldman Sachs specialist Scott Rubner had said that roughly?$2.7 trillion of U.S. stock market derivatives were due to expire on Friday, which if not exercised, could put pressure on stock markets and stoke volatility.?Whether the drop in equities and oil markets was triggered by this is anybody’s guess but it certainly could have been a factor.?

Oil prices are not exempt from the powerful winds of other commodity options closing dates and can be swept lower should overall investor sentiment switch to the “risk off” position!

The second and one we’ve discussed in previous weekly notes involves the American administration placing heavy pressure on Iraq to allow current available volumes (likely 300,000 barrels a day) of Kurdish oil exports via the Turkish port of Ceyhan to flow again, or face punitive sanctions alongside Iran if they refuse. Eight sources with direct knowledge of the matter confirmed the story to Reuters, although it was later denied by an Iraqi adviser.

The old adage applies “there’s no smoke without fire”, the market took the story as credible and sold accordingly.?

A speedy resumption of exports from Iraq's semi autonomous Kurdistan region would help to offset a potential fall in Iranian oil exports, which Washington has pledged to cut to zero as part of Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran.

The third factor in this week’s price drop involved the weekly American EIA report.

This week crude oil stocks in the USA dropped for the 4th week running, not a huge surprise given U.S. refinery maintenance remains in progress at some key refineries, but yet another inventory rise is becoming a small psychological pressure and a driver of lower prices.?

A quieter period in the Middle East may also have made it’s contribution to Friday’s sharp fall in prices, although at the time of writing Israel has stopped releasing Palestinian prisoners to Hamas due to a dispute with them over the repatriation of hostages.

Meanwhile Donald continues the U.S. drive to recover some of the billions invested in Ukraine's defence by pushing to cut a deal for access to the many minerals which lay in Ukranian land….coal, gas, iron, manganese, nickel, ore, titanium, and uranium being the main attraction.?

Before the war, Ukraine was among the largest suppliers of noble gasses such as neon (for micro-chip-making) and boasted the most significant known lithium and rare earth?deposits in Europe.

Most of these minerals are in the so-called “Ukrainian shield,” spanning Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporzhizhia, and Dnipropetrovsk to Korovohrad, Poltova, and Kharkiv. It’s not lost on many of us that some of these names have become familiar since Russia invaded Ukraine, and therefore not a surprise Russia has made inroads towards those regions.

However, any ceasefire initiative will demand access to these minerals and may be key to the war ending.

The USA is doing all it can to bridge the gap between Ukraine and Russia to their own advantage, and given their huge support militarily of Ukraine it’s tough to criticise them for feeling this way !!?

For those hoping for higher oil prices in 2025 the crunch decision is whether America allows Russia back into the fray by reducing or even eliminating sanctions, some of which include “price caps” and the Russian designed “dark fleet” of vessels which transport Russian oil to destinations only too happy to receive “cheap” oil regardless of its origin.

The twist in all of this remains OPEC, an organisation which has always done its?best to “balance” supply and demand.

With the invention of OPEC+ comes the conundrum of Russia being the joint head of the new opec+ with Saudi Arabia, in any other World that would be considered a “conflict of interests” but in 2025 we all have the option to believe everything or nothing at all and that makes trading oil rather more difficult now than it has ever been.

This week’s closing guide prices:

ICE Brent 74.43 (-0.53)

WTI 70.40 (-0.52)

ICE gas oil 717.00 (+6.50)

Euro Mogas swaps 699.25 (-21.25)

Euro Naphtha swaps 649.00 (-11.25)

Nymex gasoline 2.0267 (-6.26 cents per gallon)

LPG swaps 559.25 (+4.25)

Opec basket 78.15

Credit - Robert Haynes - Silvergreen Energy Ltd.