Oil: Brent breaks below $70/bbl - ING

Sentiment remains negative in the oil market, with ICE Brent falling close to 2.5% yesterday. It settled below US$70/bbl after briefly trading to its lowest level in three years. Rising OPEC supply and prospects for further increases, combined with ever-present tariff uncertainty, pushed the market lower, ING's commodity analysts Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey notes.

A bigger pullback in activity near term

"Recent price weakness makes it difficult for US producers to 'drill, baby, drill'. While prompt WTI is trading below $67/bbl, forward values are even weaker. The calendar 2026 price is trading around $63/bbl, reducing incentives for producers to increase drilling activity. If anything, we're likely to see a bigger pullback in activity. Producers need, on average, a $64/bbl price level to drill a new well profitably, according to the Dallas Federal Reserve Energy Survey."

"Weekly US inventory data was also fairly bearish. Yesterday, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that US crude oil inventories increased by 3.61m barrels over the last week. That's a marked increase from the 1.5m-barrel decline the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported the previous day. Also, crude oil stocks at Cushing rose by 1.12m barrels."

"This leaves stocks at the WTI delivery hub at the highest level since November. Lower refinery rates contributed to the build, with utilisation rates falling by 0.6pp, and crude inputs dropping by 346k b/d week on week. Among refined products, gasoline and distillate inventories fell by 1.43m barrels and 1.32m barrels, respectively."