Oil prices climbed in early trade on Tuesday for a second consecutive session as market participants assessed risks stemming from Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian energy sites and mounting U.S.-Venezuela tensions.
Brent crude futures rose 14 cents, or 0.2%, to $63.31 a barrel by 0102 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude gained 18 cents, or 0.3%, to $59.50 a barrel.
Both benchmarks advanced more than 1% on Monday.
The Caspian Pipeline Consortium said on Monday that it had resumed oil shipments from one mooring point at its Black Sea terminal following a major Ukrainian drone attack on November 29. Russia’s Kommersant daily, citing unnamed sources, said on Monday that oil loadings had resumed via the single point mooring 1 (SPM 1), while SPM 2 was damaged.
“The military action further supports our opinion that a peace deal is highly unlikely anytime soon and that the diesel/gasoil markets are on the cusp of pulling the complex back up,” analysts at Ritterbusch and Associates said in a note.
On the negotiation front, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday Kyiv’s priorities were to maintain sovereignty and ensure strong security guarantees, and that territorial disputes remained the most complicated.
U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff is due to brief the Kremlin on Tuesday.
ANZ noted that the widening U.S. campaign against Venezuela is raising concerns that oil exports may be further impacted.
U.S. President Donald Trump held talks with top advisers to discuss the pressure campaign on Venezuela, a senior U.S. official said. On Saturday, Trump said the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela should be considered “closed in its entirety,” but gave no further details.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, OPEC+ reaffirmed a small oil output increase for December and a pause in increases in the first quarter of next year due to rising fears of a supply glut.
“Fundamentals tend to rule over the longer term, and we still view this deterioration in the global balances as capable of forcing oil values lower with probabilities in WTI and Brent respectively to the $55 and $59 areas still quite high,” Ritterbusch added.
