Markets

The biggest day-on-day increase was seen on Monday after OPEC+ opted to postpone its output hike by one more month.

Prices took a sharp dive after Israeli attacks on Iran avoided energy assets but a resurgence of tension related to the Middle East conflict later in the week was not able to bring about a week-on-week increase.

After two weeks of having been unimpressed with economic stimuli announced by China, the bulls took heart from an increase in crude-import quotas issued by Beijing.

The market remained in the grip of the opposing forces of a weak demand outlook and concerns of potential supply disruptions.

The war premium remained largely intact despite a dip on Tuesday due to short-lived hopes for a ceasefire.

Heightened tensions between Israel and Iran pushed futures prices for crude benchmarks to five-week highs.

In addition to expectations of additional output from OPEC+ as well as political factions in Libya agreeing to initial steps that could help end production outages in the country, prices were also pressured by economic concerns in Europe.

The long-awaited interest-rate cut by the US Federal Reserve was welcomed by many market watchers as a harbinger of better oil demand but also sparked concerns about the current state of the US economy.

After three consecutive weekly losses for Brent and four drops for WTI, the arrival of the hurricane provided some short-term bullish sentiment as oil companies took production offline.

Expectations of a resolution to the dispute that has reduced Libyan output in recent weeks as well as ongoing concerns about demand in China and other large economies dragged down futures prices.