London, January 12, 2026, 12:54 GMT — Regular session
- BRNT fell about 0.7% as Brent crude dipped back toward $63 a barrel
- Traders kept one eye on Iran unrest, another on Venezuela export plans
- Goldman Sachs stuck to a 2026 surplus call and a lower-price view
WisdomTree Brent Crude Oil (BRNT.L) fell 0.7% to $48.44 in London trading on Monday, after opening at $48.44. The Brent-linked product traded between $48.14 and $48.54.
Brent crude futures slipped 31 cents, or 0.5%, to $63.03 a barrel by 1045 GMT as investors weighed Iran’s claim the situation was “under total control” against efforts to restart Venezuelan exports. “Lower European equity markets and lack of additional supply disruptions is moderately weighing on oil prices,” UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said. Both Brent and U.S. WTI rose more than 3% last week in their biggest weekly gain since October, the same report showed. Reuters
Iran said it was keeping communications open with Washington as U.S. President Donald Trump weighed responses to a crackdown on protests. A U.S.-based rights group, HRANA, said it had verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security personnel, with more than 10,600 people arrested since protests began on Dec. 28, though Reuters said it could not independently verify the figures. Trump is set to meet senior advisers on Tuesday to discuss options for Iran, the report said.
Oil traders keep talking about the “risk premium” — the extra price the market pays for a chance of supply disruption. It has been choppy and thin. The tape is still asking for something tangible.
On the supply side, Venezuela is pulling attention. Global trading houses Vitol and Trafigura moved first on Venezuelan crude flows, getting ahead of U.S. majors that have been wary of legal and credit risks, a Reuters report said. Trafigura was set to load its first cargo this week, Chief Executive Richard Holtum said at a White House meeting, and a White House official called the early work “record speed.” Exxon CEO Darren Woods told the meeting Venezuela was “uninvestable,” according to the same report. Reuters
Vitol and Trafigura have also started talks with refiners in India and China for March-delivery Venezuelan cargoes, trade sources told Reuters. One offer was pitched at a discount of $8 to $8.50 a barrel to ICE Brent on a delivered basis, one source said. Vitol also loaded a first cargo of naphtha from the U.S. to Venezuela on the Hellespont Protector, expected to arrive at Port of Jose on Jan. 28, Kpler data showed; naphtha is used to thin Venezuela’s heavy crude for export.
Goldman Sachs kept a bearish 2026 frame: a 2.3 million barrels-per-day surplus and an average Brent price of $56 a barrel, with a possible $54 low in the fourth quarter as OECD inventories build. The bank again flagged a Brent “time-spread” trade — the price gap between near-dated and longer-dated futures on the curve — recommending investors short the 2026Q3-Dec2028 spread to express its surplus view. Reuters
BRNT is built as a Brent proxy, not a producer. The product is a Jersey-domiciled exchange-traded commodity that uses a fully funded collateralised swap structure, WisdomTree’s factsheet showed, with about $611 million in assets and roughly 13.3 million shares outstanding as of Jan. 8.
Investors in crude-linked products also watch the roll — the mechanics of shifting exposure from one futures contract to the next. The curve can help or hurt. When later contracts trade above near ones, the roll can be a drag.
But the tape can flip fast. A real disruption in Iran — shipping problems, a wider conflict, any hit to flows — would likely reprice Brent higher and pull BRNT up with it. The other way is duller: Venezuela barrels come back cleanly, Iran exports keep moving, and the market leans harder into surplus talk.
Next up is fresh U.S. supply-and-demand guidance. The Energy Information Administration is due to publish its Short-Term Energy Outlook on Tuesday, Jan. 13.
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