LONDON, June 27, 2026, 12:57 (BST)
- Brent closed Friday at $71.99 a barrel, dropping 4.34% on the session and losing 10.86% over the week. WTI finished at $69.23, off 3.74% Friday and down 9.62% for the week.
- Money managers trimmed their net long position in NYMEX WTI physical futures to 82,872 contracts for the week ended June 23, a drop of 13,356 contracts from the previous week.
- Crude slid even as U.S. market signals stayed tight. Cushing stocks dropped to roughly 19 million barrels. The U.S. diesel crack touched a three-week high.
- Next week, traders are watching Hormuz shipping, possible U.S.-Iran blowback, and July OPEC+ supply.
Oil finished the week with funds trimming crude length despite U.S. inventories and diesel margins not pointing to a clear bear trade. The settlement tape didn’t show all the pressure seen into the close.
CFTC figures for June 23 showed managed money with 209,683 long WTI physical futures and 126,811 short positions. That put the net long at 82,872 contracts. The net was down 13,356 from the previous week as funds trimmed longs and increased shorts.
Investors are watching that trade. WTI slipped after stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma dropped to around 19 million barrels—the weakest level since 2014 and below the 20 million that traders call normal. “Fundamentally we should be higher,” Carl Larry, sales manager at Enverus, said. Reuters
The crude oil narrative is shifting away from Cushing and toward Hormuz. James Cordier, head of investment strategy at OptionSpreaders.com, said Cushing is now “one of the least followed barometers” as more shale is shipped out through Gulf Coast export ports. Reuters
Product markets have been moving differently from crude. The U.S. ultra-low sulfur diesel crack ended Thursday at $62.84 a barrel, its highest close since June 3. But WTI has fallen about 22% this month and ULSD has dropped just over 9%. “Tightness was concentrated in products rather than crude,” said Rory Johnston, founder of Commodity Context. Reuters
Oil’s split is key for investors. Brent dipping can help ease the inflation trade, but diesel cracks hanging on keeps refining margins strong and doesn’t help much for freight-focused buyers. U.S. distillate stocks came in at 106 million barrels as of June 19, about 12 million under the five-year average.
Crude kept moving despite everything, flow data shows. Kpler tracked four tankers with 6 million barrels passing Hormuz Thursday. Two more tankers shipped 4 million barrels of Iranian crude, and six tankers took out another 10.8 million barrels Wednesday. Total ship traffic is still just a sliver of the 125 tankers seen daily before the Feb. 28 conflict.
Kpler said the rebound pointed to “adaptability of Mideast Gulf export systems,” but warned it wasn’t a clean return. Allied Shipbroking noted traders are still testing how durable the current setup is. Reuters
Saudi Aramco TADAWUL:2222 restarted crude shipments at Ras Tanura on Friday after stopping them for almost four months. Two VLCCs loaded about 2 million barrels each, with another tanker waiting close by. Phil Flynn at Price Futures Group said there’s “a growing sense” that oil will keep flowing through Hormuz. PVM analyst Tamas Varga called the consensus view “imminent oversupply.” June Goh of Sparta Commodities said crude demand from China was “not yet picking up.” Reuters
Risks persisted. The U.S. military hit Iran on Friday, following a drone strike on a cargo ship in the strait. Iran said Saturday it fired back, targeting sites linked to U.S. forces. Bahrain separately reported an Iranian drone attack.
OPEC+ is set to lift output targets by 188,000 barrels per day in July, after seven members agreed to the increase. The July barrels hit the market next week. Iraq’s oil ministry said OPEC started bringing back its pre-war allocations, so Iraq’s July quota is at 4.378 million bpd. But its current output remains much lower due to the Hormuz disruption.
China will boost its state refiner fuel export quota to 800,000 metric tons in July, up from around 600,000 tons in June, according to sources. Diesel and jet fuel will get most of the increase. That could weigh on Asian refined product markets even if U.S. diesel remains tight.
Stockpile-watchers are waiting for July 1, when the Energy Information Administration posts weekly numbers for the week following the June 19 report. Traders will key on Cushing inventories and if distillate supplies are still much lower than normal.
