Oil prices drifted lower for a third straight session in the early trading session today, following the latest comments from President Trump who called for lower oil prices to pressure Moscow to end the war in Ukraine. Trump said the war would end “if the price of oil comes down,” and repeated calls for countries to stop buying fuel from the OPEC+ member. On the other hand, upside risks for oil continue following the recent attacks on Russian energy infrastructure by Ukraine.
Insights Global data shows that refined product inventories in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) region decreased by 239kt week-on-week to 5.92mt for the week ending 18 September 2025. The fall was largely driven by naphtha and fuel oil inventories declining by 120kt and 52kt to 547kt and 986kt, respectively. Similarly, gasoline stocks also declined marginally by 18kt week-on-week to 1.16mt, while gasoil stocks fell by 11kt WoW to 2.2mt over the reporting week.
In Singapore, onshore refined product stocks fell by a little over 1m barrels for a second straight session to 49.5m barrels over the reporting week. Residual fuel inventories and middle distillate stocks fell by 1.1m barrels and 144k barrels to 25.4m barrels and 9.7m barrels, respectively. In contrast, light distillate stocks grew marginally by 259k barrels to 14.4mt for the week ending 17 September 2025.
Separately, EIA weekly gas storage data shows that US gas stocks rose by 90Bcf last week, higher than the average market expectations of a build of around 80bcf. This was also well above the five-year average addition of 74Bcf for this time of the year. The bigger-than-average increase was largely due to the forecasts for cooler forecasts for late September. Total gas stockpiles totalled 3.43Tcf as of 12 September, which is 6.3% above the five-year average. The front-month Henry Hub contract traded under pressure and hovered around US$2.9/MMBtu in the early trading session today.
European natural gas prices ended higher for a third consecutive session yesterday. TTF futures rose by 1.7% to settle just below EUR33/MWh. Prices remain supported amid rising concerns over Russia’s liquified natural gas phase-out plans. Recent reports suggest that the European Commission is considering options to end imports of Russian liquefied natural gas earlier than the end of 2027, which was the initial plan. Russia supplies more than 10% of the European Union’s gas imports, roughly half of which comes via LNG. Meanwhile, EU storage is now 81% full, down from 93.4% at the same time last year and below the five-year average of 87.6%. The expectations for cooler weather in northwest Europe over the coming week might slow down the fuel injections, as the region braces for the start of the heating season.