Oil prices were little changed on Tuesday after three days of declines on mounting oversupply concerns after OPEC+ agreed to another large output increase in September, though the potential for more Russian supply disruptions supported the market.
Brent crude futures were unchanged at $68.76 a barrel by 0036 GMT while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $66.27 a barrel, down 2 cents, or 0.03%.
Both contracts fell by more than 1% in the previous session to settle at their lowest in a week.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, together known as OPEC+, pumps about half of the world’s oil and had been curtailing production for several years to support the market, but the group introduced a series of accelerated output hikes this year to regain market share.
In its latest decision, OPEC+ agreed on Sunday to raise oil production by 547,000 barrels per day for September.
It marks a full and early reversal of the group’s largest tranche of output cuts, amounting to about 2.5 million bpd, or about 2.4% of global demand, though analysts caution the actual amount returning to the market will be less.
At the same time, U.S. demands for India to stop buying Russian oil as Washington seeks ways to push Moscow for a peace deal with Ukraine is increasing concerns of a disruption to supply flows.
U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to impose 100% secondary tariffs on Russian crude buyers. This follows a 25% tariff on Indian imports announced in July.
India is the biggest buyer of seaborne crude from Russia, importing about 1.75 million bpd of Russian oil from January to June this year, up 1% from a year ago, according to data provided to Reuters by trade sources.
“India has become a major buyer of the Kremlin’s oil since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Any disruption to those purchases would force Russia to find alternative buyers from an increasingly small group of allies,” ANZ senior commodity strategist Daniel Hynes wrote in a note.
Traders are also awaiting any developments on the latest U.S. tariffs on its trading partners, which analysts fear could slow down economic growth and dampen fuel demand growth.
