Oil & Gas Corner

Friday, 2026-10-30 · covering the last 24h

Market signal

Brent holds a wide premium to WTI as a third straight Big Oil earnings day lands. Crude stayed elevated into Friday, with Brent trading through the $113–118 range intraday and WTI in the low $100s — a double-digit Brent/WTI spread that has persisted since the Strait of Hormuz disruption began and that traders are still pricing on war-risk rather than fundamentals. Fortune · CNBC

Upstream — exploration & production

ExxonMobil's Q3 profit doubles to $15.4 billion as refining offsets a softer upstream. GAAP net income rose from $7.5 billion a year earlier ($3.72 a share, adjusted $17.5 billion), with free cash flow of $19.1 billion; the company raised its Q4 dividend 4% to $1.07 a share and reaffirmed its buyback, while upstream earnings slipped on lower prices and the Guyana entitlement effect even as Energy Products strength carried the quarter. ExxonMobil

Chevron posts $9.9 billion in Q3 earnings on record US output. Adjusted earnings of $10.4 billion ($5.28/share) beat consensus as US production ran 27% above its level two years ago and US refineries hit 98% crude utilization; return on capital employed came in at 18%. Chevron 8-K

OPEC+'s eight voluntary producers look set to hold December targets steady at Sunday's call. Reuters-sourced reporting has Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman leaving quotas unchanged into 2027 at the November 1 meeting, with the real debate — how much Gulf members can actually export while Hormuz traffic stays suppressed — left to the full group's November 29 session. Gate.com (Reuters-sourced)

Midstream — pipelines, LNG & shipping

A tanker exiting the Strait of Hormuz was hit by an unidentified projectile Thursday, UKMTO says. The UK Maritime Trade Operations agency reported no injuries or attribution for the roughly 1600 GMT strike, part of what multiple outlets describe as the heaviest month for attacks on Gulf shipping since the war began; CENTCOM separately repeated on Wednesday that recognised transit lanes remain mine-free, rejecting fresh Iranian mine-strike claims that Washington has previously called fabricated. Gulf News · Shafaq News

Downstream — refining, fuels & chemicals

BP's underlying profit nearly doubles to $8.5 billion, led by refining margins and trading. Up from $5.7 billion in Q2, the beat came mainly from stronger realised refining margins and a strong gas-and-marketing trading result; BP guided net debt down to $13.5–14.5 billion after a $4.0 billion post-tax impairment charge. BP 6-K

EIA's latest weekly report shows crude and distillate stocks still drawing. Commercial crude inventories fell 1.9 million barrels to 410.6 million in the week to October 23 — a bigger draw than the Reuters poll expected — with Cushing stocks down too and distillates falling even as gasoline built, consistent with the tight product market that's been lifting refining margins all autumn. EIA · BOE Report

The Chatter

A third straight day buried under earnings and war headlines — nothing freely accessible and clearly dated to this window surfaced from the usual roster (Doomberg, Commodity Context, Super-Spiked, Javier Blas, Art Berman, Goehring & Rozencwajg, HFI Research, Energy Aspects/RBN Energy's public notes, Eric Nuttall and the energy-fintwit regulars) beyond arguments already covered in recent editions.