Brent rises to $110.17 a barrel as supply risks persist and US inventories fall
Key Facts
Brent crude futures rose to $110.17 a barrel during the session on October 21, 2026, up 1.27%, according to the fluctuating daily reading displayed by Investing.com, as supply risks persisted in the Middle East. The gain followed a price of $108.79 a barrel in the October 20 session, when crude fell 0.69%, according to the same website. Brent thus resumed its rise after the previous session's losses, coinciding with a decline in US commercial crude inventories and a persistent risk premium linked to the region. In its October outlook, the US Energy Information Administration forecast that spot Brent would average $105 a barrel in the fourth quarter of 2026. The agency raised that estimate by $14 a barrel from its previous forecast for the same period.
In the United States, the Energy Information Administration said in its report released on October 15, 2026, that commercial crude inventories fell by 8.6 million barrels in the week ended October 9. Inventories stood at 415.6 million barrels after the draw, a weekly decline accompanied by lower crude imports and higher inputs into US refineries. That figure covers commercial oil, excluding volumes held in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve from the inventory total reported. Commercial inventories were 3% below the five-year average, according to the comparison in the agency's weekly summary. The crude draw coincided with mixed movements in petroleum product inventories, as gasoline stocks rose while distillate inventories fell during the same reporting week.
On crude flows into the US market, imports fell to 6,049 thousand barrels a day in the week ended October 9, according to the Energy Information Administration's petroleum balance table. Imports had stood at 6,840 thousand barrels a day the previous week, marking a weekly decline of 791 thousand barrels a day in crude arriving in the United States. Meanwhile, crude inputs into US refineries rose to 16,615 thousand barrels a day in the week when commercial inventories recorded that draw. The agency compared that level with inputs of 16,480 thousand barrels a day the previous week, an increase of 135 thousand barrels a day. The decline in imported crude flows thus coincided with higher refinery inputs, alongside the recorded drop in commercial inventories.
US gasoline inventories rose by 3.5 million barrels in the week ended October 9, according to the Energy Information Administration's weekly inventory tables. Total gasoline stocks reached 208.3 million barrels, moving in the opposite direction to commercial crude inventories over the same period. Distillates, meanwhile, recorded a weekly draw of 2.5 million barrels, coinciding with higher crude inputs into US refineries. Inventories of those products stood at 102.6 million barrels at the end of the reporting week, according to figures the agency published in its October 15 report. The US inventory balance for that week combined a rise in gasoline stocks with declines in both crude and distillates, alongside lower imports and higher refinery inputs.
Against the backdrop of oil price movements, supply developments and military activity in the Middle East remained prominent in coverage published during September and early October. In early October, The National quoted Daniel Richards, an economist at Emirates NBD, as saying that "renewed US military deployments in the region have kept the risk premium in place." The newspaper had reported in its September coverage that Saudi Arabia shut its East-West pipeline following attacks, affecting one of the routes for Saudi crude exports. It said the pipeline closure removed an important oil export route and deepened concerns over a global supply shortage. Richards' assessment of the persistent risk premium followed that coverage of the export route disruption, amid renewed US military deployments in the region.
Alongside developments affecting Saudi export routes, the kingdom's shipments through the Strait of Hormuz rose during September, according to preliminary Kpler data cited by The National in its report on October fuel prices. Those shipments reached 2.58 million barrels a day, compared with about a million barrels a day in August, according to figures cited by the newspaper. The increase in shipments through the strait came in the same month that the newspaper's coverage addressed the Saudi pipeline closure following the attacks and concerns over global supply. In the United States, the next weekly release follows a report that combined draws in crude and distillate inventories with an increase in gasoline stocks. The Energy Information Administration scheduled the next release of weekly petroleum data for October 21, 2026.