EL7.AI
CommoditiesMedium•22 October 2026•
4 min read

Brent rises to $111.64 as U.S. orders staff to leave Saudi Arabia

Key Facts

1Brent rose 2.59% to $111.64 a barrel at 06:26 GMT on 22 October 2026.
2U.S. commercial crude inventories fell 3.1 million barrels to 412.5 million barrels in the week ended 16 October 2026.
3Observed global oil inventories at the end of September were 509 million barrels below pre-war levels.
4Saudi Arabia's energy ministry said the incident involving falling drone debris near the Shaybah field did not affect its operations.
5The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated the average Brent spot price in the fourth quarter of 2026 at $105 a barrel.

Brent crude futures rose to $111.64 a barrel in trading on 22 October 2026 as the United States ordered non-essential government employees and their family members to leave Saudi Arabia. According to a Reuters update at 06:26 GMT, crude was up $2.82 a barrel, or 2.59%. Brent extended its gains during the session after trading at a lower level earlier the same day. At 00:34 GMT, crude was trading at $110.11 a barrel, up $1.29, or 1.2%, according to Reuters. In the same early update, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose to $98.12 a barrel. U.S. crude was up 97 cents, or 1%, at that time. The rise in both benchmarks coincided with security developments in Saudi Arabia and a weekly decline in U.S. crude inventories that exceeded expectations in a Reuters poll.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said, according to Reuters, that the departure order applied to "non-essential U.S. government employees and their family members in Saudi Arabia only". A U.S. travel advisory dated 12 October had required U.S. government employees working in the kingdom to obtain special permission to use any airport there. The departure order followed that advisory, as the kingdom witnessed an incident near Aramco's Shaybah field on 21 October. The National newspaper reported that Saudi air defences intercepted a drone near the field. Falling debris from the drone killed 2 and injured 2, according to the newspaper. Saudi Arabia's energy ministry said the incident "did not affect operations at the field". Operations at Shaybah thus continued despite the casualties caused by the falling debris.

In the United States, the Energy Information Administration's weekly report, published on 21 October, showed commercial crude inventories fell by 3.1 million barrels in the week ended 16 October 2026. Inventories stood at 412.5 million barrels, excluding oil held in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That put them 3% below the 5-year average, according to the EIA. A Reuters poll had forecast a smaller draw of 820,000 barrels before the official report was released. U.S. distillate inventories, by contrast, rose by 1.7 million barrels during the same week. Despite that weekly increase, distillate inventories remained 9% below the 5-year average, according to the EIA. U.S. refineries operated at 93.4% of capacity during the same period, alongside the decline in crude inventories and the rise in distillate stocks.

U.S. refinery utilisation levels come at a time when operable crude distillation capacity is below its previous level, according to a letter issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on 20 October. The agency said this capacity in September 2026 was 800,000 barrels a day below its January 2020 level. Globally, supply posted a monthly recovery in September led by Gulf producers, according to the International Energy Agency's October Oil Market Report. Global oil supplies rose by 2.5 million barrels a day from the previous month. That brought total supply to 102.3 million barrels a day, according to the agency. In Saudi Arabia, Joint Organisations Data Initiative figures published on 21 October showed crude exports rose by about 7.9% in August compared with July, according to Investing.com. Saudi exports reached 4.451 million barrels a day in August, ahead of the subsequent increase in global supplies recorded by the IEA in September.

Despite the recovery in supply during September, observed global oil inventories at the end of the month were 509 million barrels below pre-war levels, according to the IEA. On consumption, the agency forecast global oil demand would decline by an average of 2.6 million barrels a day during 2026. It attributed weak consumption to constraints on product availability, higher fuel prices and a deteriorating economic outlook. It described the pressures on consumption as including "constraints on product availability and higher fuel prices" in its October report. For the fourth quarter of 2026, the U.S. Energy Information Administration raised its estimate for the average Brent spot price in its October outlook. The EIA estimated an average of $105 a barrel during that quarter. The estimate represents an increase of $14 a barrel from the previous month's forecast.