Brent Falls 1.4% to $113.73 as Markets Watch Talks and Escalation Risks
Key Facts
Brent December futures fell 1.4% to $113.73 a barrel in early trading on Thursday, October 29, according to data cited by Investing.com from Reuters. West Texas Intermediate futures fell 1.6% to $101.19 a barrel at the same time. The decline followed gains in both benchmarks in the previous session. Those gains came after the Houthis said they had attacked Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery. Prices fell as reports circulated of diplomatic moves between Washington and Tehran, alongside military risks that have not subsided.
The report cited The Wall Street Journal as saying U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance sent a message to Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, in a move that could open a channel for negotiations. U.S. President Donald Trump told Axios on Wednesday that talks were taking place through intermediaries. He added that he did not know whether they would produce results. The remarks cast diplomatic progress as a possibility, not a settled agreement. Price moves therefore remain tied to the balance between news of negotiations and escalation.
On the supply front, U.S. commercial crude inventories, excluding lease stocks, stood at 410.625 million barrels in the week ended October 23, compared with 412.517 million in the previous week, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That represented a weekly decline in inventories. The agency’s data also showed stocks falling from 415.577 million barrels in the week ended October 9 to 410.625 million on October 23. Inventories thus declined for a fourth consecutive week. Among refined products, gasoline stocks rose by 3.9 million barrels in the week ended October 23, while distillate inventories, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 1.5 million barrels.
In a separate development concerning the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s ambassador to Islamabad said Tehran had told Pakistan it was ready to reopen the strait if Washington lifted its naval blockade. The position makes reopening the waterway conditional on lifting the blockade as part of negotiations. By contrast, the report attributed to Reuters said Trump raised the possibility of resuming military action against Iran after the U.S. midterm elections. The report set the election date as November 3. These signals keep escalation risks in view alongside reports of mediation and negotiations.
The Energy Information Administration typically releases its weekly petroleum status report on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, with holiday exceptions. The agency’s inventory schedule set November 4, 2026, as the date for the next release. The report follows data for the week ended October 23, which recorded a consecutive decline in crude inventories. The inventory update will include a new figure for U.S. commercial crude. Gasoline and distillate data remain part of the weekly picture of domestic supply.