Overview

• Four days of drone strikes on oilfields in Iraqi Kurdistan have shut in roughly 150,000 barrels per day, cutting regional output by about half.
• The EU’s 18th sanctions package and matching UK measures lowered the cap on Russian crude to $47.60 per barrel and blacklisted over 100 shadow-fleet tankers along with related traders and a Rosneft-linked Indian refinery.
• Oil benchmark prices are trading in the mid-$60 range as tariff-driven demand worries weigh on sentiment and add to questions over sanctions enforcement.
• Iraq’s federal government has approved the restart of Kurdish oil exports through the Turkey pipeline after a two-year suspension, though the timing for flows to resume remains unclear.
• Traders are awaiting potential U.S. tariff decisions and monitoring sanction enforcement to assess whether current market tightness will hold.