The April Brent futures is trading at $83.21/bbl at the time of writing, 16:45 GMT. The contract traded down to a low of $81.97/bbl at noon and subsequently experienced a steady rise throughout the afternoon to settle around the $83/bbl mark.
With ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, combined with potential loosening of monetary policy from central banks, overall sentiment has remained bullish. The Iran-backed Hezbollah has fired rockets in Northern Israel in response to air raids in Israel that killed at least 10 civilians and three Hezbollah fighters in South Lebanon. This comes on the back of over 4 months of conflict between the Israeli military and Hezbollah, killing over 200 people in Lebanon and displacing thousands more. Uncertainty surrounding the duration and possible escalation of the war in Gaza, coupled with the recent news concerning Hezbollah has likely contributed to an increase in long positions into the weekend, supporting further crude price increases.
Finally, the front-month and six-month Brent spreads are currently at $0.81/bbl and $3.73/bbl respectively.
