Two contracts, two prices
Brent crude rose more than 2% on Friday, the final trading day for the December 2026 futures contract. December is trading about 3.5% above January, so the Brent price you see depends on which contract a source follows. Many news outlets are still quoting December. The Brent price on our site follows January.
Brent contracts on ICE Futures Europe stop trading on the last business day of the month that comes two months ahead of delivery. For December barrels, that day is Friday, October 30. Wire services tend to stay with the expiring month until its final session. Our feed switched to January late on Wednesday, after most trading volume had moved there.
| Contract | Compared with January (Friday, 15:41 UTC) |
|---|---|
| December 2026 (expires today) | 3.5% higher |
| January 2027 (our Brent price) | Reference |
| February 2027 | 3.3% lower |
| March 2027 | 6.3% lower |
| May 2027 | 12.0% lower |
What the switch looks like on our chart
On our Brent chart, Wednesday night shows a drop of about 4% within one hour, at 23:00 UTC. No sell-off took place. The chart simply began tracking January instead of December, and January was trading at a discount.
Many other sites make the same change on Monday, when December is gone and January becomes the front month. Their Brent figure will step down by the gap between the two contracts. That reflects the contract change, not a move in the market.
A smaller premium than a month ago
Each later month on the Brent curve trades below the one before it. The market term for this is backwardation, and it signals that buyers will pay a premium for barrels they can get soon. May Brent is about 12% cheaper than January.
That premium at the very front has shrunk, though. On September 29, a day before November Brent expired, it stood about 7.6% above December. Today December is about 3.5% over January. Since then, G7 governments have agreed to release 100 million barrels of oil and diesel from emergency stocks, and Saudi Arabia has been sending more crude west through its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea.
Prices themselves have moved the other way. December Brent has climbed about 18% since September 29. Oil costs more across the whole curve, while the scramble for the earliest barrels has eased a little.
Why oil rose on Friday
Both contracts were up more than 2% on the day. January, the contract our site tracks, gained 2.4%. WTI, the US benchmark, added 1.9%. Reuters said Brent is heading for a fourth straight month of gains. Three factors were behind Friday's move.
Houthi claims on Saudi oil sites. Yahya Saree, the Houthis' military spokesman, said on Thursday evening that the group had hit six targets in Saudi Arabia with missiles and drones. His list included two refineries, Ras Tanura on the Gulf coast and Rabigh on the Red Sea, as well as Aramco's giant Abqaiq processing plant and the main airports in Riyadh and Dammam. This is the second time this week the group has claimed a hit on Ras Tanura, following its claim of a strike there on Tuesday. Saudi officials have not confirmed any of it. Traders still watch Abqaiq closely. When drones and missiles hit Abqaiq and the Khurais field in September 2019, roughly 5% of the world's oil supply went offline for a short time.
A tanker hit by explosives near Hormuz. According to UKMTO, the British military's maritime security agency, a small boat pulled up beside an outbound tanker on Thursday and fixed two explosive charges to its hull. The explosions left the engine room burning and put the tanker out of action for a while, around 25 nautical miles from the Omani town of Khasab. Nobody on board was hurt, and the vessel later carried on. According to the Financial Times, it is the Louise 1. It is not yet known who carried out the attack.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard made a bigger claim on Friday. It said several tankers had struck mines and burst into flames after taking routes through the strait that Tehran has not approved. Washington rejects the mine claims and says US forces have swept the main shipping lanes. No one outside Iran has confirmed the Guard's version.
Strike talk ahead of the midterms. The US and Israel are drawing up options for a large-scale strike campaign against Iran once the November 3 midterms are over, Axios reported. Trump has predicted the conflict "will be wrapped up soon" without explaining how, according to The National. Diplomacy has not stopped. Reuters quoted an official as saying a Qatari team was back in Tehran on Friday to keep the talks alive. Regional envoys made a similar trip earlier this week.
Duncan Oil Company president Ryan McDaniel told The National the attacks were "keeping supply risk premiums elevated despite earlier diplomatic outreach efforts."
What to watch next
- Monday's switch. Sites still showing December will move to January, and their Brent figure will step down by the gap between the two contracts.
- OPEC+ on Sunday. Seven members, among them Saudi Arabia and Russia, meet on November 1, and no change to December targets is expected. Saudi Arabia reported August output of 6.24 million barrels a day, about 40% below its target of roughly 10.5 million.
- Election day on Tuesday. Talk of strikes once the vote is over is keeping a risk premium in prices.
- WTI next. WTI's December contract trades until November 20, so US crude quotes will split the same way in about three weeks.