Commodities Wrap 18 September: A Third Lower Oil Settlement Leaves the Week Little Changed as Cocoa Falls Again

By The Edge Research Team

Oil settled lower for a third straight session and went out close to where the week began. Brent settled 0.91 percent lower at 103.87 dollars a barrel and West Texas Intermediate 1.58 percent lower at 100.30, the settlement levels per the network’s written report for the session, which put United States crude flat on the week and Brent down nearly 1 percent, as the market judges the closure of Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline less disruptive to supply than first feared. At the other end of the board, cocoa fell 7.66 percent at our 20:22 GMT capture, a second heavy fall in two sessions, while every metal we track rose.

The workaround holds and the premium leaks out

The report frames the week as a repricing of the same event that built the premium. A drone attack launched from Iraq damaged the Saudi pipeline and forced its shutdown last Thursday, oil ran more than 5 percent higher in the sessions that followed, per the same report, and the question since has been how much supply actually left the market. JPMorgan’s estimate, carried in the same report, is that total oil flows from the Middle East averaged around 17 million barrels a day over the past ten days, about 6 million below the 2025 average, with satellite imagery suggesting Saudi Arabia has moved 2.8 million barrels a day through Hormuz over the past six days against about 700,000 in August, and total exports of 5 million barrels a day on Tuesday on a ten day moving average. The same strategist cautioned that those volumes might be hard to sustain.

The report’s risk side is not resolved either. RBC’s commodity strategist said the attackers likely retain the drone and weapons supplies required for further strikes on the pipeline and on energy infrastructure along the Red Sea, and Rapidan Energy estimates the outage will constrain Saudi production and exports through at least the end of September, with risk skewed toward a larger disruption if the outage extends past September or attacks escalate, per the same report. Brent’s fall of 95 cents from Thursday’s settlement, on our calculation, with that risk list still open, reads as a market pricing the workaround, not the all clear, on our reading.

Energy

Post settlement window snapshots at 20:22 GMT, measured against Thursday’s settlements as carried in the price feed, settlement to snapshot; the wire settlements for Brent and WTI, 103.87 and 100.30 dollars, sit in the lede. Ranked by change.

Metals climb together while cocoa breaks again

All five metals rows rose. Silver led at 1.27 percent higher, palladium added 1.07 percent, copper 0.92 percent, platinum 0.67 percent and gold 0.45 percent at 4,419.40 dollars an ounce. The grains went the other way, wheat 1.86 percent lower and corn 0.61 percent down, and cocoa fell 7.66 percent to 5,330 dollars a metric ton after the 6.0 percent drop on Thursday’s board, the second heavy fall in two sessions on our published rows.

The fourth table is a risk-appetite picture more than a currency one, on our reading. Ether rose 7.60 percent and Bitcoin 6.05 percent to 81,142.92 dollars at our capture, the volatility index unwound another 4.08 percent to 14.81, and the major currency pairs barely moved against that backdrop, with the yen the largest mover at 0.51 percent weaker.

Metals

Same 20:22 GMT snapshot basis, settlement to snapshot. Ranked by change.

Agriculture

Same 20:22 GMT snapshot basis, top 3 and bottom 2 of the 7 agriculture rows we track; cotton (-1.27 percent) and soybeans (-1.27 percent), ranks 4 and 5, are omitted for the row cap. Ranked by change.

Rates, currencies, volatility and crypto

Intraday quotes from the same 20:22 GMT call, ranked by change; the US Dollar Index (-0.06 percent), rank 6 of the 7 instrument rows, is omitted for the row cap.

Why it matters: The premium that the pipeline attack built into the barrel is draining out not because the risk went away but because the workaround is holding, and every estimate in the report says the same two things at once: the flows are surprisingly strong, and they may be hard to sustain. That leaves the price sitting on an operational assumption rather than restored capacity, on our reading. The other side of the board tells its own story: five metals higher, crypto up 6 percent and more, and a volatility index at 14.81, which is a market adding risk back in the same week two central banks raised rates.

Outlook: Our US wrap follows tonight on Wall Street’s close and carries this board’s rows. The Middle East wrap returns Sunday, and the next commodities wrap takes Monday’s settlements. The open items into next week are the ones the report names: whether the East-West pipeline outage extends past September, and whether the Hormuz volumes hold.

Sources: CNBC, The Edge.

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