Trump's meetings with Putin and Zelensky around a cease-fire in Ukraine are keeping gas market minds busy. Whereas a peace deal could lead to more Russian gas on the market and thus downward pressure, a failure makes heavier sanctions more likely. At the same time, the U.S. gas price is at its 2025 low - mainly due to high production.
Whether or not to increase or reduce sanctions on Russia following the peace talks is also causing a wait-and-see attitude in the oil market. Trump has announced that he will penalize India's imports of Russian oil with an additional 25% import tariff. A remarkable move, given the initial idea of the sanctions to hurt Russia financially while not taking oil off the world market. We also look at the impact of phasing out the voluntary OPEC+ production limitation of 2.2 mv/d. Because a higher production quota does not always translate into additional production (and thus exports) - particularly due to capacity constraints and previous overproduction - this impact on price is limited. In addition, the less-than-expected price reaction is also due to a high absorption capacity of these barrels on the world market, due in part to stockpiling in China.
