Written on: October 1, 2025
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
Energy futures are looking to extend its sell-off to a third consecutive session, led by gasoline futures, amid bearish refined products stock data from the American Petroleum Institute, losses in US stock market index futures, and reports of OPEC+ potentially discussing larger output increases at this weekend’s meeting, despite bullish crude oil inventory data from the API and strength in European shares.
Market traders are looking ahead to the ADP Employment Situation Report, the final September US Manufacturing PMI, the ISM Manufacturing Index, US construction spending data and to weekly petroleum stock data from the Energy Information Administration for further direction.
The API reported a 3.70mb draw from US crude oil stockpiles for the week ended September 26, while forecasts called for a small build of just 0.08mb (average of polls by Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal). Data for distillates and gasoline were bearish as the agency reported a surprise build in distillates inventories of 3.00mb (where a 0.96mb draw was expected) and a larger-than-estimated build of 1.30mb in gasoline stockpiles (vs 0.01mb). An OPIS poll calls for a 1.68mb build in propane and propylene inventories in today’s EIA report. Bloomberg reported that OPEC+ could potentially discuss increasing output in three monthly installments of 500kb/d to finish unwinding the voluntary cuts and recoup market share at the meeting scheduled for this weekend.
The Shanghai and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges were closed for a holiday. Meanwhile, the Nikkei in Japan closed 0.85% lower overnight. The Reserve Bank of India kept its rates steady at 5.50%, as widely expected. The final Manufacturing PMI for September for India came in at 57.7, below the 58.5 flash reading. In economic news from Europe, the final S&P Global Manufacturing PMI for September in Germany (49.5), France (48.2), and the Eurozone (49.8) all beat expectations, coming in above their respective flash readings of 48.5, 48.1, and 49.5. The index for the UK matched forecasts by coming in at 46.2. The flash Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the Eurozone rose by 2.2% year-on-year (y/y) in September, as expected. Narrow cores prices rose by 2.3% y/y, also matching forecasts. As of this writing, the DAX and the CAC 40 were up 0.5%, while the FTSE 100 had added 0.7%. On the other hand, US stock market index futures were seeing losses of between 0.3% (Dow futures) and 0.5% (Nasdaq futures). The US dollar index was steady this morning.
The energy complex fell across the board yesterday amid losses in US shares, despite higher trade in European equities, weakness in the US dollar index and a Russian ban on diesel exports through the end of the year. Brent crude lost 95 cents to close at $67.02 a barrel, WTI crude fell $1.08 to settle at $62.37 a barrel, gasoline futures weakened by 2.22 cents to $1.9729 per gallon, heating oil dropped 2.41 cents lower to settle at $2.3325 per gallon and natural gas futures rose 3.6 cents to settle at $3.303 per MMBTU.