Market Insights > First Look

First Look - Oil steadies with market watching Trump's Russia strategy; gas dips despite strong LNG demand

August 08, 2025 | Narciso Cano

Oil steadies as traders await Trump’s next move on Russia
- The WTI prompt-month contract rose $0.32 to $64.20/Bbl Friday morning (7:45 AM CT)
- President Trump doubled the levies on all Indian imports to 50% as a penalty for the country’s large purchases of Russian barrels
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US may also impose tariffs on China for its purchases of Russian energy
- Trump said he’d be willing to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, even if Putin had not yet agreed to also sit down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
  - Trump mentioned the possibility of additional penalties over the war in Ukraine as soon as Friday
- According to Bloomberg, prompt supplies of Russia’s Urals crude are being offered to Chinese buyers at cheaper prices
  - Chinese imports of Urals are not typically part of processors’ regular appetite due to geographical distance and high freights costs
  - Jianan Sun, an analyst at Energy Aspects, said China is unlikely to absorb all the Russian barrels displaced from India because Urals is not a base-load grade for Chinese state-owned refineries

Looking for interest rate charts? We moved them here

Interest Rate Charts and Tables

Natural gas is trading lower, and heading for a small weekly loss
- Yesterday, the EIA reported a 7-Bcf injection which was at the lower end of the market’s expectation and shrunk the storage surplus to +173 Bcf
- Lower-48 average temperatures are forecast to be above the five-year average for the next two weeks, supporting gas power demand
LNG feedgas demand near record levels (S&P)
- Gas deliveries to US LNG export plants have jumped to more than 17 Bcf/d in August, as new facilities continue to ramp production
- Flows into Plaquemines LNG have recently climbed to more than 3 Bcf/d, with the facility approaching its maximum capacity of 3.8 Bcf/d
- Cheniere’s Corpus Christi Stage 3 expansion is also in the process of ramping up, while Golden Pass LNG is taking very small volumes of gas ahead of startup

^