Crude oil and RBOB gasoline contracts fell in midday Tuesday trade, as investors turned their attention to a new round of U.S.-brokered peace talks held in Moscow to end the Ukraine war.
At noon ET, January NYMEX West Texas Intermediate was about 50cts lower to $58.85/bbl and February WTI was down by a similar amount to $58.60/bbl.
London-based February Brent was 50cts lower to around $62.65/bbl and March Brent was down by 45cts to $62.30/bbl. Both WTI and Brent finished higher on Monday amid geopolitical tensions following Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure and after OPEC and allied producers opted to keep the group's output unchanged for the first three months of next year.
January RBOB was 2.9cts lower to $1.84/gal and February RBOB was down by 2.65cts to $1.8390/gal. However, January ULSD inched up 0.05ct to $2.32/gal and February ULSD increased 0.1ct to $2.301/gal.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner are set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Tuesday to lay out a plan for peace in Ukraine to which both sides in the conflict have raised objections.
Witkoff, on his sixth visit to Moscow this year, has had little success in finding common ground to end the war that started in February 2022 and which prompted U.S. and the West to place heavy sanctions against Russian petroleum exports.
Energy traders were also closely monitoring escalating tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela after President Trump said over the weekend the airspace above and surrounding the South American nation should be considered closed.
Venezuela is a major crude oil producer despite years of political turmoil in the country.
In the spot market, Pacific Norwest sub-octane gasoline was down about 5cts by midday, as physical products there regained some footing after Monday's 20ct/gal decline in response to news that BP-operated Olympic Pipeline returned to full operations over the weekend.
This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
--Reporting by Frank Tang, ftang@opisnet.com; Editing by Michael Kelly, mkelly@opisnet.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 02, 2025 12:42 ET (17:42 GMT)
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