The petroleum complex was under significant pressure Monday with prices reversing the sharp gains from a week ago as the geopolitical tensions that were a key element of the rise in oil prices subsided.
While West Texas Intermediate and Brent were down more than $3 heading into midday, the sharpest declines were in the ULSD contract, with futures down by more than 15cts. RBOB was off by roughly 9cts.
There is an overall selloff taking place in commodities, whether petroleum, natural gas, precious metals or agricultural products.
Although the cold weather is likely to stick around in large portions of the country over the next few weeks, natural gas and ULSD are under intense selling pressure. Some of the natural gas curtailments have been lifted and that has March natural gas futures down close to $1/MMBtu.
Natural gas weakness is spilling into the ULSD market as prices are down sharply. The shift from February to March with some stiff backwardation already pointed to lower prices, but softer natural gas and some cargoes of diesel landing in the New York Harbor is quelling supply fears. Heading into midday, front-month ULSD was down 16.31cts at $2.3699/gal, about a cent above the lows of the day.
Geopolitics drove a lot of oil's upside last week, and that is cooling as talk of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran has helped pull prices down several dollars as some of the risk premium gets wiped away. March WTI traded as low as $61.39 and has seen a bit of a bounce, last trading at $62.13/bbl, a loss of $3.08. Brent is in the same boat with prices at $66.33/bbl, down $2.99 and a little less than $1 above the earlier low of $65.45/bbl.
The now prompt March RBOB contract is down, but losses are only about half of those of ULSD. Currently, March RBOB is off 8.37cts at $1.8586/gal after the contract bottomed at $1.8452/gal. With the sizeable paper losses Monday, cash markets are generally pointing lower.
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 Denton Cinquegrana, dcinquegrana@opisnet.com; Editing by Michael Kelly, mkelly@opisnet.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 02, 2026 12:24 ET (17:24 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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