Oil swings to surplus as Gulf shipments roar back

Oil markets have flipped from tight to oversupplied as Gulf shipments bounce back, the Financial Times reports. The swing ends a stretch of scarcity that had kept crude prices propped up, with a recovery in Middle Eastern exports and rising Latin American supply doing the heavy lifting.

JPMorgan puts numbers on the shift: global supply outran demand by 1.4 million barrels per day in October. That looser balance is pressing down on crude prices again, and it makes a run toward high WTI thresholds in November look less likely.

The levers still sit with the producers. OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais and Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, are the figures to watch if the group decides to adjust output.

Next checkpoint is OPEC+, which is due to set production targets for December. Traders are hunting for signals of further supply increases, while Middle East geopolitics remains the wildcard that could rattle prices at any moment.