Brent crude ended the week with a second straight weekly decline, as data from OPEC showed Saudi Arabia's output rebounding sharply and traders weighed a growing supply cushion against fresh attack claims in the Gulf. The January Brent contract settled at $95.84 a barrel on Friday, up 2 cents on the day, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate for December fell 0.2% to $88.56, according to Bloomberg figures published by Rigzone.

Reuters reported during Friday's session that both benchmarks were on course for a weekly drop of about 2%. That follows a far steeper fall in the prior week, when Brent lost 16% and WTI 13%. For refiners and importers in China, India, Japan and South Korea, the two-week slide trims crude costs heading into the northern winter, though prices remain well above where they stood before the Iran war began in late February.

The session itself was choppy. Brent swung within a range of about $2 before settling little changed, Bloomberg said. Phil Flynn of Price Futures Group told Reuters that the market had swung from fearing a shortage a few months ago to fearing a surplus: "Now it looks like the biggest fear is a surplus."

OPEC data show Saudi Arabia leading the recovery

The biggest supply signal of the week came from OPEC's monthly oil market report, released on Wednesday. Saudi Arabia pumped 10.56 million barrels a day of crude in October, up from about 8.37 million in September, Arab News reported. That rise of nearly 26% took the kingdom's output to its highest level since February, when it produced 10.88 million barrels a day.

The wider OPEC+ group produced 41.23 million barrels a day in October, up about 2.04 million barrels a day from September and equal to about 97% of its February level of 42.72 million, according to Reuters calculations cited by Arab News and Al Jazeera.

Other producers added barrels too. Iraq reported output of about 4.9 million barrels a day, its highest since the conflict started, although secondary sources cited by OPEC put the figure at 4.49 million. Russia's production rose by about 41,000 barrels a day to 8.67 million, and Kazakhstan's by about 34,000 to 1.89 million, Arab News said. Al Jazeera reported that Russian output was helped by the U.S. lifting sanctions on Russian energy and by an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia announced in mid-October.

Gulf exporters are still working around a disrupted Strait of Hormuz. Saudi exports have held up partly through the East-West Pipeline to the Red Sea, which the Houthis continue to target, Al Jazeera reported.

OPEC left its demand outlook unchanged. It expects world oil demand to grow by about 180,000 barrels a day in 2026 and by 2.55 million barrels a day in 2027, when consumption would average 108.3 million barrels a day. The International Energy Agency, in its own report on Friday, said the market would be in surplus this quarter for the first time since the war began, Bloomberg noted.

Attack claims keep a floor under prices

Supply risks did not disappear. Iran's military said four tankers were hit by explosions in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, a claim Reuters said it could not immediately verify. Yemen's Houthis said they had attacked a pumping station on the Saudi East-West pipeline, a facility in Yanbu and an Aramco building in Riyadh.

Verisk Maplecroft counted 36 confirmed attacks on commercial ships in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman in October, the highest monthly total since the war began, according to Bloomberg. Earlier in the year, similar strikes disrupted Iraqi oil exports to Asia.

U.S. policy also weighed on sentiment. President Donald Trump said on social media on Thursday that a deal with Iran was not needed to end the war, and Bloomberg reported that he told Vice President JD Vance to focus on domestic issues rather than talks with Tehran. Sugandha Sachdeva of New Delhi research firm SS WealthStreet told Reuters that Washington could lean more on sanctions and limits on oil shipments rather than step up military operations. She added that geopolitical risks remain elevated.

Jeff Currie of Real Macro told Reuters the market was "range bound post midterms," describing supply and demand as roughly balanced. U.S. data added to the softer tone: the Energy Information Administration said crude and fuel inventories rose last week on weaker demand and higher imports.

What comes next

The next fixed date for oil traders is Nov. 29, when OPEC+ is scheduled to meet online to discuss 2027 production targets, according to Arab News. The group is completing a review of members' maximum production capacities, which will shape the quotas it sets. Ministers held December output steady at their previous meeting.