By 04:06 MSK on October 19, WTI (the American crude oil benchmark, the main oil contract at brokers) is trading around $97.40 per barrel, slipping toward $97.50 and below. Before that, the contract had risen for seven trading days in a row.
The reason is a White House decision. On Friday, an executive order was signed that pauses restrictions under the Graham Act. On Sunday (via Bloomberg), Trump explained: he struck a deal on diesel exports from Russia and blocked a number of sanctions so as not to push Putin away from the Ukraine talks, which are in their fifth year of war.
According to Trump, Russia supplies cheap diesel to world markets, while Zelensky, on the contrary, provokes price increases and "probably never wanted" to end the war. Zelensky responded that the US has decided to completely ignore the sanctions. Turkey is ready to accept the freed-up diesel: Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar called this a matter of national energy security.
At the same time, the supply risk has not gone away. The Ukrainian Armed Forces used more than 1,000 drones; on Sunday, an oil export terminal and a storage facility in St. Petersburg were on fire. Over the weekend, three tankers were damaged in the Strait of Hormuz, and the Houthis attacked the Yanbu export hub.
What's next: Secretary of State Marco Rubio clarified that up to 60 days have been allotted to assess the economic effect of the sanctions suspension. That is, the question of their return remains open, and oil will continue to trade on political headlines.
Were you in oil when these headlines came out?
Then you saw the contract move a dollar in minutes on a single message from the White House. The question here is not about forecasting, but about the rules: in some prop programs, WTI is not on the list of instruments at all; in others, entering at the moment a news item is released is considered a violation; in others, holding a position over the weekend is closed. All three points are visible in the challenge parameters if you compare them in advance. There are still 60 days of decisions on sanctions ahead — there will be enough headlines.