Oil steadied as traders weighed the outlook for a ceasefire in Ukraine, with President Donald Trump pushing for a summit between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskiy after a series of high-level talks.
Brent traded below $67 a barrel after rising 1.1% in the previous session, while West Texas Intermediate was near $63. Trump called the Russian president and urged him to start making plans for a one-on-one meeting with Zelenskiy after discussions with the Ukrainian leader on Monday at the White House.
The talks between Trump and Zelenskiy appeared to represent a reversal of fortune for Kyiv just days after the US president met Putin in Alaska and said the onus to end the conflict rested with Ukraine. Trump also proposed a trilateral gathering following the one-on-one summit.
Talks on ending the war have ramped up recently with the meeting between Putin and Trump on Friday, followed by discussions with Zelenskiy and European leaders on Monday. That’s injected uncertainty into the market, but oil is still more than 10% lower this year due to concerns about the fallout from US trade policies and the outlook for oversupply as OPEC+ brings back barrels.
“Crude may be in for a holding pattern,” said Vandana Hari, the founder of oil market analysis firm Vanda Insights in Singapore. “The path to resolving the conflict has opened up but could be a long one.”
Despite the diplomacy, attacks from both sides continue. Ukraine said it carried out a fresh strike on Russia’s Druzhba oil pipeline system on Monday, halting a conduit that’s important for crude supply to parts of central Europe.
