Crude oil closed October with a double-digit monthly gain, and core OPEC+ producers left December output targets unchanged. Precious metals fell to one-year lows, the ECB kept rates on hold as euro area growth slowed, and Russia's economic growth eased further in September.
Oil & Gas
Oil prices were set for a monthly gain of 13–14% in October (OilPrice.com), with Brent settling at almost US$118 per barrel on 30 October, its highest since April (GV Wire). On 1 November, seven core OPEC+ members (Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Kazakhstan and Oman) kept December production targets unchanged, having completed the phase-out of a 1.65 million bpd cut in September; a further layer of cuts of about 2 million bpd remains in place through the end of 2026 (GV Wire).
EIA data showed US commercial crude inventories fell by 1.9 million barrels to 410.6 million barrels in the week to 23 October, 4% below the five-year average; gasoline stocks rose by 3.9 million barrels and distillates fell by 1.5 million barrels (Rigzone).
In European gas, the front-month TTF contract traded above €100/MWh intraday on 28 October for the first time since December 2022, while EU storage was 74.9% full on 26 October, the lowest for the time of year in GIE data going back to 2011 (S&P Global).
In third-quarter results, Shell reported net profit of US$10.81 billion and raised its quarterly buyback to US$5 billion, and TotalEnergies posted adjusted net income of US$9.1 billion (BOE Report). Chevron earned US$9.9 billion and ExxonMobil reported adjusted EPS of US$4.23 (Transport Topics).
Metals
Spot gold fell as much as 3.2% to US$3,891.67/oz on 30 October, its lowest in a year; silver dropped below US$50/oz (MINING.COM). Three-month LME copper traded at US$14,140 per tonne the same day and was heading for a 1.8% monthly decline, its first since June (MINING.COM/Reuters).
Glencore's own-source cobalt output fell 52% year on year to 13,700 tonnes in the first nine months under Congo's export quota system, while copper output rose 3% to 598,600 tonnes (The Northern Miner). Lynas Rare Earths agreed to acquire Meteoric Resources in an all-share deal valued at A$968 million (The Northern Miner).
Data centers: AI & mining
Nvidia committed US$3 billion and AMD US$1 billion to Meta's equity offering to fund AI infrastructure (Data Center Knowledge). Oracle said it will become the first cloud provider outside Google to offer Google TPUs, from 2027, and will also deploy Cerebras inference chips (Data Center Knowledge).
Bitcoin mining difficulty rose 5.54% to 148.36T at the 29 October adjustment, with network hashrate at about 1,027 EH/s and hashprice near US$33 per PH/s per day (KuCoin).
Economy: EU
The ECB kept its deposit facility rate at 2.50% on 29 October, noting that rising energy prices are an upside risk to inflation and a downside risk to growth (ECB). Eurostat's flash estimate showed GDP growth of 0.4% quarter on quarter in the euro area and 0.5% in the EU in the third quarter, down from 0.6% and 0.7%; Germany grew 0.2%, Italy was flat and France contracted 0.1% (Agence Europe).
Economy: CIS
Russia's Ministry of Economic Development estimated GDP growth slowed to 0.5% year on year in September from 0.8% in August, bringing growth for January–September to 0.6% (Interfax). Manufacturing output rose 5.6% in September, while real retail, services and catering turnover grew 3.6% (Kommersant). Consumer prices rose 0.08% in the week to 26 October; annual inflation eased to 7.11% and prices were up 6.24% year to date (Interfax). Uzbekistan's GDP grew 8.3% in real terms in January–September, to 1,755.5 trillion soums (Trend).