Follow-through futures buying after Monday's reversal was running into a bit of resistance at midday Tuesday after the NYMEX March West Texas Intermediate contract made a run toward $74/bbl and Brent approached $79/bbl.

While prices are not far off the morning highs, buyers were taking a more cautious approach near midday. Oil markets were firming as Houthi rebels claimed more attacks in the Red Sea and the dollar, which had strengthened over the last several days, turned a bit weaker, helping to support oil prices.

The March WTI contract rallied to $73.74/bbl in morning trade and was up 85cts to $73.63/bbl as of 11:45 a.m. ET, putting the price about $2 above Monday's low. The same can be said for April Brent, which was trading 91cts higher at $78.90/bbl, just few cents under the morning highs.

After some profit-taking following Monday's gains, refined products prices appeared to be taking a bit of a breather, but NYMEX ULSD futures began to ramp up a bit, with the March and April contract more than 3cts higher. Some of diesel's strength is likely tied to the attacks on Russian refineries by Ukrainian drones. That is also being reflected in ICE gasoil futures that recently traded at $824/mt for the March contract or the equivalent of $2.6325/gal.

ULSD futures were hovering at about $2.76/gal with the front-month contract up about 3.5cts to $2.7604/gal, just below the morning high.

While the NYMEX March RBOB contract was modestly higher, most of the gains were coming in the outer-month contracts for low-RVP gasoline. That has widened the March-April spread to nearly 23cts.

The NYMEX March RBOB contract was up just over 0.5ct to $2.2149/gal, more than 1ct under the morning high. The April contract was more than 1.5cts higher at $2.446/gal.

Strength in gasoline markets was carrying over to U.S. spot markets. Chicago spot CBOB's discount to futures narrowed by 5cts Tuesday to 12cts under the March RBOB contract. Prices in that market have strengthened over the past several trading sessions.

This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

--Reporting by Denton Cinquegrana, dcinquegrana@opisnet.com; Editing by Jeff Barber, jbarber@opisnet.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

02-06-24 1239ET