Oil sector seen poised for upside despite weak 2025 performance

September 30, 2025 (MLN): Global equity markets have frequently touched record highs in 2025, yet one of the year’s weakest performing sectors the oil patch may offer investors an unexpected upside.

The energy sector has remained largely out of favor, with net long positions in WTI crude falling to near-record lows, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

And that’s with the price of WTI and Brent crude benchmarks already down over 8% and 9%, respectively, this year, as of September 26.

With much of the global equity space regularly hitting record highs in 2025, allocators might find an upside surprise in one of the worst-performing sectors this year: the oil patch, as reported by Reuters.

The energy space has been unloved this year, with WTI crude net long positions falling close to record lows, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. And that’s with the price of WTI and Brent crude benchmarks already down over 8% and 9%, respectively, this year, as of September 26.

However, this bear case appears overstated.

First, OPEC+ may fail to meet its new production quotas, based on analysts cited in Reuters reporting. While the producer group previously revealed plans to fully unwind 2.2m bpd of cuts by the end of September and then begin another 1.65m bpd of rollbacks the following month, they are falling behind.

“OPEC+ has delivered about three quarters of the extra oil output it targeted since the group started production hikes in April, and the level may fall closer to half later in the year as producers hit capacity limits,” Reuters said.

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