frontmonth oil futures ended higher on tuesday but us prices posted a thirdstraight monthly decline ahead of this weeks federal reserve decision on interest rates and amid signs that russian crude exports remain resilient prices for the us and global crude benchmarks marked their biggest monthly declines since november 2022 while natural gas marked its biggest monthly drop since january 2001 according to dow jones market data oil prices saw a choppy january tumbling out of the gate but soon finding footing on optimism over chinas demand prospects as the country dropped its covid19 curbs investors have also weighed the global economic outlook as the federal reserve and other major central banks continue to tighten monetary policy though the fed is seen slowing the pace of interest rate rises when it delivers whats expected to be a 25 basis point rate increase on wednesday headwind is being generated by generally negative market sentiment ahead of this weeks numerous central bank meetings and by the persistently high russian oil exports said carsten fritsch commodity analyst at commerzbank in a note reuters last week reported that january oil loadings from russias baltic ports were set to rise 50 from december while data pointed to further strength in exports heading into february admittedly the shipments also include kazakh oil which is exempted from the western sanctions import ban price cap and is therefore an obvious choice for western buyers seeking a substitute for the shunned russian supplies all the same a sizeable proportion is likely to have been russian urals oil fritsch said a european union embargo on oil products that will come into force on feb 5 could be one reason for the surge as it will cause russia to lose its most important market for diesel he said providing an incentive to export more crude oil to countries such as india that have not signed up to the embargo or price cap seethe eus latest embargo on russia will keep diesel prices high natural gas meanwhile has dropped more than 60 from the end of november its been a mix of both supply and demand peter mcnally global sector lead for industrials metals and energy at third bridge told marketwatch the us naturalgas rig count has far outpaced the growth in oil rigs he said and production volumes have picked up as some of the bottlenecks eased on the demand side liquified naturalgas export volumes were maxed out and weather demand eased with warmer than forecast temperatures said mcnally