08:58 AM EDT, 08/18/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Oil prices were steady early on Monday ahead of a Washington meeting of Ukraine and its allies while traders turn bearish on the commodity, as a report showed the first-ever combined net short position in West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil contracts.

WTI Crude oil for September delivery was last seen down US$0.01 to US$62.79 per barrel, while October Brent crude was up US$0.02 to US$65.87.

The rise came as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and a group of European leaders head to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump, who ended a Friday summit meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin by urging Ukraine to surrender lands to Russia to reach a peace deal and appeared ready to walk back on plans to impose secondary sanctions on India and other buyers of Russian oil.

"There will likely be no immediate end to the fighting, at least in the near term, with President Trump now calling for a peace agreement instead of a ceasefire. With President Trump set to meet with Zelenskyy in the coming days, we think Ukraine, along with a number of European heads of state, will balk at the land -for-peace deal that is currently being floated and would involve Ukraine making sweeping territorial concessions in the east," Helima Croft, Head of Global Commodity Strategy and MENA Research, noted.

The meeting will be Zelensky's first to the White House since February, when Trump and Vice President JD Vance attacked him for being "ungrateful" for U.S. military support and disrespectful for not wearing a suit to the meeting.

The meeting follows on Friday's Commitment of Traders report from the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission that showed the first-ever net short position on WTI Contracts on both the CME and ICE exchanges as supply is on the rise. The positioning shows a bearish outlook for the commodity but could be supportive for the commodity if events force short-covering from the bearish traders.

"Speculators held the first-ever combined net short across the two major WTI contracts (CME and ICE) ... The positioning in WTI is notably light; while the immediate catalyst is unclear, any shift in the technicals or fundamentals could force a sharp short-covering rebound," Saxo Bank noted.