Crude Oil
Crude prices retraced nearly 1% on Thursday. Brent crude settled 64 cents lower at $67.86 a barrel. WTI crude futures gave up 25 cents to settle at $59.98 a barrel.
The market found some support in bullish U.S. employment figures. The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, pointing to still strong labor market conditions, though the pace of job growth has slowed after last year’s robust gains.
However, global economic growth still remains a concern. The U.S.-China trade talks are far from reaching to a conclusion with President Trump reverting to belligerent tweets. U.S. Federal Reserve’s economic projections released on Wednesday showed policymakers at the median seeing U.S. economy growing only 2.1 percent in 2019, a full percentage point below the roughly 3 percent growth that was seen in 2018 and which the Trump administration contends will continue.
Naphtha
No fresh news on Naphtha.
The April crack is lowere at -$ 5.35 /bbl
Gasoline
Asia’s gasoline crack slipped to $7.15 a barrel from $7.19 a barrel in the previous session, its highest since Oct. 2.
Light distillates stocks in Singapore rose mildly by 148 kb to 16.71 million barrels.
The April crack has jumped to $ 7.00 /bbl
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Gasoline stocks by region.
Distillates
Cash differentials for 10ppm gasoil were at a discount of 17 cents a barrel to Singapore quotes, compared with a discount of 20 cents per barrel a day earlier.
Singapore’s onshore inventories of middle distillates dropped by 1.2 million barrels in the week to March 20 to 10.87 million barrels, their lowest levels in over 3-1/2 months, data from Enterprise Singapore showed on Thursday.
Cash discounts for jet fuel narrowed by a cent to 36 cents a barrel to Singapore quotes.
The April crack for 500 ppm Gasoil has dropped to $ 12.70 /bbl with the 10 ppm crack at 13.70 / bbl. The regrade is higher at +$ 0.15 /bbl
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Distillate stocks by region.
Fuel Oil
Progressively lower deal values for physical fuel oil cargoes in the Singapore trading window dragged 380-cst cash premiums to a near one-year trough on Thursday. Market sentiment has soured in the past couple of weeks on expectations of ample arbitrage supplies and sluggish demand for bunker fuels.
380-cst cash premiums fell to 31 cents a tonne to Singapore quotes on Thursday, down from 71 cents per tonne in the previous session and $1.01 per tonne in the week before.
Meanwhile, Singapore fuel oil inventories slipped by 1.79 million barrels to a two-week low of 20.39 million barrels, in the week ended March 20.
The April 180 cst crack is lower at – $ 0.20 / bbl with the visco spread at $ 1.20 cents/bbl.
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Fuel Oil stocks by region.
Hedge Recommendations
No fresh hedges to consider today.
Hedge recommendations are essentially made for refiners. These are not trading positions as such. The rationale of these positions is to lock in extraordinary levels for the refiner.
Click Here to see how all our recommendations have fared
About this blog
This blog post attempts to give a top level summary of the Singapore market goings on to a person who seeks to obtain a directional sense of the market on a daily basis.