Crude Oil
Oil prices extended losses to a second day on Tuesday after the OPEC+ group postponed its meeting on extending production cuts.
Brent crude fell 37 cents to $47.42 per barrel. WTI futures fell 19 cents to settle at $44.55 a barrel.
The UAE came out of OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia’s shadow this week by demanding better adherence with oil supply cuts, effectively delaying the latest strategy decision by OPEC and its allies by a few days, sources told Reuters.
Hedge funds are becoming increasingly bullish on oil prices, anticipating that early deployment of coronavirus vaccines will allow a rapid resumption of more normal travel patterns, purchasing the equivalent of 78 MB in the week to 24 Nov’20.
api data
The data from the American Petroleum Institute was quite bearish as it reported builds across the barrel.
covid 19
At a global level, the death toll from the COVID-19 virus rose to 1,473,456 (+8,291 DoD) yesterday. The total number of active cases rose by around 70,000 DoD to 18.13 million. (Click here for details).
Naphtha
Asia’s naphtha supplies remained abundant. Total naphtha flows to Asia for November were estimated at a four-month high of around 6 million tonnes, sharply higher versus October’s volumes of about 4.7 million tonnes.
The December crack is lower at – $1.80 /bbl.
Gasoline
Asia’s gasoline crack was at a 1-1/2-week low of $1.52 a barrel on Tuesday on slow demand as rising infections continued to dent personal mobility.
Sales of gasoline in India rose 4.9% in November from a year earlier to 2.4 million tonnes, or growth of about 8% from October.
The December crack is lower at $1.90 /bbl
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Gasoline stocks by region.
Distillates
Cash differentials for jet fuel were at a discount of 27 cents a barrel to Singapore quotes on Tuesday, compared with a discount of 26 cents per barrel a day earlier.
Asian refining margins for jet fuel climbed to their highest in eight months on Tuesday, buoyed by a slight uptick in aviation demand and expectations for firmer winter heating demand for kerosene.
The jet fuel cracks have nearly doubled over the last month as demand for kerosene picked up ahead of peak winter in Japan and South Korea.
The December crack for 500 ppm Gasoil is lower at $4.20 /bbl with the 10 ppm crack at $ 4.95 / bbl. The regrade is at -$ 0.85 /bbl.
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Distillate stocks by region.
Fuel Oil
Asia’s HSFO cargo cash premiums extended losses on Tuesday amid lower-faltering demand from utilities in South Asia.
The 180-cst HSFO cash premium fell to a near three-week low of $1.73 per tonne to Singapore quotes while the 380-cst HSFO differential fell to a near four-week low of $4.13 per tonne.
No fuel oil trades have happened in the Platts window since Nov. 16.
The December crack for 180 cst FO is lower at -$2.00 /bbl with the visco spread at $0.70 /bbl.
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Fuel Oil stocks by region.
Hedge Recommendations
No fresh activity 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 refinery.
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.