Crude Oil
Brent prices remained unchanged as the Brent-WTI spread narrowed yesterday. Brent crude futures settled at $76.46 /bbl. WTI futures rose 36 cents to settle at $ 66.10 /bbl
The uncertainty in the market can be gauged from the fact that Brent recovered from a low of $ 75.54 to end the day unchanged.
Nayara Energy (formerly Essar Oil) has started scaling back oil purchases from Iran this month, according to a Reuters report. Sources said Nayara will limit intake to about 3-4 million barrels a month, compared to around 6 million barrels usually. However, this could be a move to rejig its current crude basket with additional Rosneft crude in search for greater optimization.
Today, US President Tump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un have started a summit meeting in Singapore, where both sides seek to narrow differences over how to end a nuclear standoff on the Korean peninsula.
Naphtha
Asia’s naphtha crack recovered slightly to $81.85 a tonne on Monday. This may be due to lower crude prices. Cash premiums appear to have softened to around $ 10 / MT.
The balance June crack is slightly lower at -$ 2.60 / bbl. The July crack is at -$2.30
Gasoline
Asia’s gasoline crack continued to recover, settling at $6.73 a barrel yesterday.
In China, Tianjin will use start using gasoline with added ethanol in most vehicles by end of September, according to a document published on the city government’s website on Monday. Beijing is pushing the use of ethanol in gasoline nationwide by 2020.
Chinese automobile sales in May in the meantime rose 9.6 percent from a year earlier to 2.29 million vehicles, with sales continuing to gain momentum.
The balance June crack is marginally lower at $ 8.70 / bbl.
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Gasoline stocks by region.
Distillates
Asia’s cash differentials for physical cargoes of 10ppm gasoil and jet fuel slipped to multi-month lows on Monday amid concerns of rising near-term supplies of the middle distillate fuels as regional refiners ramp up production after completing scheduled maintenance.
On the demand side, demand for spot gasoil cargoes was steady while demand for jet fuel cargoes was limited amid weak arbitrage economics.
Cash premiums of 10ppm gasoil slipped to a three-month low of 8 cents a barrel to Singapore quotes on Monday while discounts for jet fuel cargoes were at their widest since early January at minus 22 cents a barrel to Singapore quotes.
India’s domestic sales for diesel and gasoline rose to record highs in May, pushing the country’s overall fuel consumption for the month higher year-on-year, data from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the oil ministry showed on Saturday. Fuel consumption, a proxy for oil demand, totalled 18.72 million tonnes last month, during which diesel sales soared to 7.55 million tonnes and gasoline consumption climbed to 2.46 million tonnes the highest monthly sales figures in PPAC data going back to April 1998
The balance June crack is lower at $ 13.25 / bbl with the 10 ppm crack at $ 14.10 /bbl. The regrade is higher at $ 0.55 /bbl
The July crack is at $ 13.75 / bbl with the 10 ppm crack at $ 14.60 /bbl. The regrade is at $ 0.65 /bbl
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Distillate stocks by region.
Fuel Oil
The front-month East-West arbitrage spread on Monday rebounded from a one-week low in the previous session as firm Middle East demand for fuel oil continued to eat into arbitrage supplies into Singapore.
The 380-cst fuel oil July arbitrage spread settled at $16 a tonne on Monday, up from a week low of $15.50 a tonne in the Friday.
Meanwhile, weaker crude oil prices lent some support to the July 180-cst fuel oil crack on Monday, which narrowed its discount to Brent crude by 14 cents a barrel from Friday to minus $5.66 a barrel.
The balance June 180 cst crack is higher at -$ 3.15 / bbl. The visco spread has narrowed to $ 1.60 /bbl.
The July 180 cst crack is at -$ 3.00 / bbl. The visco spread is at $ 1.60 /bbl.
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Fuel Oil stocks by region.
Hedge Recommendations
We are unfortunately unable to update this section 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.