Oil rose to briefly top $73 a barrel on Friday, supported by growing signs of supply tightness in the United States as a result of Hurricane Ida and as U.S.-China trade hopes gave riskier assets a boost.
Brent Crude futures settled at $72.92 per barrel, up $1.47, or 2.1%. For the week, Brent rose 0.4%.
WTI crude futures settled at $69.72 per barrel, up $1.58, or 2.3%. For the week, WTI rose 0.6%.
Oil and equity markets got a boost from news of a call between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. The call raised hopes for warmer relations and more global trade, analysts said.
China plans its first public auction of state crude oil reserves to a select group of domestic refiners, the reserves administration announced, as Beijing looks to cool high raw material costs for manufacturers.
The U.N. atomic watchdog reached an agreement with Iran on Sunday to solve “the most urgent issue” between them, the overdue servicing of monitoring equipment to keep it running, raising hopes of fresh talks on a wider deal with the West.
The number of active rigs in the US rose by 7 to 401 according to the weekly Baker-Hughes Oil Rig count.
Money managers raised their net long U.S. crude futures and options positions in the week to Sept. 7, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on Friday. The speculator group raise its combined futures and options position in New York and London by 1,035 contracts to 279,610 during the period.
At a global level, the death toll from the COVID-19 virus rose to 4.64 Million (+5,910 DoD) yesterday. The total number of active cases fell by 30,000 DoD to 18.83 million. (Click here for details).
Asia’s naphtha crack inched lower after inventories at Northwest Europe increased slightly, while the prompt inter-month spread narrowed in backwardation by 25 cents. The crack was at $130.35 a tonne, down from $130.78 the previous day.
Japan’s naphtha inventories rose 43,000 kilolitres to 1.63 million last week weighing on market sentiment.
Naphtha stockpiles at the ARA hub rose to 296,000 tonnes from prior week’s 293,000 tonnes, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed.
The October crack is higher at $3.95 / bbl.
Asia’s gasoline crack was little changed on Friday as losses occurring from a 25% rise in Northwest Europe inventories offset gains arising from more-than-expected decline in U.S. stocks.
The crack stood at $6.98 a barrel, slightly up from $6.92 in the last session.
Gasoline stocks held at ARA refining and storage area rose by 25% to 833,000 tonnes in the week to Thursday.
The October crack is higher at $9.40 / bbl.
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Gasoline stocks by region.
Asia’s benchmark gasoil and jet fuel cash differentials firmed on Friday, lifted by signs of improved demand and narrowing supplies.
Cash differentials for gasoil with 10 ppm sulphur climbed to a more than one-year high of a premium of 38 cents a barrel on Friday, up 4 cents from the previous session and its highest since July 2020.
Gasoil stocks held independently in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub jumped 9% to 2.24 million tonnes in the week ended Sept. 9, according to Dutch consultancy Insights Global.
Cash differentials for jet fuel rose by 6 cents to a discount of 8 cents per barrel to Singapore quotes on Friday.
The October crack for 500 ppm Gasoil is lower at $8.15 /bbl with the 10 ppm crack at $ 9.65 /bbl. The regrade is at -$ 1.10 /bbl.
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Distillate stocks by region.
Cash differentials for cargoes of 180-cst high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) fell on Friday amid an absence of deal activity and lower supplier offers.
Cash premiums for 180-cst HSFO fell to $18.66 a tonne to Singapore quotes, down from $22.97 on Thursday, but up from $12.12 last week.
Fuel oil stocks in the ARA refining and storage fell 53,000 tonnes to 1.13 million tonnes in the week ended Sept. 9, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed. Compared with last year, the inventories at the ARA hub were 8% lower and were below the five-year seasonal average of 1.24 million tonnes.
The October crack for 180 cst FO is unchanged at -$2.30 /bbl with the visco spread at $2.20 /bbl.
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Fuel Oil stocks by region.
No fresh trades for today. We shall consider 4Q Nap-Dubai over $ 4.00 / bbl
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.