15 Mar 2017
oil-barrel

Crude Oil

Crude oil futures traded in a very jittery manner yesterday.  After giving up the weekends levels and trading to a low of $ 50.29/bbl, Brent reovered well to close just 43 cents lower at $ 50.92 / bbl. WTI lost  72 cents to settle at $ 47.68 /bbl.
Most of yesterday’s as well as today’s action is headline driven.  The drop was caused by reports that Saudi’s production had increased to above 10 MB per day. Saudi explained this as minor differences in reporting.

Today, crude oil prices are 70 cents higher on the back of API data which showed a drop of 531 KB against an expected build of 3.5 MB. Products too drew more than expected. Gasoline drew 3.8 MB while distillates drew 4.0 MB.

Should these be confirmed by DOE data today, the fall of the last few days may well be treated as a ‘correction’ before another climb.

Naphtha

Naphtha prices eased marginally today as ample supplies continued to weight the market down.  The MOPJ crack for March is valued at  $ 1.1 / bbl. and April at $ 1.0 /bbl.  The Singapore crack for March is valued at  – $ 0.6 /bbl whereas April is at -$ 0.8 /bbl.

Gasoline 

Gasoline cracks are a touch firmer today. The mild contango in prices persists though

The April crack is valued at $ 10.75 /bbl.

Middle Distillates

Gasoil cracks recovered a bit today.  The March crack is now at $11.6 / bbl  while the April crack is around 20 cents lower at $ 11.4 / bbl.  Regrade values are at -$1.10 and -$0.60 respectively.
Distillate prices are expected to stay depressed as China reported a 4.7% increase in crude throughput over last year.  This is even as crude output per se dropped.

180 CST Fuel Oil

Fuel Oil continues to stay depressed today.  The March crack is valued at  -$ 4.05/bbl and April around -$ 3.9/bbl.

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.
Disclaimer : All the views are the author’s personal views. These do not constitute an advice to buy or sell any commodity

 

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