Crude Oil
Brent crude oil prices rose more than 1% on Thursday on fears of longer-than-expected supply shortfalls following Saturday’s attacks. Brent futures rose 80 cents to settle at $64.40 a barrel. WTI crude futures, however, did not move much rising just 2 cents to settle at $ 58.14/ bbl.
Energy infrastructure on the US Gulf Coast was hit hard by Tropical Storm Imelda on Thursday, as flooding forced a major refinery to cut production and a key oil pipeline, terminals and a ship channel in Texas were shut, according to sources familiar with operations.
US and Chinese deputy trade negotiators resumed face-to-face talks for the first time in nearly two months on Thursday, as the world’s two largest economies try to bridge deep policy differences and find a way out of their protracted trade war.
Israel’s weakened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw his offer on Thursday of a coalition with his strongest political rival swiftly rebuffed after failing to secure a governing majority in a tight election
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is to leave for New York on Friday to attend the UN General Assembly, the ministry spokesman tweeted on Thursday, after earlier reports of a US delay in issuing a visa for the visit.
Naphtha
Asia’s naphtha crack touched a two-session high of $48.18 a tonne on lingering concerns over the attacks on Saudi oil facilities.
Although Saudi Aramco said this week it would restore lost oil production due to the attacks by the end of September, the supply disruption would have affected its refined oil products volumes. Naphtha spot prices in South Korea trended significantly higher, with YNCC having paid a premium of about $10 a tonne to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis for naphtha scheduled for first-half November delivery to Yeosu. This was the highest premium YNCC has paid since May 2018.
The October crack has lower at – $ 5.00 / bbl.
Gasoline
Asia’s gasoline crack at $9.59 a barrel, the highest since Aug. 16, 2018. Gasoline stocks in Singapore fell by 128 kb to 11.16 million barrels. This is the lowest level for this time of the year over the past eight years.
The October crack is higher at $ 7.75 /bbl
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Gasoline stocks by region.
Distillates
Cash differentials for 10ppm gasoil flipped back to a premium of 14 cents a barrel to Singapore quotes on Thursday, compared with a discount of 9 cents a barrel on Wednesday.
Cash differentials for jet fuel were at a premium of 3 cents a barrel to Singapore quotes on Thursday, the lowest since Aug. 19. They were at a premium of 12 cents per barrel a day earlier.
The physical jet fuel market in the Singapore trading window remained muted with no deals or offers on Thursday.
The front-month time spread for jet fuel narrowed its backwardated structure to trade at a premium of 68 cents per barrel, compared with 77 cents on Wednesday.
Singapore’s onshore inventories for middle distillates rose by 1.4 million barrels to 12.47 million barrels in the week to Sept. 18, to their highest since Jan. 16, data from Enterprise Singapore showed on Thursday.
The October crack for 500 ppm Gasoil is lower at $ 17.25 /bbl with the 10 ppm crack at $ 17.95 / bbl. The regrade is at + $ 0.90 /bbl
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Distillate stocks by region.
Fuel Oil
Asia’s October 380-cst high-sulphur fuel oil crack extended losses on Thursday, flipping to a discount against Dubai crude after sharp gains earlier in the week.
The front-month 380-cst HSFO crack fell to a $2.55 a barrel discount against Dubai crude, down from a premium of 9 cents a barrel in the previous session and a peak of plus $3.07 a barrel on Tuesday, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.
The front-month 380-cst HSFO backwardated structure also narrowed to $68 per tonne on Thursday, down from $69.25 a tonne in the previous session, the data showed.
Residual fuel oil inventories in Singapore fell for a third straight week to an eight-week low of 18.52 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 18, according to official data.
The October 180 cst crack has bounced back to +$ 1.20 / bbl with the visco spread at $ 0.90 /bbl.
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Fuel Oil stocks by region.
Hedge Recommendations
The FO cracks are extremely volatile and have recovered very strongly. We shall lay on an additional hedge in the Oct 18-cSt Dubai crack at current levels of $1.20 /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 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.