Crude Oil
Oil prices fell on Friday as a collapse in bond prices led to gains in the U.S. dollar and expectations grew that with oil prices back above pre-pandemic levels, more supply is likely to come back to the market.
Brent futures fell 32 cents, or 0.5%, to $65.79 a barrel.
WTI crude settled up 31 cents, at $63.53 per barrel, after rallying to a January 2020 high of $63.37.
Despite the drop in prices on Thursday, both Brent and WTI are on track for gains of about 20% this month, as markets have grappled with supply disruptions in the United States, while optimism has built for demand to improve with vaccine rollouts.
UK oil production dropped 7% YoY to a 3-year low of 1.03 MMB/D in 2020, while the country was a net exporter of crude and natural gas liquids for the first time since 2004, statistics from the BEIS, showed on 25 Feb’21.
ICE has put pressure on pricing agency Platts to postpone the move to include US WTI Midland in its dated brent assessment, saying the market needs more time to consult and adjust the value of derivatives in line with the changes.
Japan’s industrial output rose for the first time in three months in Jan’21, up 4.2% MoM, thanks to a pickup in global demand, in a welcome sign for an economy still looking to shake off the drag of the coronavirus pandemic.
covid 19
At a global level, the death toll from the COVID-19 virus rose to 2,518,344 (+10,552 DoD) yesterday. The total number of active cases rose by around 10,000 DoD to 21.89 million. (Click here for details)
Naphtha
Asia’s naphtha crack rose 32 cents a tonne to a more than three-week high of $109.20 per tonne amid expectations of limited Western arbitrage inflows and firm demand.
The March crack is lower at $1.70 /bbl
Gasoline
Asia’s gasoline crack slipped 8 cents a barrel on Thursday to $4.35 per barrel, but was supported by signs of improving regional demand and upcoming Asian refinery spring maintenance.
Singapore’s light distillate inventories slipped 2% to a four-week low of 15.488 million barrels in the week to Feb. 24, according to Enterprise Singapore data.
The March crack is higher at $7.15 /bbl.
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Gasoline stocks by region.
Distillates
Cash differentials for gasoil with 10 ppm sulphur content were unchanged at a discount of 1 cent a barrel to Singapore quotes.
Asia’s cash differentials for jet fuel dropped to their lowest level in three months on Wednesday, weighed down by persistent weakness in aviation demand.
Cash differentials for jet fuel were at a discount of 32 cents per barrel to Singapore quotes on Thursday. This compares with minus 38 cents on Wednesday, which was the widest discount since Nov. 23.
Singapore’s middle distillate inventories rose 0.7% to 15.5 million barrels in the week ended Feb. 24, according to Enterprise Singapore data. This week’s stocks were 36.1% higher than a year ago.
The March crack for 500 ppm Gasoil is lower at $6.40 /bbl with the 10 ppm crack at $ 7.70 / bbl. The regrade is at -$ 1.10 /bbl.
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Distillate stocks by region.
Fuel Oil
Asia’s 0.5% very low-sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) crack held steady on Thursday, near a one-year high touched in earlier in the week, despite continued gains on crude oil prices.
The front-month VLSFO crack slipped to $15.68 a barrel above Dubai crude oil prices, down 2 cents from the previous session, according to Refinitiv data in Eikon.
Singapore residual fuel oil inventories climbed by 5% in the week ended Feb. 24, recovering from a near 1-1/2 year low in the previous week, official data showed on Thursday.
Onshore fuel oil stocks rose by 1.012 million barrels, or about 159,000 tonnes, to a two-week high of 20.391 million barrels, or 3.211 million tonnes, Enterprise Singapore data showed. Residual fuel stocks were down 18% from a year earlier.
VLSFO cash differentials rose by 1 cent to $2.81 /MT.
180 cSt HSFO cash differentials rose by $0.20 / MT to a premium of $0.31/ MT.
The 380 cSt HSFO differentials rose by 10 cents to a discount of $0.10 /MT.
The March crack for 180 cst FO is lower at -$3.75 /bbl with the visco spread at $0.80 /bbl.
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Fuel Oil stocks by region.
Hedge Recommendations
No fresh action 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.