Crude Oil
Oil prices retraced a bit after many days of consecutive rise as traders took profit over the long Thanksgiving Day weekend in the US.
Brents future fell 81 cents to settle at $47.79 a barrel. WTI futures were trading around $45.05 per barrel.
Oil slipped from seven-month highs on Thursday as signs of growing supplies helped to halt a rally driven by optimism that COVID-19 vaccines will revive fuel demand.
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has urged people to forgo big family gatherings, wear protective masks and maintain social distancing for the Thanksgiving holiday. But Americans are defying pleas from officials to stay at home. The United States has recorded 2.3 million new infections in the past two weeks.
covid 19
At a global level, the death toll from the COVID-19 virus rose to 1,436,977 (+10,953 DoD) yesterday. The total number of active cases rose by around 210,000 DoD to 17.47 million. (Click here for details).
Naphtha
Asia’s naphtha crack persisted at near a 6-month low for the second day on Thursday as high supplies outpaced demand despite buyers coming forward to seek cargoes. The crack value was down nearly 2.9% from the previous day to $42.94 a tonne.
The December crack is lower at – $1.70 /bbl.
Gasoline
Asia’s gasoline crack was at a two-session low of $1.54 a barrel on ample supplies.
The December crack is higher at $2.40 /bbl
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Gasoline stocks by region.
Distillates
Asia’s benchmark 10ppm diesel crack remained above $5 a barrel for the third day on Thursday, with stockpiles in Singapore easing.
Middle distillate stock levels in Singapore eased by 703 kb (4.4%) in the week to Wednesday to reach a three-week low of almost 15.4 million barrels. This was still more than 40% higher than inventories from a year ago at 10.9 million barrels. Overall supplies in Asia this month however are expected to remain high. The exports volume could potential rise to 9.0-9.5 million tonnes by end of the month versus 9.0 million tonnes in October.
The December crack for 500 ppm Gasoil is higher at $4.45 /bbl with the 10 ppm crack at $ 5.25 / 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% VLSFO crack edged higher to a three-session high on Thursday amid weaker crude oil prices. The front-month VLSFO crack was at $10.58 per barrel against Dubai crude during Asian trading hours, up from $10.22 a barrel in the previous session.
Singapore’s residual fuel oil inventories in the week to Nov. 25 jumped 9% from the previous week amid higher net import volumes.
The December crack for 180 cst FO is higher at -$1.15 /bbl with the visco spread at $0.70 /bbl.
Click Here for a graphical depiction of Fuel Oil stocks by region.
Hedge Recommendations
No fresh activity 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.