Crude OilCovid StatsNaphthaGasolineDisitllatesFuel OilHedge Strategy

Oil prices retraced, ahead of a long weekend as the Brent contract also came to expiry.

Brent futures did a pre-weekend trade of $69.01 after settling Friday’s trade down 74 cents, or 1%, at $68.72. For the week, Brent was up 3.4% while for May, it rose 2.2%.

WTI crude futures oil did a final trade of $66.66 before the weekend, after settling Friday’s trade down 53 cents, or 0.8%, to settle at $66.32. For the week and month though, WTI rose 4.3%.

Both, the US as well as the UK are closed for trading today.

US crude oil output jumped 14.3% MoM to 11.2 MMB/D in Mar’21 in March from 9.8 MMB/D in Feb’21, the US EIA said in its monthly 914 production report on Friday.

An Iranian-flagged tanker, MT HORSE, seized by Indonesia in Jan’21 over the suspected illegal transfer of oil has been released, an Indonesian official and Iranian state media said on Saturday.

China’s factory activity expanded at a slightly slower-than-expected pace in May’21, with the official manufacturing PMI falling to 51.0, as surging raw material prices weighed on industrial production, data from the NBS showed.

US energy firms added 3 oil rigs to total 359 (+137 YoY), the highest since Apr’20, according to Baker Hughes, , as crude prices head to their highest since 2018.

Money managers raised their net long US crude futures and options positions by 9,910 contracts to total  375,426 in the week to 25 May’21, the US CFTC said on Friday.

 

At a global level, the death toll from the COVID-19 virus rose to 3.56 Million (+10,895 DoD) yesterday. The total number of active cases rose fell by around 150,000 DoD to 14.17 million. (Click here for details).

The naphtha crack NAF-SIN-CRK  per tonne a day earlier

Asia’s naphtha rebounded on Friday after a dip in the previous session.

Asia’s naphtha crack was assessed at $102.60 per tonne, compared with $100.23 per tonne on Thursday.

The June crack crack is unchanged at $ 0.45 /bbl

Asia’s gasoline crack slid to $6.28 per barrel, from $6.33 per barrel in the previous session.

The June crack is unchanged at $8.00 /bbl

Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Gasoline stocks by region.

Asia’s cash differentials for 10 ppm gasoil dipped to 5 cents per barrel to Singapore quotes, compared with a premium of 14 cents per barrel in the last trading session.

Gasoil stocks held independently in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub rose 8.5% to 2.2 million tonnes in the week ended May 27, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed.

Cash differentials for jet narrowed by 14 cents to a discount of 24 cents to Singapore quotes on Thursday.

The June crack for 500 ppm Gasoil is lower at $6.05 /bbl with the 10 ppm crack at $ 7.85 /bbl. The regrade is at -$ 0.80 /bbl. 

Click Here for a graphical depiction of Global Distillate stocks by region.

Asia’s 0.5% very low-sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) edged higher on Friday, clawing back most of the week’s losses amid weekly regional inventory declines.

But the upside to market sentiment in the near term may be capped by weak spot bunkering demand and ample supplies amid expectations of steady arbitrage inflows in June, trade sources said.

The VLSFO front-month time spread rose to $2 per tonne on Friday, up 50 cents from Monday, while the front-month crack to Dubai crude rose to $10.50 a barrel from $9.92 a barrel at the start of the week, Refinitiv data in Eikon showed.

Despite a persistent absence of deal activity in the Singapore window, the VLSFO cash discount also narrowed to minus $2.75 a tonne to Singapore quotes on Friday after hitting a near nine-month low earlier in the week and down minus $2.91 on Monday..

Fuel oil stocks in the ARA refining and storage rose by 6,000 tonnes to 1.22 million tonnes in the week ended May 27, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global (IG) showed.

The June crack for 180 cst FO is lower at  -$7.20 /bbl with the visco spread at $0.95 /bbl.

Click Here for a graphical depiction of Fuel Oil stocks by region.

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.

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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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