Oil rose 2% on Friday and was set for a small weekly gain, as tension in the Middle East raised the risk of supply disruptions and offset the potentially bearish impact of reduced expectations for U.S. interest rate cuts this year. Brent crude futures were up $2.19, or 2.44%, at $91.93 a barrel by 1340 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose $2.42, or 2.85%, to $87.44. Taking into account Friday’s sharp rises, both contracts were heading for slight week-on-week gains, having closed last Friday’s session at $91.17 ...

The United Arab Emirates’ state-owned oil company recently considered buying Britain’s BP (NYSE:) but the deliberations did not progress beyond preliminary discussions, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) ultimately decided BP would not be the right fit for its strategy, three people said. Political considerations also weighed on the potential move, one of the people said. The 88 billion-pound ($110.3 billion) company has underperformed its competitors for years, which investors and analysts say has made the British firm a potential takeover target. U.S. ...

Highlights World oil demand growth continues to lose momentum with 1Q24 growth of 1.6 mb/d, 120 kb/d below our previous forecast due to exceptionally weak OECD deliveries. With the post-Covid rebound now largely complete, and vehicle efficiencies and an expanding EV fleet acting as further drags on oil demand, growth in 2024 and 2025 slows to 1.2 mb/d and 1.1 mb/d, respectively. Non-OPEC+, led by the US, is set to drive world supply growth through 2025. For 2024, global output is forecast to rise by 770 kb/d to 102.9 mb/d. ...

Murban’s premium dipped on Friday as more cargo deliveries for June emerged in recent trade sessions, while the other benchmarks Dubai and Oman also weakened. The premium for Murban fell to $2 a barrel on Friday, down 21 cents from the previous day. Another three Murban cargo deliveries for June emerged, bringing the tally of Murban cargoes to eight in the month so far. The rise in Murban deliveries came amid a backdrop of higher Murban oil shipments after UAE’s ADNOC decided to divert more Upper Zakum supply to its ...

The C+F Japan physical naphtha crack against Brent crude is expected to remain under pressure in the second quarter after hitting a five-month low amid razor-thin petrochemicals margins, while more supply from the Middle East after refinery turnarounds have offset lower Russian naphtha inflows into Singapore, according to market sources and S&P Global Commodity Insights data. The CFR Japan naphtha physical crack against front-month ICE June Brent crude futures fell $2.53/mt on the day and $23.30/mt on the week to a five-month low of $25.525/mt on April 9, as the ...

Oil rose on Friday as heightened tensions in the Middle East raised the risk of supply disruptions from the oil-producing region, though the market is set for a weekly loss on expectations of fewer U.S. interest rate cuts this year. Concern that Iran might retaliate for an attack on Monday by suspected Israeli warplanes on Iran’s embassy in Damascus has supported oil near a six-month high this week, despite dampening factors such as rising U.S. inventories. “As we have seen on numerous occasions since December, the risk of a geopolitical ...

Energy – TTF spikes higher Oil prices edged lower yesterday with ICE Brent settling back just below US$90/bbl. It is clear that the rally in oil has run out of momentum and in the absence of further escalation in the Middle East or supply disruptions we expect to see a pullback. We maintain our forecast for Brent to average US$87/bbl over the second quarter of this year. OPEC’s monthly market report had very little in the way of surprises yesterday. The group left its demand growth forecasts unchanged for both ...

Singapore’s middle distillates stocks rose above the 11 million barrel level for the first time in two-and-a-half years, amid a decline in net exports of diesel/gasoil, official government data showed on Thursday. Gasoil/diesel and jet fuel/kerosene inventories at key oil storage hub Singapore stood at 11.208 million barrels in the week to April 10, up by nearly 1 million barrels from a week ago, Enterprise Singapore data showed. Net exports of diesel/gasoil slipped by more than 20% week-on-week, while total imports gained 13%. Volumes heading into Singapore were dominated again ...

Oil prices fell by $1 on Thursday following a major U.S. refinery outage and as sticky inflation dampened hopes for near-term U.S. interest rate cuts, but worries that Iran might attack Israeli interests kept crude near six-month highs. Brent crude futures were down 68 cents, or 0.8%, to $89.80 a barrel at 11:07 a.m. EST (1607 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures lost 91 cents or 1.1%, to $85.30 a barrel. Both benchmarks were down more than $1 before bouncing off session lows. A power outage shut multiple fuel-producing ...

Crude Oil Price Movements In March, the OPEC Reference Basket (ORB) value increased by $2.99, or 3.7%, m-o-m, to average $84.22/b. Oil futures prices averaged higher, with the ICE Brent front-month contract rising by $2.95, or 3.6%, m-o-m, to $84.67/b, and the NYMEX WTI front-month contract up by $3.80, or 5.0%, m-o-m, to average at $80.41/b. The DME Oman front-month contract rose by $3.30, or 4.1%, m-o-m, to settle at $84.25/b. The front-month ICE Brent/NYMEX WTI spread narrowed further by 85¢ to average $4.26/b. The market structures of oil futures ...

Middle East crude benchmarks climbed on Thursday as spot buying momentum picked up slightly on the window, while another Murban cargo delivery emerged. This brings the total number of Murban cargoes to be delivered for June to a total of five cargoes in the month so far. Meanwhile, in the broader oil market, crude futures held near six-month highs on Thursday as investors braced for a potential attack on Israeli interests by Iran, OPEC’s third-largest oil producer. INVENTORIES U.S. crude inventories rose by 5.8 million barrels to 457.30 million barrels ...

U.S. natural gas will be cheaper to burn than coal in 2024 for the first time ever, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO). The use of coal to generate U.S. power has been falling versus gas for years in part because gas produces less carbon dioxide and other emissions and its comparative cost to coal has dropped, especially this year. In 2024, spot gas prices at the U.S. Henry Hub benchmark in Louisiana will average just $2.15 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) ...

The US Treasury Department is urging Congress to give it more authority to go after bad actors that use cryptocurrency to evade sanctions, but any shift in policy is expected to have a limited impact on oil-related sanctions in the near term, experts say. “These new tools are less important for the oil markets given that crypto markets tend to struggle to do large transactions at scale and thus aren’t really a viable option for paying for fuel cargos,” Rachel Ziemba, a senior advisor at political risk consultancy Horizon Engage, ...

Russia’s government is looking at the possibility of introducing some easing of rigorous fuel environmental standards in order to allow the usage of low-quality gasoline in the face of possible fuel shortages, three industry sources told Reuters. According to sources’ calculations, it could bring in additional 10%, or between 300,000 metric tons and 350,000 tons a month, of gasoline to the domestic market, enough to meet rising seasonal demand. Ukrainian drone attacks have reduced Russian primary oil refining capacity by some 14% as of the end of March according to ...

Western Canadian oil producers have good reason to cheer, as after waiting for decades the 590,000 b/d Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline is scheduled to start up May 1, providing additional egress to the West Coast, access for their heavy barrels to a new market in Asia, and, above all, much-needed relief to the deep price discounts of their crude. But now new questions are making the rounds in the industry, namely, how long will it take before the basin needs another pipeline, given the pace at which new capacity is ...