Lower In Asia on Soft Chinese Data; Saudi Oil Output Pledge Eyed

WTI and Brent are ~$0.80 firmer apiece, operating around session lows, having briefly tracked the earlier two-way trade in e-minis and Chinese & Hong Kong equity index benchmarks after an initial bounce from the PBoC’s surprise cut to the MLF and reverse repo rate was countered by softer-than-expected prints across all Chinese activity indicators (apart from a marginal downtick in the surveyed jobless rate).

• Crude has also come under pressure after Saudi Aramco on Sunday announced their readiness to increase production to 12.0mn bpd at “any time”, while announcing progress towards raising “maximum sustainable capacity” from 12mn bpd to 13mn bpd by 2027.
• The recent pull lower in major crude benchmarks comes as worry re: the persistent feed of disruptions to global crude supplies earlier in the year has receded (e.g. Libya’s political crisis, Shell’s Gulf of Mexico disruption last week, and the threat of halts in Kazakhstani crude through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pipeline).
• On the latter topic, RTRS source reports have pointed to Kazakhstan’s state oil firm potentially exploring ways to export crude without crossing Russian territory.
• Elsewhere, progress towards a U.S.-Iran nuclear deal remains scant, with the Iranian parliament due to review a “final draft” from European negotiators following the conclusion of indirect talks