Mid-Day Oil Summary: Crude Falling

Crude prices have erased their early morning climb to drift lower today. The attack in the Golan Heights over the weekend is not filtering into oil prices with the market largely inert until it sees tangible impacts on supply. The focus this week will be on the OPEC meeting and any potential for changes in output policy along with the US Fed decision and July payrolls.

• Brent SEP 24 down 0.5% at 80.72$/bbl
• WTI SEP 24 down 0.6% at 76.72$/bbl
• No new oil and gas data releases are expected today with focus this week on the OPEC JMMC meeting, US Fed decision and China PMI.
• Iraq exported 3.41mb/d of crude oil in June from fields under the central government’s control, the oil ministry said, compared to 3.36mb/d in May.
• Crude in floating storage held on tankers stationary for at least 7 days rose to 78.45m bbl as of July 26 according to Vortexa – 1.1% higher than July 19.
• There are 157 wildfires currently burning across Alberta, according to the latest update from the province
• Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of Sunday’s presidential vote by the state-controlled election authority but has drawn criticism from U.S. officials.
• WTI Midland has replaced West African oil as the swing supplier between the Atlantic Basin and Asia and the largest freely-traded grade by output and volume, according to Renaissance Energy Advisors cited by Bloomberg.
• Middle East escalations have failed to create much upward momentum for oil markets because of the lack of impact on supplies due to the conflict so far according to RBC’s head of commodity research Helima Croft.