Mid-Day Oil Summary: Crude Falls

Crude front month is trading lower on the day, erasing earlier gains, with bearish sentiment around demand outlooks from the US and China paired with strong non-OPEC supply and reports of OPEC+ February output above pledged targets.

• Brent MAY 24 down -0.5% at 81.65$/bbl
• WTI APR 24 down -0.6% at 77.55$/bbl
• Crude managed money net long positions decreased slightly last week from the highest since October the previous week.
• OPEC+ crude oil production rose to 34.62mbpd in February, up from 34.54mbpd in January and 0.30mbpd above the pledged output target according to Argus estimates.
• Saudi Aramco is planning to supply full contractual crude oil volumes to most Asian buyers in April but the producer will reduce supply of heavier grades to Asian customers due to oilfield maintenance, sources told Reuters.
• Crude oil held on tankers stationary for at least 7 days fell to 69.01mn bbls as of March 8 – down 8.1% from 75.09mn bbls on March 1 according to Vortexa.
• The oil tanker Hafnia Seine hit Bharat Petroleum’s crude import facility in an accident late on Sunday according to Reuters sources.
• Chinese state refiners will increase crude processing volumes to 43.81mn tons, or 10.36mn bpd this month, +11% m/m according to OilChem.
• Feedstock arrivals for Chinese independent refiners into Shandong Province and Tianjin City ports totaled ~10.02 million tonnes in February, a 30% increase m/m according to OilChem.
• Capacity utilisation rates at China’s state-owned refineries are expected to be stable in the week to March 14, according to OilChem.
• Mideast Gulf gasoline exports rose to 1.16mn tons, or 338kbpd, last month, the highest monthly level since September, as refinery maintenance in the region is ending according to Argus.
• TotalEnergies halted a unit in the refining section of its 247kbd Normandy-Gonfreville complex over the weekend according to a community notice.
• Gasoline cracks are trading higher while diesel cracks are edging lower amid demand uncertainty and recovering US refinery runs while Red Sea attacks continue to disrupt trade flows and global inventories remain below normal.
• BP’s 435kbpd Whiting refinery may need another two weeks as of 8 March to fully restore output amid the shutdown after the power outage on 1 February, sources told Bloomberg.
  • US gasoline crack up 0.8$/bbl at 28.88$/bbl
  • US ULSD crack down -0.3$/bbl at 32.31$/bbl