Mid-Day Oil Summary: Crude Holds Onto Losses

Crude front month is trading lower today despite recovering some earlier losses amid bearish market sentiment assisted by USD strength. The weakness reflects the market disappointment with the lack of clarity on future supply following voluntary OPEC cuts announced last week.

• Brent FEB 24 down -0.5% at 78.51$/bbl
• WTI JAN 24 down -0.5% at 73.72$/bbl
• Full OPEC+ compliance with voluntary cuts would result in a decline in global stocks by less than 350kb/d in 1H 2024 and 700kb/d for next year according to RBC Capital Markets.
• Brazil only seeks to operate within OPEC+ as an observer and not a full member according to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday.
• US officials are reviewing potential consequences after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro missed the agreed end of November deadline to release detained Americans according to NSC spokesman John Kirby on Sunday in a CBS interview.
• Iran’s observed crude and condensate exports slipped to 1.15mn bpd in November from 1.33mn bpd in October according to Bloomberg vessel tracking – cross checked against Kpler levels.
• Kazakhstan’s daily oil and gas condensate output rose to 230.5k tons on 3 December according to energy ministry data.
• Crude oil held on tankers that has been stationary for at least seven days fell by 24% to 68.62m bbl as of 1 December, Vortexa data show, cited by Bloomberg.
• China’s throughput of crude oil into its refineries was 62.52m mt in November, according to OilChem, down 5.38m mt, or 7.92%, from October’s total.
• Crude oil processing at Russian refineries fell 233kbpd in the week to Nov 29 from the previous week to 5.41mbpd, according to a Bloomberg source.
• Seaborne diesel and gasoil exports from Russia rose 8.5% on the month in November to 2.8m mt, according to Reuters.
• Kuwait’s Al Zour refinery is running its third and final CDU – increasing maximum capacity to 615,000 bpd as it ramps up according to the official KIPIC X account on Sunday.
• GasBuddy models put US gasoline demand in the week to Dec. 2 at an average of 8.478m b/d, Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy said on X.
  • US gasoline crack up 0.3$/bbl at 15.15$/bbl
  • US ULSD crack up 1.1$/bbl at 38.82$/bbl