Mid-Day Oil Summary: Crude Rises With All Eyes on OPEC

Crude front month has risen to an intraday high of $84.75/bbl before easing back as markets await a final decision on OPEC’s policy. Headlines so far suggested that OPEC+ has a preliminary agreement for additional oil output cuts of more than 1mbpd according to a delegate. The FT suggested Saudi has won provisional backing for OPEC+ oil production cuts, while Amena Bakr tweeted there has been no agreement yet on the Africa quota adjustment issue.

• Brent JAN 24 up 0.8% at 83.74$/bbl
• WTI JAN 24 up 0.9% at 78.53$/bbl
• OPEC: “The OPEC+ alliance of oil producers will consider additional production cuts for next year to support crude prices in virtual meetings on Thursday” according to three delegates cited by Reuters.
• “A preliminary agreement has been reached for an additional cut of more than 1 million barrels per day (bpd), two OPEC+ source said.” Reuters added.
• “Saudi Arabia has won provisional backing for further oil production cuts by the Opec+ group” according to FT reports.
• Chief OPEC correspondent Amena Bakr said the dispute for African nation quotas should not “impede or impact the policy being discussed today.”
• RBC had said in a client note Wednesday that the Nigeria/Angola issue “appears to be imperative before the group can move to the topic of additional collective and unilateral cuts for 2024.”
• Daily oil production from Kazakhstan remains disrupted due to lower reception at oil terminals with Black Sea loadings halted amid a storm in the region.
• Kazakhstan will raise crude oil supplies to Germany via the Druzhba pipeline to 200,000 tons in December, up from 100,000 tons initially planned, traders told Reuters.
• India’s oil imports from Russia rebounded in November due to a number of refineries coming back online and higher domestic fuel consumption.
• China's crude throughput is set to continue the downtrend in December both from state-run and independent refineries due to weak domestic demand and a decline in oil product exports according to S&P Commodity Insights.
• China’ production of gasoline and gasoil is expected to each decline by around 10% on the month in November, according to OilChem.
• CDU capacity utilisation rates at China’s independent refineries were down 0.57 percentage points to average 63.64% in the week to Nov. 30, according to OilChem.
• Russian oil product exports are tracking higher in November after the government eased export restrictions and refinery runs recovered.
  • US gasoline crack down -0.4$/bbl at 16.01$/bbl
  • US ULSD crack up 0.7$/bbl at 40.74$/bbl