Mid-Day Oil Summary: Crude Slides

Crude prices have slipped Friday ahead of US pricing data due later and with a backdrop of oversupply through 2024 according to the latest IEA monthly report. Front month Brent is currently trading in line with last Friday’s close of $82.19/bbl

• Brent APR 24 down -0.9% at 82.09$/bbl
• WTI MAR 24 down -0.9% at 77.35$/bbl
• The US Department of Energy awarded contracts for the replenishment of 2.95mn barrels of US crude oil for the SPR in June on Thursday according to a statement.
• India has resumed importing Russian Sokol grade crude with at least two refiners taking deliveries for February, trading sources and ship tracking data showed.
• Azerbaijan’s crude oil production stood at 474kbpd last month, below its OPEC+ quota of 551kbpd according to a statement by the Energy Ministry.
• Robust bunker sales in Singapore, combined with a strong east-west arb last quarter have been a driver of strong fuel oil flows into the major bunker hub in recent months according to Vortexa.
• Russian fuel oil tankers continue to sail via the Bab El-Mandeb strait in the Red Sea to Asia, according to Vortexa.
• Russian January fuel oil supplies by rail declined by 1.2% on the year and by 6.2% on the month amid refinery outages due to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, industry sources told Reuters.
• Oil refiners in India processed 22.6m mt of crude in January, down 0.9% on the previous year, based on preliminary data from the federal oil ministry.
• Motiva Enterprises has delayed the restart of the large coker at its 626,000 bpd Port Arthur, Texas refinery for at least a week according to Reuters sources.
• TotalEnergies completed the restart of the crude distillation and gasoline making units at its 238,000 bpd port Arthur, Texas refinery on Thursday according to Reuters sources.
  • US gasoline crack down -0.6$/bbl at 18.48$/bbl
  • US ULSD crack down -1.3$/bbl at 38.83$/bbl