Oil Mid-Day Summary: Brent Holds Just Below $80/bbl

Crude is holding onto yesterday’s gains and is further edging up driven off optimism around Russian crude supply slipping, while markets are weighing US demand concerns against China’s pledge to support economic growth.

• Brent front month eased back from an intra-day high of $80.38/bbl/
• Brent SEP 23 up 0.4% at 79.93$/bbl
• WTI AUG 23 up 0.2% at 75.89$/bbl
• API inventory moves 07/18: Crude -797,000bbls, Gasoline -2.8mn, distillates -100k, Cushing -3mn
• ARA crude inventories fell 171kbpd in the week ending 14 July to 57.1mn barrels.
• Russia’s pledge to cut crude output and exports is starting to show. Russian seaborne crude shipments in the four-week period to 16 July fell to a six-month low.
• OPEC+ has rescheduled its next JMMC Meeting for 4 August.
• Saudi crude exports declined by 267kbpd MoM as of 16 July.
• Loadings at Shell’s Forcados crude oil terminal in Nigeria remain halted since Wednesday. Three tankers are waiting at the terminal. Further inspections were schedules for Tues/Wed this week.
• Chinese diesel exports rose to a five-month high in the first half of July at 340kbpd.
• Russia’s high-sulphur fuel oil values remain above the G7 $45/bbl price cap for second week. Urals prices eased back to below $60/bbl.
• Near term gasoil spreads and diesel cracks remained supported amid further disruptions to European heating oil supplies and refinery outages. One unit at Shell’s Pernis refinery has remained offline since Friday. Shell’s Wesseling refinery has reported a halt to heating oil supplies for five days in July. Bayernoil’s refinery in southern Germany also announced a halt to heating oil deliveries through the last three weeks of July, while other German refineries reported disruptions to heating oil and diesel supplies earlier this month.
• Gasoil AUG 23 up 0.9% at 762.5$/mt
• EU Gasoil-Brent up 0.5$/bbl at 21.82$/bbl
• Gasoil AUG 23-SEP 23 up 0.5$/mt at 4.75$/mt
• Gasoil SEP 23-OCT 23 up 0.75$/mt at 2.75$/mt
• US gasoline crack down -0.8$/bbl at 36.93$/bbl
• US ULSD crack up 0.3$/bbl at 34.07$/bbl