AMERICAS OIL: WTI crude is lower, extending a trend that has been in place

WTI crude is lower, extending a trend that has been in place since Jan 15, as President Trump keeps up pressure on OPEC+ to “cut oil prices” and end the Ukraine war.

• OPEC+ still has yet to respond to Trump’s call to lower oil prices, with delegates pointing to the current plan to increase production in April, Reuters reported. The JMMS next meets on Feb 3.
• Concern for Chinese demand growth continues to limit upside price pressure after factory activity fell in January after three months of expansion.
• Goldman Sachs said a big drop in Russian production due to sanctions is not expected as higher freight rates incentivized non-sanctioned ships to move Russian oil and with a deepening discount on ESPO crude.
• President Trump threatened a 25% tariff on Colombian goods on Sunday, wising to 50% after a week, following Colombia’s banning of flights of deported migrants from the US. Hours later, Colombia agreed to accept them, and the tariffs were suspended. Colombia exports around 215kb/d of oil to the US.
• Global crude held on stationary tankers for longer than seven days rose 13% to 66.25mbbl as of Jan 24, according to Vortexa data cited by Bloomberg.
  • WTI MAR 25 down 0.6% at 74.22$/bbl
  • US gasoline crack up 0.2$/bbl at 12.80$/bbl
  • US ULSD crack down 1.6$/bbl at 26.34$/bbl