Onyx is delighted to welcome Harry Tchilinguirian as Group Head of Research. With an illustrious career spanning over three decades in research within the commodity markets, there is nobody better equipped to take on the unique and specialised role as
Trade Idea 1: Long Jul TA Arb A closed transatlantic arb currently should be putting pressure on NYH prices to increase relative to Europe to incentivise more bbls moving. Although there are multiple ways the physical arb can open back
Short Jul 0.5% Sing Crack We have seen an increase in fuel oil inventories in Singapore this week due to lower demand and good supply coming from the Middle East. Looking at the Onyx CoT the market position has been
Over the past 2 weeks we have seen downward pressure on the 0.5 E/W with news from the East that there was little demand after tenders issued by Al Zour refinery in Kuwait. However…
Long 0.5% Sing Jun/Jul There has been tepid demand for LSFO at the moment and with Al Zour refinery issuing tenders at the beginning of May there has been a good supply. But we expect that to correct a little
Short Jun 0.5 Euro crack European 0.5 Barges has been very weak recently due to tepid demand alongside Europe ample stock piles. We have seen a slight pull back in Euro 0.5 Euro which is now entering the overbought zone
Long Jun 380 Crack Tighter supplies and relatively healthy downstream demand have strengthened the Asian high sulfur fuel oil complex in recent weeks, although we have seen a drop in the last couple of days we believe it has found
Short Jun 380 E/W It looks like the tide has turned. According to Onyx CoT it indicates that Jun is now overbought, with RSI at 93. As reported Tuesday, it has been on a steady rise, from $21 up to
There has been tepid demand of Sing 0.5% along with Al Zour refinery in Kuwait releasing tenders in April and May for VLSFO meaning there is ample supply. However 380 seems to be a tighter supply at the moment, with
For Brokerage services across the barrel and to receive our weekly trade ideas, contact insight@onyxcapitaladvisory.com
For Brokerage services across the barrel and to receive our weekly trade ideas, contact insight@onyxcapitaladvisory.com
For Brokerage services across the barrel and to receive our weekly trade ideas, contact insight@onyxcapitaladvisory.com
For Brokerage services across the barrel and to receive our weekly trade ideas, contact insight@onyxcapitaladvisory.com
July Brent futures witnessed a passive week, as price action remained tight between a range of $81.50-84.50/bbl. There was a slight rally to $84.53/bbl in the early stages of May 10, before prices got scared off the $85/bbl mark and
For Brokerage services across the barrel and to receive our weekly trade ideas, contact insight@onyxcapitaladvisory.com
Jul Brent futures began the week supported to stable mid-$83/bbls amid the news of Saudi hiking OSPs for the third consecutive month, with Arab light for Jun delivery has increased by 90c/bbl to $2.90/bbl. The market returned from the thin
Brent crude futures erased last Friday’s gains amid renewed Israel-Hamas peace talks which has moderated geopolitical tensions. The July contract was trading above $89/bbl handles on Friday before gapping below $88/bbl on Monday, trading at $87.50/bbl by 08:30 BST. Following
Onyx Capital Group is proud to announce the appointment of Chris Gooder as the new Performance Director for Trading. With a distinguished background in Performance Psychology, including notable experience in Formula 1, Gooder brings a wealth of expertise in optimising
Refinery margins calculate a refiner’s profit margins – and usually, we see Asian margins tower over their European counterparts. Why then have M1 Asian margins lately fallen under European margins? Find out the “crude” details about this in our latest article.
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It’s been a rather forgettable month for Dated Brent, Sing 0.5, and the pronap. See all the updates across the barrel in this week’s Onyx Commitment of Traders report, as well as 6 one to watches for the week ahead.
The Brent futures flat price for the prompt contract has seen a quieter afternoon after the sell-off witnessed this morning.
Onyx CEO, Greg Newman, is delighted to welcome Jorge Montepeque to the Onyx Capital Group family, as Managing Director, Benchmarks.
In the volatility generated by the recent developments in the Red Sea and the fears of supply disruptions this may cause, oil markets have been anything but static.
European Gasoline saw strength in the past fortnight, with the Feb EBOB crack rallying to highs of $13.50/bbl, despite seeing sell side interest. The Sing 92 saw a rally as well, with both EBOB and the 92 contributing heavily to
The Onyx Capital Group C suite expands once more as we warmly welcome Andrew Chen as the Group Chief Financial Officer. Andrew joins with over 25 years’ experience in execution and advisory across private equity, equity & debt capital markets and
The market price of Russian Urals has seen a significant weakness since the end of October, dropping $24/bbl since the end of Oct to lows of $61.68/bbl observed on Dec 12. The price drop returns Russian crude near the $60/bbl
The crude futures have been choppy all week and by Friday morning we saw levels largely trading around the $76-77/bbl handles. Brent prices sank to their lowest since June on Tuesday after being sold off to $73.24/bbl. With the US
Between the flows and fluctuations of the market, Onyx Research provides a unique report to unveil it all. The Commitment of Traders is a unique report leveraging Onyx proprietary data and methodologies to provide unique speculative market positioning data and flows.
Brent futures saw a slight dip this morning, with the market opening at $76.61/bbl at 06:00 GMT and dropping to lows of $76.05/bbl at 08:30 GMT, prices then rose steadily to $76.32/bbl levels at 10:00 GMT. Today in the news,
The week to Nov 07 saw a continuation of long money managers closing positions, marking two consecutive weeks of removing length, closing over 15mbbls, or 6.3% of all long positions in the week with length now at a four -week
Today is the day. It’s D-Day for the Fed and our resident macroeconomic enthusiast has been counting down the days like a nine-year-old excitedly opening his advent calendar in the lead up to Christmas. Hey it is money, real money. We all want some of it even if it’s fake recently printed paper money. The 25-50 debate will finally be settled when Power Powell unleashes the full force of the US economy, unshackling it from its restraints. The world needs decisive action from the big dawg. The market seemed nervous today, hesitant to jump for joy at a big cut, as though it was scared to be let down. Yesterday it seemed it was forecasting a nice cut but today the behaviour was desultory. Continuing fall out front the pager blow outs has not impacted the market even though the mighty Houthis have now threatened any Taiwanese ship in addition to those linked to Israel. The world keeps getting gummed up due to military and economic fights. Time to sit down folks and recognize no side can truly win.
Physical Dubai markets are holding strong, with Dubai partials pricing 52c over Brent, and today they set yet another record for the highest physical premium we have tracked since starting the Officials at the beginning of June at $2.26/bbl! These are expensive barrels, and with demand so rock bottom in Asia that some refineries are filing for bankruptcy, we ask what is driving this strength in Asia. Reliance was more active on the sell side in the window today, alongside Exxon. It smells like more run cuts in Asia to us, but who knows? The regulars were on the buyside, with Mets hungry as ever, netting themselves two convergences. One Al Shaheen from Exxon, and another Upper Zakum from Reliance. It’s like last orders at the pub, with that one drinker keeping on about ‘just one more’ to the bartender. NPI and Vitol also picked up a couple partials.
All eyes are on tomorrow’s FED decision on the 25 or 50 bps interest rate cut. In the meantime, iPhone warriors fight in all economic arenas about the size while having zero influence on the outcome. In other words, it is all words and we’re all talkers. But what does 25 or 50 bps mean for markets? If the Fed cuts the full 50 it’d be happy times as the immediate effect is lowering of business and mortgage cost. One could argue this is not bullish, as the FED had to go big. But those are fine details for the bearded pipe smokers. The average Joe will love Powell.
What is Mitsui, big buyers of Dubai partials, up to with all its oil, given Chinese teapots are dropping like flies as margins get crushed? An exaggeration we know but two teapots are down. The situation is awful and we are reminded by another data point. Vietnam’s exports of cement into China are down 90% as construction is flat on its back. Cement is very highly energy intensive and so is construction itself. You know where we are going with this…diesel is
impacted very negatively. The front month Arab Gulf 321 crack is creaking under the strain, down to $5.66/bbl from its February peak at $19.35/bbl! Dubai physical premiums continue to climb and are at the highest since ‘The Officials’ began tracking the data. Premiums are at $2.12, up by almost 10c from yesterday.
Another week brings another selection of new trade ideas from Onyx Research, this time looking at trades in Brent/Dubai, Eastern MOPJ naphtha, and Sing 92 gasoline swaps.
The upper 60s came and went, with the initial negative narrative being overtaken by ‘it is not so bad and we are going to:’ 75, 77, 80 or even more. Take your pick. But the macros have not changed and, if anything, they are a wee bit worse and everything works at the margin. So be careful. In flat price the story has been pretty directionless to stronger. A random walk along the flat price chart saw a slow morning, before picking up steam into the early hours of US trading. According to traders, Exxon has been selling alongside Chevron, a Team America defector, and shortly before the window they may have got their way, with flat price and spreads both easing off. As flat price reached the day’s peak at $73.31/bbl, Brent front spreads peaked at 66c just after 15:00 BST, before shedding 8c to close the window at 58c. Further down the curve, little changed. But the short end remains strong. One trader said, “we are no way oversold or pricing below where we ought to be”, even despite the historic short positioning in managed money. But for every short, there is a long, so…
The Nov’24 Brent futures fell below $70/bbl on 10 Sep, reaching lows not seen since December 2021, before recovering to around $73/bbl by September 16, despite an oversold RSI and declining open interest. Meanwhile, the US 2-year treasury yield and Brent broke key support levels following hawkish BOJ comments and political developments, with the OIS now pricing in a more aggressive US Fed interest rate cut, indicating a potential recession. ICE COT data for the week ending September 10 shows money managers turning bearish, reducing speculative longs by 19.7% and increasing shorts by 15.5%, resulting in net positioning in Brent futures turning negative for the first time and the long:short ratio dropping to 0.80:1.00 for all weeks to 2013.
Money managers remained bearish in the benchmark crude oil futures over the week ending 10 Sep, most notably in Brent futures, with the front-month contract dipping below $70/bbl on 10 September.
It’s the positioning in Brent contracts that is really intriguing this morning. Managed money net length in Brent futures contracts, according to ICE COT, has turned negative, marking a historic shift in sentiment on the long/short seesaw. For the first time since the data began being collated, some of the shorts are outweighing the longs. The composition is clear with -33.7 mb net short for the week ending 10 Sep. Shorts look a bit saturated…
Flat price has largely shrugged off APPEC’s bearish consensus; the market was overly short, really. Flat price and spreads all gained through the backend of the week and traders reported that next week, they’re “not really seeing any selling”, but they followed up that the two subsequent weeks have lots of selling. In short, the market is backwardating. Let’s not understate this: implied diffs are $1.30 for next week, little changed from where we are now, but the week after, they’re pricing 80c!! The market is teetering on the clifftops, Kennie had better have his parachute. There’s still plenty of trading time, so who knows? Nobody…
Saudi allocations to Chinese refiners for October have jumped. Before we get into the details note the increase is in sharp contrast with the output stability narrative by OPEC. Key question to Saudi Arabia: if you are not hiking production, why are you increasing allocations to your customers? According to sources, Unipec got 14.5 mb for October up from 11 mb for September. Rongsheng, the favourite of the bunch, remains the primary recipient, at an unchanged 16 mb. These two take the lion’s share of supply. Total allocation grew to 45.5 mb in October, from 43 mb in September, just shy of the 3 mb increase we expected. As we’ve been saying, China doesn’t need much crude to fulfil its ailing demand, so where is this all going?
Blimey! Brent’s surge into the European close burst up beyond the last few days’ levels to carry us firmly back into the $72/bbl range. The bears went too deep into enemy territory and now they have to pay up! The super-short market will be feeling the pinch from this afternoon and we’re sure some will be kicking themselves for jumping on the bandwagon of $60 Brent too early.
Nov Brent futures premium over Dubai partials has inverted in recent sessions, with Dubai, “oddly outperforming” according to one trader. Today Brent reclaimed some ground. Weak macros have failed to shake prompt strength out of Brent; front spread rose to 53c of backwardation. Consensus from APPEC was overwhelmingly negative, OPEC let a little air out of their ballooned demand forecast, and today the IEA revised down their demand forecast for 2024, it’s not a pretty picture. With very few trading months left for 2024 oil, where is the strength coming from?
In addition to our regular Monday CFTC COT analysis report, Onyx Insight will publish its own in-house CFTC COT forecast ahead of the official Friday report. The model forecasts changes in long and short positions using machine learning, utilising Onyx’s proprietary data.
The signals for emerging surplus are coming in. Everywhere you look the curve has flattened. From Dubai to the North Sea, benchmark grades are struggling to muster even the slightest backwardation. The flattening has been particularly acute in Brent. Yesterday time spreads down the curve dipped their toes into a bearish contango. At 76c, Dec/Dec spreads closed the weakest in over 3 years. Compared to three months ago structures are starkly different.
The signals for emerging surplus are coming in. Everywhere you look the curve has flattened. From Dubai to the North Sea, benchmark grades are struggling to muster even the slightest backwardation. The flattening has been particularly acute in Brent. Yesterday time spreads down the curve dipped their toes into a bearish contango. At 76c, Dec/Dec spreads closed the weakest in over 3 years. Compared to three months ago structures are starkly different.
Traders were hoping for a quiet day going into the weekend but instead they got a comatose or nearly dead oil
market. At 15:00 BST Nov Brent stood at a consolidated $73.40/bbl, slightly above its level at yesterday’s close.
Then, however, markets went into freefall. Within the hour, Brent had toppled down by almost $2/bbl, to around
$71.50/bbl. Disastrous Canadian PMIs? Americans selling off? Or just the dour macros weighing down
everyone’s souls? And then in come the Saudis, slashing their monthly OSPs across the board for October
against the preceding month’s differentials. All grades into the Med and Northwest Europe received 80c cuts. In Asia, Arab Light and Medium took a 70c and 80c hits respectively, while Heavy was slapped with a full $1 cut.
Traders were hoping for a quiet day going into the weekend but instead they got a comatose or nearly dead oil
market. At 15:00 BST Nov Brent stood at a consolidated $73.40/bbl, slightly above its level at yesterday’s close.
Then, however, markets went into freefall. Within the hour, Brent had toppled down by almost $2/bbl, to around
$71.50/bbl. Disastrous Canadian PMIs? Americans selling off? Or just the dour macros weighing down
everyone’s souls? And then in come the Saudis, slashing their monthly OSPs across the board for October
against the preceding month’s differentials. All grades into the Med and Northwest Europe received 80c cuts. In Asia, Arab Light and Medium took a 70c and 80c hits respectively, while Heavy was slapped with a full $1 cut.
Another week brings another selection of new trade ideas from Onyx Research, this time looking at trades in fuel oil and gasoline swaps. Our weekly Onyx Alpha report presents speculative and hedging trades based on technical analysis and data-driven tradecraft methods on Onyx Commitment of Traders (COT) and Flux Financials data.
Traders were hoping for a quiet day going into the weekend but instead they got a comatose or nearly dead oil
market. At 15:00 BST Nov Brent stood at a consolidated $73.40/bbl, slightly above its level at yesterday’s close.
Then, however, markets went into freefall. Within the hour, Brent had toppled down by almost $2/bbl, to around
$71.50/bbl. Disastrous Canadian PMIs? Americans selling off? Or just the dour macros weighing down
everyone’s souls? And then in come the Saudis, slashing their monthly OSPs across the board for October
against the preceding month’s differentials. All grades into the Med and Northwest Europe received 80c cuts. In Asia, Arab Light and Medium took a 70c and 80c hits respectively, while Heavy was slapped with a full $1 cut.
The Nov’24 Brent futures contract capitulated over the past week as bearish sentiment mounted. Prices fell by over 5% to their lowest level this year, only finding support at the $71-72/bbl level. Traders shifted their focus towards economic concerns, with the expectations of the resumption of Libyan supply and poor Chinese demand weighing on sentiment. Not even OPEC+ delaying their production hikes could reverse the tide as it confirmed the worsening demand outlook. Although futures market positioning is at historically short levels, there could be further room for prices to fall as the $70/bbl psychological support level looms large.
Traders were hoping for a quiet day going into the weekend but instead they got a comatose or nearly dead oil
market. At 15:00 BST Nov Brent stood at a consolidated $73.40/bbl, slightly above its level at yesterday’s close.
Then, however, markets went into freefall. Within the hour, Brent had toppled down by almost $2/bbl, to around
$71.50/bbl. Disastrous Canadian PMIs? Americans selling off? Or just the dour macros weighing down
everyone’s souls? And then in come the Saudis, slashing their monthly OSPs across the board for October
against the preceding month’s differentials. All grades into the Med and Northwest Europe received 80c cuts. In Asia, Arab Light and Medium took a 70c and 80c hits respectively, while Heavy was slapped with a full $1 cut.
Money managers retraced from last week’s bullish positioning to incredible bearishness in the week ending 03 Sep. We saw long-positioned managed-by-money players trim over 32.6mb from their combined positions in Brent and WTI futures (-8.27%) while their short-positioned counterparts added over 73.2mb (+49.27%) their shorts in the benchmark crude futures contracts. This change took the combined long:short ratio for the crude futures to 1.63:1.00 this week, below the 1st percentile for long:short ratios for every week since 2013.
Traders were hoping for a quiet day going into the weekend but instead they got a comatose or nearly dead oil
market. At 15:00 BST Nov Brent stood at a consolidated $73.40/bbl, slightly above its level at yesterday’s close.
Then, however, markets went into freefall. Within the hour, Brent had toppled down by almost $2/bbl, to around
$71.50/bbl. Disastrous Canadian PMIs? Americans selling off? Or just the dour macros weighing down
everyone’s souls? And then in come the Saudis, slashing their monthly OSPs across the board for October
against the preceding month’s differentials. All grades into the Med and Northwest Europe received 80c cuts. In Asia, Arab Light and Medium took a 70c and 80c hits respectively, while Heavy was slapped with a full $1 cut.
Ennui is such a good word to describe the feeling sparked by the dated Brent market. Finally, things start to calm down and go into a reasonable direction where weakness or strength is reflected across all instruments. Equinor continues to increase the profile of Johan Sverdrup like they have bigger plans for the crude stream and sold a cargo loading Oct 1-3 to BP at Dated flat. A boring price but we like boring.
Ennui is such a good word to describe the feeling sparked by the dated Brent market. Finally, things start to calm down and go into a reasonable direction where weakness or strength is reflected across all instruments. Equinor continues to increase the profile of Johan Sverdrup like they have bigger plans for the crude stream and sold a cargo loading Oct 1-3 to BP at Dated flat. A boring price but we like boring.
Dubai’s physical premium has averaged $2.01/bbl so far in September, compared to the 90c in the full month of August. On a flat price basis, the market flatlined today. There’s still a lot of danger for the longs if the right noises are not made by OPEC and friends. OPEC’s life support isn’t working, with Dubai partials gaining 2c and front-month Brent futures losing the same, down at near 14-month lows. Despite some chaotic news announcements about OPEC quotas, Kennie and other long trades have never woken up from their comatose state.
In addition to our regular Monday CFTC COT analysis report, Onyx Insight will publish its own in-house CFTC COT forecast ahead of the official Friday report. The model forecasts changes in long and short positions using machine learning, utilising Onyx’s proprietary data.
Bad macros finally killed those with narrow focus on supply disruption stories in the face of continuing
loadings and also those believing fantastic stories of demand growth in the 2 mil bbl range.
Hello, wake up everybody; the world economy is soft and you know it, you read it everyday, you see it, you
feel it. You just want to believe your own story or that being fed by producers. What do you expect? That a
producer or group of producers, or long traders are going to tell you the demand growth isn’t there?
Dubai’s surge relative to Brent marches onward. Dubai partials minus front month Brent futures inverted,
going positive for the first time since 10 July, at 9c by the close of Asia today, while on a physical premium
basis, Dubai remains elevated at 2 bucks. While Brent futures spreads and CFDs get hammered in Europe,
Dubai’s prompt structure remains strong, and Dubai continues to outperform. The window was quiet, and
traders were tentative following the overall downward flat price correction. But Vitol and Mets still picked up
some partials from PC and Exxon. Anybody with a sense of end-user demand should sell, of course.
We said yesterday that the market really wanted to go up, regardless of fundamentals. Seems like bulls were too attached to Libya or to some fluffy nonsense as Libyans really need the money and so they’ll find a way to accommodate and keep the cash flowing. Remember technicals are noise but macros always win in the end and macros are super bearish – we say this with in situ reporting from China.
Dubai surged relative to Brent, closing the spread. China is widely seen as underperforming but the weak
picture as we enter the fall is not translating into softer Asian benchmarks. Dubai is the outperformer so far in
September. The prompt weakness in the Dubai we saw throughout the back end of August has been left in
dust after expiration. Vitol continued to bid and are seen as winning with Dubai physical premia rising to over
two bucks in the first two trading days of September.
Another week brings another selection of new trade ideas from Onyx Research, this time looking at trades in naphtha, LPG and crude oil. Our weekly Onyx Alpha report presents speculative and hedging trades based on technical analysis and data-driven tradecraft methods on Onyx Commitment of Traders (COT) and Flux Financials data.
The $80/bbl Battleground – Front-month ICE Brent futures moved sideways during August, unable to break out of a circa $76-83/bbl range. Geopolitical swell-ups and weak economic news, raising concern over oil demand, notably out of China, took turns pushing the flat price, respectively, up and down. Neither driver got the upper hand to set Brent on a new trajectory, with Brent’s price generally reverting towards $80/bbl. Even as Jerome Powell…
Boom! Brent flat price blazed a trail back up from the meagre sub $79/bbl handle it had been holding since yesterday evening to bound up to the $80/bbl level with a huge jump through the afternoon. But almost as quickly as it rose up, it got smacked back down again by almost 90c. According to a trader Brent “basically gapped down on nothing” and was “just following spreads”. The longs who took their winnings beforehand will be feeling pretty pleased with their afternoons and get a cosy night’s sleep on a big pillow of bank notes.
