Dated v Brent

There was a battle for the barrels in the North Sea, with Totsa and Trafigura buying heavily and Equinor and Gunvor on the sell side. We have seen this same group of players swaying the flow in the Dated market for a few weeks now. The comparable power in the buying and selling has allowed for the Dated physical differential to move very little. The diff has been oscillating around 100c/bbl for almost a month now, failing to maintain anything 10c above or below a dollar since mid-November.

The physical Dated market remains very strong, with the physical differential remaining in triple figures for around ten days now, at 104c/bbl on 25 Nov. There has been a slight introduction of softness this week as players are pricing in the physical, which is projected to come off into December. In the window, all eyes have really been on Totsa in the past week or so as they have been supporting the physical diff with good cargo buying, potentially for placing into Chinese refineries. There seems a slight unease in the market as they expect this play to end soon and the gap between the physical support and the forward curve, which has seen some softening on expectations of this. We don’t know how much more ammunition they have here, how many more barrels they can buy before the rug is yanked from the market. Talking of Yanks, we are expecting strong US exports in the coming weeks, with Midland cargoes likely flooding the Dated market. How much of this wave Totsa is prepared to buy is another question.

There was an election across the pond last week, but it would be quite a feat of mental gymnastics to immediately connect the results with the Dated Brent market. Yet, the ramifications of Trump’s re-election may have significant implications for Atlantic Basin fundamentals, as we detail in today’s Onyx Alpha trade ideas report. Maybe not quite ‘drill baby drill’, but ongoing growth in US crude production and exports will likely weigh on the WTI/Brent spread, and further weigh on the Dated Brent physical. But in the meantime, the market continues to be topsy turvy. A US physical player has been eager to lock in this arb and fixing their paper deals ahead of time. The HTT (WTI Houston vs WTI Trade Month) has been locked in, alongside the WTI/Brent and freight. Basis risk remains, so we can expect 2025 DFLs to be sold at anytime to complete this process. Indeed, the arb of the deal. Lock in.

The Brent futures market was taut in anticipation and volatility last week as the leak of intelligence about the, at the time, looming Israeli strike on Iran meant that the waiting game would have to continue, and there were fewer clues. The front spreads have been rangebound over the fortnight, and the DFL market has superseded this, allowing for the Dated-to-Lead (DFL vs Brent spreads) structure to swing up. The question for spreads is whether they see the support from the Dated structure ripple through the DTL reverting, or whether the anticipated heavy pressure in the futures structure will strike through the structural integrity of the curve. The physical differential dropped to around 5c on 17 Oct and has gently been implied higher since.

The water has been anything but calm here in the North Sea, with the Dated Brent complex surging up into October amid a more robust futures complex and supported physical differential.

The North Sea is choppy as we enter October, and choppiness dominated the Dated Brent market this fortnight, with few signs of this ending. In the last report, the physical diff was strong above a dollar, with a Chinese bull play holding strength and bidding was seen in a few grades. 20 Sep seemed a turning point for the market with BP offering Brent, although PI lifted this. The following week (23-27 Sep) saw strong selling from the US, with Exxon offering Forties and ConocoPhillips offering Ekofisk, with Ekofisk key to setting the curve currently. This US offering helped the phys diff be implied at less than a dollar on 25 Sep and, combined with futures selling, Dated took a dive. In October, following a fairly weak expiry, there is decent strength held in the Dated complex, as PI flipped to selling the diff fell to 65c, where it has been implied steadily. The past few windows have been pretty quiet. PI has stopped its buying and US selling is quieter. The waters are choppy and not so busy.

September has been a month of many firsts in Brent futures: for one, the benchmark crude futures contract collapsed below $70/bbl on 10 Sep for the first time in three years. Soon after this feat, ICE COT data for the week ending 10 Sep reported that players were net short the Brent futures complex for the first time on record. Despite this weakness, Dated Brent and Dated differentials were shielded from the bears, with the physical differential briefly dropping to just above $0.99/bbl on 09 Sep to then rising to $1.275/bbl on 16 Sep. This relative support emerged due to strong buy-side forces present in the market. On 06 Sep, we saw Chevron offering WTI Midland across the curve, only for Totsa to lift the offer. Afterwards, we saw Gunvor and Petroineos buying Ekofisk and Midland cargoes, respectively, with BP and Glencore on the sell side.

For all the market chatter about a disappointing summer for crude oil (flat price) and refined products, Dated Brent certainly did not get the memo.

The chasm between the reality of demand sentiment and the crude oil futures markets, by extension, and the continued relentless buying in the North Sea physical seems to have been driven even wider this fortnight. Oct’24 EFP continues to price relatively weakly on partials, pointing to a squeeze in the physical rather than genuine demand. Fundamentally, margins continue to struggle with product weakness, although the lower flat price lent a touch of support.

All hell broke loose this week as the Bears came in with a bang. The Dated Brent market was not immune to the chaos that ran amok global financial markets at large. The poor US jobs reading was the tinderbox that catalysed the worldwide sell-off, and a bloodbath ensued. For our readers outside of Japan, it is one less bowl of ramen or can of Strong Zero on your upcoming trip to the land of the rising sun as investors unwound their carry trades, prompting a mass exodus from the Nikkei.

What goes up, must come down, and it really feels like we have reached an inflection point in Dated Brent, or inflexion point as the Americans spell it. As usual, it is all eyes on America, and what the changing political tides will mean for the oil market, geopolitics, and the financial markets at large. But that is a discussion reserved for Q4. The Dated Brent market is all about the here and now, and that is what we will focus on.

Sentiment in Dated Brent remained hopeful in the week leading up to the August Brent futures expiry and sustained this strength for a few days following expiry, after which things cratered very quickly.

On 17 June, the world went to sleep with the physical differential still in sub-zero territory at -30c/bbl and woke to a whole new regime with the physical diff bid above 1c/bbl.

Despite this bearishness, the July DFL found some respite and rallied to above 20c/bbl on Jun 11th after previously being burned down to -50c/bbl on June 4th.

It seems like the North Sea crude market has begun to gasp for air after drowning in a very weak May.

The Dated market has been inundated with weakness. The volatility that we have been seeing in the physical diff has continued and the phys diff reached lows of almost -$1/bbl on May 14.

‘Strong Brent expiry to give bulls false hope’ or so the meme goes. Immediately following expiry, the North Sea market saw a dramatic capitulation as the physical turned offered.

After a prolonged bull play in the North Sea physical, Gunvor flipped to aggressively selling Midland and Forties cargoes into the new month

The buyside players in previous physical windows were notably absent in the cash on expiry day, showing that the bullish sentiment was just not it.

After a prolonged period of weakness following the first week of April, Dated structure staged a recovery from April 18 after finding the floor.

The resurgence of strength following a blip during expiry has allowed for the Dated market to enter February with strong buying in the face of a risk/reward skew previously thought bearish.