The September Brent futures flat price has weakened this afternoon, falling from a high of $87.45/bbl at 14:05 BST to a low of $86.60/bbl at 16:00 BST. It has subsequently ticked down slightly further to $86.55/bbl, where it remains as of 16:55 BST (time of writing). OPEC’s annual statistical report has revealed that in nominal terms, its petroleum export revenue dropped 18% y-o-y in 2023 to $680 billion. Russian damper payments, a form of subsidy to oil refiners, are set to decline by around 4.5% to 150 billion roubles ($1.7 billion) in Russia in June from May due to global gasoline price rises and a weaker rouble. US air travel, calculated by using the 7-day average of TSA total traveller throughput in million passengers, is 9.8% above 2019 levels. Finally, over a dozen oil firms, including Exxon, Shell and Petrobras, have expressed interest in buying a 40% stake in Portuguese Galp Energia’s major oil discovery off the coast of Namibia, which is estimated to hold at least 10 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent. At the time of writing, the front and 6-month spreads are $0.85/bbl and $3.85/bbl, respectively.
