The August Brent futures flat price recorded a strong afternoon, climbing to $85.60/bbl at 14:00 BST before falling 20c in the next 10 minutes to eventually rally to $85.80/bbl at 16:05 BST, the highest value for the M2 futures contract since the end of April’24. However, the benchmark oil futures contract again found resistance at this level and eased to $85.30/bbl at 17:15 BST (time of writing). Tropical Storm Alberto, the first tropical storm of the hurricane season, has reportedly formed over the western Gulf of Mexico, as per the National Hurricane Center, and is expected to generate heavy rains and flooding in Texas and northeastern Mexico this week. Canada’s proposed oil and gas emissions cap is likely to cut production rather than have the relevant parties invest in expensive carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology – as per a report by consultancy firm Deloitte released by the Alberta government this week. In the UK, the CPI dropped to 2% for the first time in nearly three years in May (April: 2.3%). However, the Services CPI, which the Bank of England views as a source of medium-term price pressures, declined less than expected to 5.7% (exp: 5.5%, prev: 5.7%)). The US Senate passed a bill to accelerate the deployment of nuclear energy capacity with 88-2 votes in favour of the bill. Finally, at the time of writing, the front-month and six-month Brent futures spreads stood at $0.80/bbl and $3.77/bbl, respectively.
