The Aug Brent futures flat price saw a back-and-forth afternoon following the relatively uneventful morning. We saw a strong start with a rally at 13:00 BST spanning two hours in which the price rallied from where it started the afternoon at $81.90/bbl up to an intraday high of $83.00/bbl. However, this was short-lived, as the price then took a tumble from this high to a low of $82.15/bbl. We have since seen a slight gain to $82.30/bbl as of 17:00 BST (time of writing). US initial jobless claims for benefits spike to the highest level since August 2023, rising 13,000 to 242,000 in the week to 08 June. Yet, the US found some respite in PPI statistics released today, which were flat for the month of May, beating expectations of a 0.3% rise. OPEC secretary general Hathaim Al Ghais came out today to suggest that the group does not see a peak in oil demand in its long-term forecasts. He furthered this claim to suggest they expect to see demand grow to 116mb/d by 2045. This drastically contrasts the view of the IEA, who indicated on Wednesday that we are likely to see a demand peak in 2029 at approximately 106mb/d. This IEA estimate had been revised from their prediction in October last year, where they suggested that demand would peak in 2030. Al Ghais indicated that similar estimates had been disproved in the past and “this is an unrealistic scenario, one that would negatively impact economics across the world”. At the time of writing, the front month and 6-month spreads are $0.42/bbl and $2.60/bbl, respectively.
