The October Brent futures flat price has been unsettled this morning trading in an $81/bbl handle. The contract hit a low of $81.20/bbl at 08:10 BST and then swiftly rallied to the morning’s high of $81.75/bbl at 08:40 BST, before retracing to $81.35/bbl at 11:15 BST (time of writing). OPEC+ key ministers are meeting today to decide output policy. They are expected not to make any changes to their current production cuts and will start unwinding some of them in October, despite recent sharp declines in oil prices. South Korea’s key oil refiners are likely to see spot export sales volumes for 10ppm sulphur diesel climb to a four-month high in August, after offers for two more prompt-loading cargoes of 330kb loading on 14-16 Aug and 26-28 Aug emerged in the market from SK Energy. Rhone Energies, a Trafigura-Entara consortium, has signed a deal with Esso to buy the Fos-sur-Mer refinery and Toulouse and Villette-de-Vienne terminals in France. Finally, Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC), one of the world’s largest petchem producers that is 70% owned by Aramco, reported a close to 85% increase in Q2 net profit to $581.04 million today, helped by higher margins. At the time of writing, the front and 6-month spreads are $0.66/bbl and $2.74/bbl, respectively.
