Last week, the Oct’24 Brent futures witnessed a significant sell-off, following which sentiment recovered. The benchmark crude futures contract went from $76.30/bbl on 06 Aug to $80.40/bbl on 12 Aug (at the time of writing).
It was a bearish week for global crude benchmarks (Brent + WTI), which also suffered from the fallout from the sell-off in global risk assets following a weak US employment data report and the unwinding of the Japanese Yen carry trade. Notably, the significant increase in short positions across the key futures benchmarks imply that the recent sell-off was exacerbated by fresh CTA selling, in addition to the liquidation of length by discretionary and risk-parity funds.
The Oct’24 Brent futures flat price started the day on a bullish front and rallied past the $80/bbl handle. The benchmark crude futures contract was observed sitting just below $80.40/bbl as of 11:35 BST (time of writing).
The Oct’24 Brent futures witnessed a largely rangebound afternoon, with the flat price first falling from $79.50/bbl at 13:10 BST to $78.85/bbl around 15:10 BST, only to firm up to $79.70/bbl at 17:25 BST (time of writing).
In HSFO over the past fortnight, we saw price action appear fairly unsettled alongside enduring relative Asian strength.
The Oct’24 Brent futures contract hit $77.75/bbl at 10:45 BST, following which prices firmed up to $79.05/bbl at 17:35 BST (time of writing).
The Paris Olympics are in full swing, with Celine Dion’s opening ceremony rendition of ‘L’Hymne à l’amour’ proving to be an even greater performance than that of European propane this week…
In addition to our regular Monday CFTC COT analysis report, Onyx Insight will publish its own in-house CFTC COT forecast ahead of the official Friday report. The model forecasts changes in long and short positions using machine learning, utilising Onyx’s proprietary data.
The October Brent futures flat price saw a supported performance on Wednesday morning, climbing by over $1 since 08:30 BST from $76.40/bbl to $77.50/bbl by 11:30 BST (time of writing). Price action is testing the $77.50/bbl resistance level, where the market failed to break on two separate occasions on the 2nd and 6th of August. According to the Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell (PPAC), India’s oil demand rose by 7.4% y/y to 19.652 million tonnes in July. In contrast…
The October Brent futures flat price saw better support on Tuesday afternoon, finding a springboard of $75.60/bbl before gapping up to $77/bbl before coming off to $76.62/bbl by 17:30 BST (time of writing). The US Department of Energy announced two solicitations to purchase oil for the SPR, 1.5mb for delivery into the Bayou Choctaw site and 2.0mb for the Bryan Mound site, both in January 2025. Libya’s NOC said on Tuesday that it is gradually reducing production from the Sharara field, citing force majeure due to protests in the area.
