With another week comes another selection of new trade ideas by Onyx Research. Our weekly Onyx Alpha report presents speculative and hedging trades based on technical analysis and data-driven tradecraft methods on Onyx Commitment of Traders (COT) and Flux Financials data.
The September Brent futures contract has witnessed a weaker morning amid the flat price, falling from above $84.50/bbl at 06:45 BST to $84.10/bbl as of 11:30 BST (time of writing). Sentiment likely remains pressured following the poor Chinese economic data announcements from this week, with market players now awaiting cues of stronger stimulus measures at the Third Plenum this week. Furthermore, China is reportedly planning to cut carbon emissions in its coal power industry by methods such as carbon capture, utilisation and storage, in addition to attempting to fire power plants using coal mixed with either green ammonia or biomass. Russia’s exports of crude oil fell to an average of 3.11mb/d in the four weeks ending 14 July, their lowest level since January 2024. The drop was predominantly in shipments from Russia’s Baltic ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga, where exports dropped by 11% in two weeks. This afternoon, the market is likely to turn its attention to US macro data, notably US retail sales (released today at 13:30 BST), which will impact expectations around the timing of a policy rate cut by the Fed. Finally, at the time of writing, the front-month and six-month futures spread stood at $0.90/bbl and $3.75/bbl, respectively.
With European VLSFO in backwardation in the prompt months, physical traders will note that the arb is open and we should see VLSFO from Europe start to flow to Asia.
The September Brent futures flat price has had a fairly flat afternoon, with the exception being its dip to just below $84.50/bbl from $85.10/bbl between 14:30 BST and 14:45 BST.
Technical indicators showed the major futures contracts softening, with the RSI for ICE gasoil and Brent neutral and the RSI for RBOB dropping out of the overbought territory as gasoline traded extremely flat in the week.
Brent crude futures opened on Monday morning and has traded rangebound around $85/bbl in its Sep’24 contract.
Long Aug/Sep 380 China’s average daily oil refining throughput slowed in June, a third month of declines, after more domestic plants shut their operations for maintenance. The Asian nation processed 58.32 million tons of crude last month, 4.3% lower than
In the week ending 09 July, managed-by-money participants took a risk-on approach to the benchmark Brent and WTI crude oil futures, adding a combined 13.5mb (+2.47%) to their long positions and a 1.6mb (+1.35%) to their short positions
The September Brent futures contract saw weakness early this morning, falling to $84.75/bbl at 08:40 BST. Since then, the Sep flat price found support and rallied to $85.10/bbl as of 11:20 BST but fell again to $84.95/bbl as of 11:30 BST (time of writing).
The September Brent futures contract fell to $84.75/bbl at 14:40 BST, following which it climbed to $85.50/bbl at 16:10 BST and ultimately softened to $85.20/bbl at 17:20 BST (time of writing).
The HSFO complex saw a reasonable amount of strength this week, which was disproportionately focused in Asia, causing the 380 E/W to rally aggressively, with the Aug contract rising from $13/mt to $21/mt.
Long Aug TA Arb @ 9.90c/gal After the recent sell off in the front TA Arb we have started to see some support at these levels and expect buyside interest to enter the market.
TARGET: $86.00/bbl – $88.00/bbl PRICE: $86.10/bbl Party in the USA? Brent appears confident to break a four-time streak of ending the week stronger than where it began, amid a fall from last week’s rally to a four-month high. Despite this,
The September Brent Futures contract has seen a weaker morning, trading down from $85.77/bbl at 07:00 BST to a low of $85.20/bbl at 10:20 BST, before retracing upwards to print at $85.33/bbl at the time of writing (11:30 BST). In headlines today, the IEA has released its monthly oil report, maintaining its bearish global oil demand forecast. For this year, demand growth is expected to increase slightly to 970kbpd, reaching an average of 103.05mbpd, driven by increased consumption from developing nations. The organization also revised its 2025 oil-demand growth projection down to 980kbpd from the previous 1mbpd, with total demand now anticipated to average 104mbpd. This starkly contrasts with OPEC’s more bullish views, released yesterday. While the IEA still sees a global balance deficit on average in 2024, its view tips into a surplus for 2025. In other news, data from Kpler reveals a substantial decline in crude oil exports from major OPEC+ producers in June, primarily due to weak demand in Asian markets and increased domestic consumption in the Middle East. Notably, Saudi Arabia’s exports plummeted by 930kbpd to 5.42mbpd, marking the lowest level since at least 2013. At the time of writing, the front and 6-month Brent Futures spreads are at $0.89/bbl and $3.90/bbl, respectively.
As the country is gripped with the patriotism that can only come with international football success and anti-Spanish rhetoric that I haven’t heard since Oliver Cromwell, Brent has taken a bit of a dive
