Speculators for both Brent and WTI portrayed a more bullish outlook as managed by money positions witnessed an increase in longs coupled with a liquidation of shorts for both crude benchmarks
Oil prices were seen hovering around the $82.75/bbl handles on Monday morning after last week witnessed the Brent futures for the Apr contract rise by over 1%, following a 6% gain in the previous week.
Crude flat price has been trading a touch below $83/bbl levels on Monday morning, trading at $82.68/bbl at 10:30 GMT. Price action has been well supported amid persistent geopolitical tensions surrounding the Red Sea.
The April Brent futures is trading at $83.21/bbl at the time of writing, 16:45 GMT. The contract traded down to a low of $81.97/bbl at noon and subsequently experienced a steady rise throughout the afternoon to settle around the $83/bbl mark.
This fortnight in LNG, we have seen a poor heating demand in Europe amid stocks still at 66% of full capacity compared to last fortnight’s levels of 70%, on Jan 31. Read more in our LNG Report.
The Apr Brent futures contract eased off from yesterday’s strength and stood at $82.00/bbl as of 10:30 GMT.
Despite the geopolitical risk premia buoying up the naphtha E/W, we recommended shorting the Mar E/W in our Feb 13 naphtha report. Find out more about the logic behind this trade in our new case study.
Prompt Brent futures flat price has seen a much stronger afternoon. Prices were supported from $80.74/bbl at 11:40 GMT to $83.14/bbl at 16:45 GMT.
The Apr Brent futures contract breached past the $83/bbl handles at 18:25 GMT on Feb 13 but eased off from this level and was seen hovering around $82.85/bbl as of 10:15 GMT today.
Onyx CEO, Greg Newman, is delighted to welcome Jorge Montepeque to the Onyx Capital Group family, as Managing Director, Benchmarks.
The Apr Brent futures contract continued to be supported overnight with prices holding above the $82/bbl mark and trading at $82.72/bbl at 10:00 GMT (time of writing). Apr WTI saw a similar upward momentum with prices at $77.66/bbl at 10:00 GMT.
The Apr Brent futures contract briefly broke through the $82/bbl handles, however, prices have come off slightly to $81.80/bbl as of 17:10 GMT.
Prices have strengthened in the Brent futures, RBOB futures and the ICE LS gasoil futures for the Apr tenor. From a technical perspective, the Apr Brent and RBOB futures are in neutral territory with the RSI around the 60-handles, signalling upward momentum.
Oil prices dipped slightly into Monday, back into $81/bbl handles, after seeing a 6% gain last week having fallen 9% a week previous, with heavy price swings very characteristic of the market at the moment.
Managed by money positions saw a removal in both longs and shorts in the benchmark Brent futures whilst WTI futures recorded a flip to bearish positioning in the week to Feb 06.
