China's Crude Oil Futures Boom Amid Looming Iran Sanctions
A U.S. decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran is supporting China's newly established crude oil futures, and may spur efforts to start trading oil in yuan rather than dollars, traders and analysts said.Since launching in March, Shanghai crude oil futures have seen a steady pick-up in daily trading, while open interest - the number of outstanding longer-term positions and a gauge of institutional interest - has also surged.Traded daily volumes hit a record 250,000 lots last Wednesday…
Asian Floating Storage Declines as Crude Market Tightens
Strong demand is tightening the market but rising US output could sap efforts to rebalance market. The amount of oil stored on tankers around Singapore has dropped sharply in the last months, the latest indication that OPEC-led supply cuts are successfully tightening crude markets even as U.S. exports have soared. Shipping data in Thomson Reuters Eikon shows around 15 super-tankers are currently filled with oil in waters off Singapore and western Malaysia, storing around 30 million barrels of crude. That is half the number of ships in June and down from 40 tankers holding surplus fuel in mid-2017. The drop in floating storage around…
Market Report Shows Oil Prices Bullish
Burgeoning momentum to own oil seems poised to push oil prices higher for now. On the week, U.S commercial stocks built led by crude, while Japanese crude stocks drew strongly, according to a market report by NYC-based PIRA Energy Group. It is hard not to be bullish oil prices with the global economy gradually improving, tight physical oil markets and MENA turmoil, which is already substantially reducing global oil supplies and has the potential to reduce supplies further. Current positioning and likely September deflationary type headlines, due in part to a challenging calendar, but also the startup of Iranian nuclear negotiations, pose downside risks to oil prices.
