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OILUKJUN21 – Brent Crude Oil (June)
OILUSMAY21 – WTI Crude Oil (May)
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Upcoming events:
Today at 12:00 GMT: OPEC’s Monthly Oil Market Report
Today at 20:30 GMT: Weekly storage report from the American Petroleum Institute
Wednesday: IEA’s Oil Market Report
Wednesday: EIA’s Weekly Petroleum Status Report
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Crude oil remains stuck in neutral and has during the past month, and in line with several other commodities, been struggling to find a gear. While the whole commodity sector has run into a period of consolidation and reduced investment interest due to the (temporary) loss of momentum, crude oil has been struggled to unite short term challenges with medium term opportunities.
The current rangebound behavior has been triggered by a market torn between focusing on the prospect for stronger growth and increased vaccine-led mobility driving higher demand and the impact of continued virus flare-ups, and rising US shale oil production just as OPEC+ prepares to add supply over the coming months. Adding to this the potential for rising production from quota exempt OPEC countries such as Libya and not least Iran as nuclear negotiations have resumed in Vienna. On top of these, concerns that China may tighten liquidity conditions and growth in order to combat rising inflation.
So far, however there are no signs of a let up in Chinese demand for key commodities after its trade surplus for March ended up much lower than expected. One of the main reasons being a continued strong appetite for key raw materials from crude oil, copper, iron ore and coal. During the month China imported record levels of copper concentrates, nearly 50 million tons or 11.7m b/d of crude oil, the highest monthly figure since last July, and more than 100 million tons of iron ore.