In the week ending 25 Feb, the Ukrainian drone attack on the CPC pipeline provided some initial support to Apr’25 Brent futures, trading up to a weekly high of $76.90/bbl on 20 Feb. However, we saw consistent weakness in the Apr’25 contract thereafter, declining to an intraday low of $72.85/bbl on 25 Feb. After EIA stats showed an unexpected 4.07mb build in US crude inventories for the week to 07 Feb, we saw an even higher build of 4.6mb for the week to 14 Feb which pressured crude. Furthermore, ongoing negotiations toward a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire continued to weigh on prices. In line with this bearishness, Onyx’s weekly CFTC COT predictor anticipates speculative players could remove longs in Brent, while increasing their short positions for the week ending 25 Feb. Managed-by-money long positions are expected to fall by 10.4mb, or about -3% w/w. Meanwhile, speculative players are projected to add almost 2.9mb to their short positions (+3.1% w/w). Finally, prod/merc players are expected to add around 3.8mb to their long positions while removing 12.6mb from their short positions.
