In the week ending 04 Mar, the May’25 Brent futures contract declined from a weekly high of $73.55/bbl on 27 Feb down to a touch below $70.00/bbl on 04 Mar, with price breaking firmly below to $68.90/bbl as of 1500 GMT on 05 Mar. This week, there was strong bearish sentiment in crude oil prices after OPEC+ announced plans to go ahead with production hikes in April, combined with demand concerns surrounding Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China. In line with this bearishness, Onyx’s weekly CFTC COT predictor anticipates speculative players could reduce length in Brent, while increasing their short positions for the week ending 04 Mar. Managed-by-money long positions are expected to fall by 10.8mb, or about -3.5% w/w. Meanwhile, speculative players are projected to add 2.8mb to their short positions (+2.9% w/w). Finally, prod/merc players are expected to be risk-off, trimming around 45mb and 60mb from their long and short positions, respectively.
