In the week ending 15 Jul, exchange open interest in Brent and WTI futures increased by a combined 173mb (+3.66%). This is the second week of increasing risk in the crude futures benchmarks. This increase was fairly similar, on a percentage basis, with Brent recording a 95.35mb (+3.47%) increase, and WTI seeing OI increase by 77.87 (+3.91%). Looking at the combined futures’ speculative positioning changes in the week to 15 Jul, there was a 15.60mb drop in length from money managers, (-2.95%). Short positions increased by 17.34mb (+10.53%). This bearish position change was not uniform across WTI and Brent. Brent, in fact, saw the reverse, with net positioning increasing w/w. Prod/merc players, on the other hand, added both long and short positions in both contracts. There were more prod/merc long positions added in Brent and WTI. The week to 15 Jul saw crude contracts react to President Trump’s announcement that he plans to impose a 100% tariff on Russian goods, along with secondary sanctions on other countries that continue to buy oil from Russia, if a new agreement is not reached within 50 days.
