The North Sea continues to be a hub for outrageously bullish moves from trade houses (they’ve got to pay that fine somehow). For whom (or maybe why) the Vi-tolls is the question, maybe the Dated Brent is seeing fewer themes of honour or sacrifice but ‘no man is an island’… The physical diff has been pumped to its highest since Feb and the backwardation is dizzying. Are the fundamentals strong enough to hold the bridge? Libyan supply disruption and the bottom falling off global freight rates help bring some rationale to the fundamentally focused. However, crude stocks rose by over 1.3mb in the US, and the drop in gasoline stocks was heard as much as a pin drop and the Oct’24 RBBR is trading in the $10s. The China Cheer we once hoped for has changed to China Chundering: 2024, The Year of the Drag-ging on of economic turmoil and shoddy oil signals. Chinese margins in oil products and steel are abysmal, and July’s refining stats showed a 6.1% drop from 2023, the weakest month since Oct 2022. Equities have seen an exodus, and the crypto market declined by 2.9% in the last 24 hours (although it’s A-level results day, so they may be back tomorrow).
