In addition to our regular Monday CFTC COT analysis report, Onyx Insight will publish its own in-house CFTC COT forecast ahead of the official Friday report. The model forecasts changes in long and short positions using machine learning, utilising Onyx’s proprietary data.
The Jan’25 Brent futures contract has weakened this afternoon, falling from $73.05/bbl at 12:00 GMT to $72.45/bbl at 17:50 GMT (time of writing). EIA data for the week to 22 Nov showed a larger-than-expected draw of 1.84mb in US crude oil inventories, compared to a build of 0.5mb the prior week. In the news today, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned the US today to halt a “spiral of escalation” over Ukraine, stating “you mustn’t supply Kyiv with everything they want”, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, Russian state news agency TASS quoted an official saying Moscow was working to put its Sarmat ICBM, part of its strategic nuclear arsenal, on combat duty. In other news, the Kazakh Energy Ministry has proposed widening the current six-month ban on fuel exports to gasoline, jet fuel and bitumen, starting January 2025, according to Interfax. Finally, Prax is continuing to work toward buying Shell’s minority stake in the Schwedt oil refinery in east Germany, as per Bloomberg. The shareholder structure of the Schwedt refinery has been complicated by the involvement of Russia’s Rosneft, whose stake was seized by the German government. At the time of writing, the Jan/Feb’25 and Jan/Jul’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.60/bbl and $1.68/bbl, respectively.
The Jan’25 Brent futures contract saw strength this morning amid rangebound price action, increasing from $72.90/bbl at 07:00 GMT to $73.05/bbl at 10:40 GMT (time of writing). Prices saw a brief dip to around $72.70/bbl at 09:10 GMT before rising to this morning’s high of $73.30/bbl at 09:35 GMT. In the news today, the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire approved on Wednesday has taken effect with no reports of early violations of the 60-day truce, according to Bloomberg…
The Jan’25 RBOB futures contract has been rangebound over the past fortnight, trading between 1.95c/gal to 2.00c/gal….
The Jan’25 Brent futures contract initially traded rangebound around high $73/bbl levels this afternoon, before falling to $72.30/bbl level at 18:00 GMT (time of writing). There was a brief spike to $74.25/bbl just before 14:45 GMT as a Bloomberg report revealed that OPEC+ had begun talks on delaying the restart of oil production again.
The physical Dated market remains very strong, with the physical differential remaining in triple figures for around ten days now, at 104c/bbl on 25 Nov. There has been a slight introduction of softness this week as players are pricing in the physical, which is projected to come off into December. In the window, all eyes have really been on Totsa in the past week or so as they have been supporting the physical diff with good cargo buying, potentially for placing into Chinese refineries. There seems a slight unease in the market as they expect this play to end soon and the gap between the physical support and the forward curve, which has seen some softening on expectations of this. We don’t know how much more ammunition they have here, how many more barrels they can buy before the rug is yanked from the market. Talking of Yanks, we are expecting strong US exports in the coming weeks, with Midland cargoes likely flooding the Dated market. How much of this wave Totsa is prepared to buy is another question.
Another week brings another selection of new trade ideas from Onyx Research, this time looking at trades in LPG and Gasoil swaps. Our weekly Onyx Alpha report presents speculative and hedging trades based on technical analysis and data-driven tradecraft methods on Onyx Commitment of Traders (COT) and Flux Financials data.
The Jan’25 Brent futures contract saw steady support this morning, increasing from $73.13/bbl at 07:00 GMT up to $73.70/bbl at 10:40 GMT (time of writing).
The Jan’25 Brent futures contract declined this afternoon from $75.15/bbl at 12:00 GMT down to around $73.10/bbl at 17:40 GMT (time of writing). Bearish sentiment prevailed this afternoon while markets turned focus to talks of an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire. A senior Israeli official said today that Israel’s cabinet would meet on Tuesday to approve a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, a senior US official told Axios today that both Israel and Lebanon agreed to the terms of a ceasefire agreement with a 60-day transition period during which the Israeli military would withdraw from southern Lebanon. In other news, a Reuters report stated that incoming US President Trump is drafting an energy package to expand domestic oil and gas drilling, in addition to expediting LNG export permits. Finally, Kazakhstan could increase its crude oil exports out of Turkey’s port of Ceyhan, with Kazakhstan’s Energy Minister Almasadam Satkaliyev claiming exports via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline could increase to 20 million metric tons a year from the current 1.5 million, not specifying an exact time frame. At the time of writing, the Jan/Feb’25 and Jan/Jul’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.57/bbl and $1.74/bbl, respectively.
After a rangebound start to the week in Brent futures, we saw steady strength as the Jan’25 contract rose from an intraday low of $71.10/bbl on 18 Nov to an intraday high of $74.65/bbl on 22 Nov. Among several bullish and bearish drivers, markets refocused on brewing geopolitical risk in the Russia-Ukraine conflict in particular, with Ukraine firing the US-made ATACMS and UK-made Storm Shadow directly into Russian territory for the first time since the start of the war. This week, Bollinger bands in the Jan’25 contract have narrowed marginally, while open interest continued to drop since its 31 Oct peak of 570mb, now at 311mb as of 21 Nov. We have yet to see a clear directional axe in the market, perhaps as traders await more concrete signs of any potential supply disruption that further escalations in the Russia-Ukraine conflict may bring.
The Jan’25 Brent futures contract concluded last week on a solid note, closing at $75.20/bbl on 22 Nov off the back of escalating tension around the Ukraine war. Prices softened to $74.35/bbl this morning, where they found support briefly, but
In the week ending 19 November, there was a consolidation of the long:short ratios for money managers in Brent and WTI. This is the first time since May that the Brent funds’ long:short ratio surpassed WTI’s. The combined positions showed a small net change in both long and short positions, as money managers took opposing net positions in both contracts. Meanwhile, money managers added length to their ICE LS gasoil futures positions at the fastest rate since June as net positioning turned positive for the first time since the week ending 30 July. European gasoil fundamentals have improved, and the recent rally has been exacerbated by overcrowding of short positions.
The Jan’25 Brent futures contract has softened from $75.30/bbl, seen at 01:10 GMT today, to $74.80/bbl (as of 10:35 GMT, time of writing).
The M1 Henry Hub natural gas futures rallied to $3.563/MMBtu on 22 Nov, although the benchmark natural gas futures contract appears to be meeting resistance at this level. According to LSEG, the amount of gas flowing to the seven big operating US LNG export plants was on track to rise to a 10-month high this week….
The Jan’25 Brent futures contract was supported this afternoon, moving up more than $1 from $73.80/bbl at 12:00 GMT to $75.05/bbl at 17:35 GMT (time of writing). Geopolitical tensions remain at the forefront as Ukraine’s ex-military Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny stated “the Third World War has begun” today, speaking at the Ukrainska Pravda’s UP100 award ceremony. In the news, Gunvor has undertaken a temporary economic shutdown of its Rotterdam refinery, with a capacity of less than 80kb/d, due to a “lack of prompt availability of commercially viable feedstock”. Closure will be effective as of 25 Nov according to Bloomberg. In other news, Kazakhstan’s Tengiz oil field is now producing 10,000 tonnes per day less than planned after repairs, KazMunayGas CEO Askhat Khasenov said. Finally, Russia’s Lukoil is restoring operations of its catalytic cracker complex at their NORSI oil refinery, after breaking down on 13 Nov. NORSI refines about 16 million tons of crude per year, or 5.8% of Russia’s total refined crude, as per Reuters. At the time of writing, the Jan/Feb’25 and Jan/Jul’25 Brent futures spreads stand at $0.45/bbl and $1.77/bbl, respectively.
