Market still feels heavy despite bottlenecks and closed arbs
- Futures markets continue to look weak this morning with Brent down $1.60/bbl.
- Oman/Iran talks to re-open Hormuz appear to be making some progress but no deal yet.
- Murban/Dubai spread bouncing higher by $4.25/bbl today to $12.50/bbl, had traded as low as -$3.00/bbl at the beginning of July and spiked to $26.50/bbl last week.
- WTI arbs into NWE look better day-on-day but the arb remains shut both in terms of landed value and refining margin value.
- Protesters caused Libya’s El Feel production to be halted. Small outage volume-wise but worth keeping an eye on overall.
- Asian buyers competing for late summer / Q4 barrels could push the October Murban/Dubai spread back into the $15–$20 range seen back in March and April, and hinted at last week in the September contract.
- Flows from the AG remain significantly restricted.
About the Author
Aaron Kildow | Crude Commodity Owner, Sparta Commodities
Aaron is Sparta’s Commodity Owner for crude, covering physical and financial oil markets, hedging structures, and customised oil balances. He co-founded The Oil Balance and spent over a decade at Macquarie Group building supply/demand models for Cushing, PADD 1, and PADD 3, with earlier trading and derivatives roles at CHS, Musket Corp., and Prudential Financial.
Connect: LinkedIn
About Sparta
Founded in 2020, Sparta made waves in the commodity analytics space in March 2022 when it secured a $6m series A investment from Singular. This success then later snowballed into a further $17.5 million in a series A funding round led by the technology venture capital firm FirstMark, with participation from existing shareholder, Singular.
The platform, created by former traders Miles Moseley and Felipe Elink Schuurman, is designed to answer a common problem shared by most traders: 90% of pricing data required to make trading decisions is kept in silos and shared manually by voice, email, or chat.
Sparta breaks these existing data silos and combines the physical and paper markets to provide traders with live access to global raw prices, from futures and swaps to forward freight and physical premiums. We work with clients globally, including Philips 66, Chevron, Trafigura, Equinor and more.
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Distillates strength pulls further ahead after a short breather, as tightness looms ahead; jet looks...
Diesel arbs into Europe are mostly closed despite the recent upturn in pricing. Meanwhile Jet arbs East-West are much more favourable. Further weakness in SG10 E/W and in NWE Jet CIF diffs likely.
14 AUG 26 - 08:08
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14 AUG 26 - 07:22