The July Brent Futures flat price has had a choppy afternoon, which it began in $83.00/bbl handles, before dipping twice to $82.55/bbl and $82.45/bbl at 14:05 BST and 15:45 BST, respectively. Following this, the price rallied to a high of $83.60/bbl at 17:15 BST, which it has since hovered around as of 17:40 BST (time of writing). Saudi Aramco’s CFO has announced that global oil demand was up 2% in Q1 2024 y-o-y, with inventories at five-year lows, despite increases in supply. Evidencing the former statement, India has reported its April oil demand has risen 6.1% y-o-y to 19.9 million mt, with gasoline demand having risen 14.1% to 3.3 million mt, diesel demand by 1.4% to 7.9 million mt and naphtha demand by 3.9% to 1.2 million mt. However, Japan’s February crude imports have fallen by 140kbbls/d (-5.4%) compared to the previous month, which also represents a fall of almost 360kbbls (-13%) compared to February 2023. Asian refiners are considering cuts to refined fuel output in the coming months after excess diesel supplies squeezed refining margins. Taiwan’s Formosa Petrochemical Corp 6505 and South Korea’s GS Caltex plan to cut output by 16kbbls/d and 25kbbls/d in May, respectively. Finally, PetroVietnam has announced new oil discoveries, with initially estimates of the reserves being around 100mbbls. The front and 6-month spreads are $0.46/bbl and $3.00/bbl, respectively.
