The July Brent futures flat price has seen a downturn this afternoon, with price action initially rising to $88.20/bbl at 12:50 BST, before dropping as low as $87.08/bbl at 16:00 BST. Since then, there has been a minor rally to just over $87.50/bbl handles at 17:00 BST (time of writing). Valero’s 86kbbls/d Ardmore refinery is assessing its damage and working to restore operations after it shut on Sunday amid severe weather, including deadly tornadoes. Canada’s $24.9 billion Trans Mountain pipeline is set to enter partial operation from May 1st. The expanded pipeline will allow the movement of an extra 590kbbls/d from Alberta to Canada’s Pacific Coast. In addition, Reliance Industries bought its first 2 million barrels of Canadian crude from Shell for July delivery, reportedly at a $6/bbl discount to Sep ICE Brent on delivered basis. In other North American news, US SPR crude inventories rose by around 600kbbls w-o-w to 366.3mbbls last week, with sweet crude unchanged at 143.8mbbls and sour crude up by 600kbbls to 222.5mbbls. Additionally, Saudi Arabia may raise its June OSP for Arab Light crude by 70-90 cents to nearly a $3/bbl premium to Dubai/Oman quotes, the highest in five months. The Jul/Aug and Jul/Jan’25 Brent futures spreads are at $0.88/bbl and $4.10/bbl respectively.
