The Brent futures flat price for the prompt contract initially saw a slight pull back and dipped to below the $89/bbl mark in the early hours. However with the prospect of war still very apparent, the contract has strengthened once again surpassing the $90/bbl mark at 08:45 BST and reaching highs of $90.67/bbl at 10:30 BST. Looking at the CFTC data for the week to Apr 02, in Brent futures we saw a continuation of bullish positioning for a third successive week. Bullish speculators added over 10mbbls (+2.9%) of length, taking open long contracts to its greatest level since Jul’21 at 374mbbls, whilst their bearish counterparts removed 1.2mbbls (-1.7%) of short positioning. WTI speculators followed a similar course increasing their length by almost 10mbbls (+3.8%), coupled with a decrease of only 0.4mbbls (-0.8%) of short positions. Iran are planning to reopen the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline which has been shut for a decade and capable of sending 350kbbls/d to Turkey by month end. Independent refineries in China received a record 1.26 million mt of Sokol in Mar, however, with Sokol cargoes being offered at a price of flat to Brent crude for May delivery, imports are likely to fall to around 0.6 million mt. The front and 6-month Brent futures spreads are at $0.99/bbl and $5.31/bbl, respectively.
