The July Brent Futures flat price has generally been well supported this morning, rising to a high of $84.50/bbl at 08:00 BST. Following this, it briefly softened to $84/bbl by 09:45 BST, before it swiftly rebounded to $84.30/bbl handles, where it currently resides as of 11:10 BST (time of writing). Israeli tanks have encircled the entire eastern half of the city of Rafah, with residents describing almost constant explosions and gunfire east and northeast of the city today. Malaysia’s Home Minister has announced the country will only recognize sanctions imposed by the United Nations and not by individual countries, following claims by a top US official that Iran has relied on Malaysian service providers to sell US-sanctioned oil in the region. In further geopolitical news, a Ukrainian peace summit set to take place from June 15-16 in Lucerne, which the Swiss agreed to host at Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s behest in January, represents potentially the most ambitious bid in recent memory by Switzerland to mediate a major conflict and shift away from its famed and historic neutrality, displaying how Swiss economic and security interest increasingly align with Western Europe over Russia. Argentina’s state oil firm YPF nearly doubled its y-o-y Q1 profit to $657 million on the back of higher production (+7% in crude and +21% in shale oil) and recovering prices, with revenues also seeing an uptick to $4.31 billion (+2%), just above expectations. The front and 6-month spreads are $0.54/bbl and $3.44/bbl respectively.
