Oil commentary - 1 September 2023

Morning all and say hello to Friday. Well hello there Friday!! you cheeky monkey youuu, come hereeeee. Brent is trading this morning at $87.10 up 0.27 and WTi is trading up 0.20 at $83.83. So, it’s a Singapore holiday today, the USA are off on Monday for Labor Day and the biggest energy conference in Asia kicks off in Singapore early Monday morning (where you will be treated by Kpler’s wonderful research team to a plethora of invaluable information at our forum, won’t you?!!? Shameless plug, doesn’t careeeeee). So let’s call today “a fairly thin day ahead” and keep it brief. Brent is on track to end the week up and ever closer to the magical $90 per bbl. Where are all those doom mongers now with calls for $60 per bbl on Brent during the second half of this year, eh? Ah, there you are, let me help you up, and put that glass down. I think what we are seeing is the market price in the fact that the OPEC+ voluntary supply cuts are working and keeping prices elevated, this strategy will, more than likely, be extended through the end of the year I think, but keep your eyes on the headlines. On the products side, and keeping it local, we saw prices at the pump in the UAE rise by about 10pct for the month of September, this was to be expected and indeed, your friendly neighbourhood oil commentator (me!) warned you all earlier this week, didn’t he? (Check Monday 28 August commentary out for more detail on the reasons why). So, I jolly well hope you did the sensible thing and hedged this exposure by filling your car up yesterday? Good. As I said above, APPEC next week, this commentary will be taking a break. What do we think will be discussed? Gas. Gasoil. Gas. Oil. I look forward to seeing many of you next week. Have a great weekend.