Oil commentary - 10 March 2023

Morning all and welcome to Friday. Brent is trading this morning at $81.12 down 0.47 and WTi is trading down 0.58 at $75.14. Eesshhh, a pretty depressing week for oil markets which have slowly ebbed away any joys at the start of the week to end things more miserable than Antonio Conte. On the face of it though it’s much the same story for oil prices since the start of the year, stuck in a range between $80 and $86.50 since early January. Once again, we land softly back against the supportive cushion of “nobody is really sure yet”. Not sure on what Chinese demand data looks like after cautiously reopening, not sure what inflation looks like in the USA and what Jay-Pow does with his box of interest rate tricks and of course what a change in flows of Russian energy and how that material is replaced. One thing that has changed though is the relationship the Biden administration has with the oil industry, writes Bloomberg. CERAweek has seen the oil industry get together and talk about how the world still very much needs fossil fuels, a topic far too thorny to be discussed even six months ago, save you from a Greta Thunberg stern monobrow stare “How dare youuuu Stanleeyyyyy”. Gulp. Anyway, back from behind the sofa and it does seem that the US oil industry is once again embraced by a warming combustion engine fired cuddle from the powers that be, the question is - Is that here to stay though? Hmmm, let’s see how OPEC judge that, shall we? Have a great weekend.