Oil commentary - 14 May 2024

Morning all! Happy! Yipppeeee! Tuesdayyyy!! Let me tell you something, my oily chums, the last few days have been far from happy. I will explain shortly, but first, oil? Yep, let’s go. Brent is trading this morning at $83.47 up 0.11 and WTi is trading up 0.11 at $79.23. So, my phone broke. And before, you say “ha yeah, whatever Stanley, we know we you were in Singapore all last week, so what is this “broke” you speak of”. I’m serious, it broke., “Motherboard fried sir, will take three days”. It was at this moment; his soul left the room. Let me tell you something, without a phone or a way of staying in touch with the outside world, you realise how much you rely on it. I have spent the last four days like Tom Hanks from Castaway, with a football next to me called Wilson. Wilsonnnn!!! but, but, but where’s oil!! It also amazed me how these days, without a phone that you are pretty close to death, wherever you turn. Can’t book taxi, stranded on the side of the road = death. Can’t order food = Death. Can’t check emails, hence can’t work, hence no money = death. “Oh good, this gives us a chance to go through wall colourings = please, death”. I am being dramatic, of course. And before you ask, it was a faded mint green we chose. “We”. Ha! ANYWAY, after four of the longest days of my life, I am now back and running with Tim Cook’s latest contraption stapled to my hips, because I am never going through that again. And by crikey isn’t it nice to have my old pals back and to be checking oil markets again, so, what’s happening? Well, the last time we spoke, Brent was trading at $82.96. Today, we are barely 50c higher. WTi is still below $80, but it seems like it’s not going to take much to give it the leg up to get it above that crucial $80 per bbl number. Lots of people looking at inflation data, which will give the Fed, and traders around it, some direction on what happens next. I do wonder though, with markets, and not just energy, but pretty much all markets seemingly doing fairly well right now and having done so for a while, how much longer will commentators keep on using the old statement of “all are looking at the fragile state of the global economy?”. Fragile? Really? This my friends, is why so many have eyes on that crucial inflation data we will see this week. Good day, and week to all.