Oil commentary - 5 August 2019

Morning all. Brent closed Friday up 1.39 to settle at $61.89 and WTi closed at $55.66 up 1.71. Sometimes in life there are few times that put things into perspective. Sadly, these are usually perilous acts or tragic events but on Friday 26th July, my family and I welcomed a brand-new person into the world. In all the rubbish I write every day, she puts things into perspective better than anyone. Now, before I start blubbing, back to normality eh? This stupid oil market. What's happened over the last ten days? Well, it seems that when I said that if Q2 was the quarter of hope, Q3 was certainly going to be the quarter of realisations, and nearly halfway through Q3, this is certainly starting to ring true. If you're a bull you must be scratching you head like a 6 year old with lice because if the Brent curve is anything to go by and the fact that Iran and Venezuela sanctions have dealt murmurings of a "tight" market, prices are really struggling to maintain above $60 per bbl. You can't say it hasn't been coming though, there is no new evidence to the contrary that supply is anything but plentiful - just realisations that demand isn't great and that oil production globally is accelerating rather nicely. Tensions in the Middle East are prevalent and perhaps this is the only headline that is stopping Brent falling through that magical $6 handle. All other factors, i.e. US-China trade spat, global economy spluttering and OPEC+ cuts being nullified by increases in US oil production have been there since the start of the year and are not going away no matter how hard the bulls try and put the blinkers on. The market needs to start seeing some tangible good news from the big 3 issues hovering over it right now but, in the short term at least, I'd say impasse sums things up nicely. Good day, and week to all.