Repeat?

Brent oil price briefly fell below $100 late yesterday, but is trading slightly higher this morning.

The oil price has dropped heavily this week and yesterday was no exception. Likely it is the fear of global recession that sends prices lower currently. It will be interesting to see if today will be a repeat of earlier days or if news and events will send prices back upwards. The US dollar remains around multi-year high.

Supporting oil prices was the US yesterday announcing additional sanctions against Iran in an attempt to "re-vive" the 2015 nuclear deal. The sanctions are primarily directed at companies who supply and sell Iranian oil to East Asia. The agreement was interrupted in 2018 by the former American president, but the world is now severely short of oil. However, it has shown difficult to come back on track in the talks about the deal and hence the Iranian oil remains sanctioned.

Furtermore, rumours have it that Russia has suspended activities in a pipeline transporting around 1.2 mio. barrels of oil per day from Kasakhstan to the Black Sea. The suspension is allegedly set to last for 30 days, however, oil is apperantly still flowing through the pipeline.

The latest oil stocks data from the American Petroleum Institute (API) was published last night. The data showed a surprise build in crude oil stocks of 3.8 mio. barrels while gasoline and distillates stocks fell by 1.8 mio. and 0.635 mio. barrels respectively. Now this afternoon's EIA oil inventory report will be followed closely for confirmation/deviation of this trend.

This afternoon, the ECB publishes its account of monetary policy meeting, meeting notes from the bank's previous meeting, and additional U.S. jobs data.

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