ICE Brent crude futures fell in early Asian trading as the impact of Hurricane Beryl on U.S. Gulf oil operations appeared minimal.
As of 12:00 Beijing time, the price of Brent crude oil futures September contract was US$85.51 per barrel, down 24 cents from the settlement price on July 8. The contract closed down 79 cents on the day.
The August contract price of WTI crude oil futures was $82.07 per barrel, down 26 cents from the settlement price on July 8, and the contract closed down 83 cents on the same day.
Refineries in Texas have not reported major operational issues after Hurricane Beryl made landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast on July 8. Marathon's 631,000-bpd Galveston Bay refinery flared after a brief power outage. ExxonMobil said its 565,000-bpd Baytown plant on the Houston Ship Channel was operating steadily, and Chevron said its 112,000-bpd Pasadena refinery on the same ship channel continued to supply customers. Phillips 66 said its 265,000-bpd Sweeney refinery in the Old Ocean region, closer to the storm's path, had restored power and continued operations. Citgo reduced operating rates at its 165,000-bpd Corpus Christi refinery over the weekend in preparation for the hurricane, but is now returning to normal operations.
Trading company Gunvor is holding 4 million barrels of Forties crude oil and has not found a buyer. Gunvor loaded about 2 million barrels of Forties crude oil onto the VLCC Baltic Loyalty in June and shipped it to the South Wold Waters in the UK, which is often used as a floating storage point. Gunvor also plans to load the VLCC C.Spirit from July 15 to 19, according to fixed unit reports and trader sources. Weaker demand for Forties crude oil in northwest Europe has prompted sellers to look for buyers outside the region. In the past three years, nearly half of Forties crude oil has been exported to northwest Europe, and about a third has been shipped to China and South Korea.
Kazakhstan's Energy Ministry said on July 8 that Kazakhstan has pledged to offset crude oil production that exceeds its OPEC+ quota from January to June by September 2025. A draft timetable for compensating overproduction was submitted at the OPEC+ meeting in Vienna on June 2. The Ministry of Energy said that once it receives full output information from all secondary sources for June 2024, it will submit a revised compensation plan to the OPEC Secretariat. Kazakhstan's OPEC+ production quota is 1.468 million barrels per day.
Saudi Aramco expects to supply about 25% more scheduled crude oil loadings to Chinese customers in August than in July, after approving customer requests for higher loadings. Aramco will supply a total of about 45 million barrels (1.45 million barrels per day) of Saudi crude oil to its customers in China in August, up from 36 million barrels in July. Chinese companies are expected to request increased volumes of scheduled crude this month after avoiding spot purchases from the Middle East Gulf last month.
(The above content comes from the latest views of Argus, an independent international energy and commodity price assessment agency)
Article forwarded from: Jinshi Data
