Brent futures softened from over $80 last week, to stabalise around $78/bbl on Feb 6. Geopolitically, tensions persist in the Middle East with ongoing conflicts and ceasefire talks proving elusive. Despite positive economic indicators, market enthusiasm appears lacking, reflected in WTI spreads in contango and a rangebound regime across the crude complex.

As for the refinery margin change; the weakness in crude oil is impacting refined products. The Dated Brent market, with a lack of interest in expiry and resistance observed in DFLs amid increased March-loading barrels and Asia refinery maintenance.

For macro economic news and the one to watch, we've seen continued weakness in inflation, as yesterday European PPI has come down 10.6% year on year. However, the big news is in the US payroll data from last week. Although the market was looking for weakness, some were shocked to find the US unemployment rate fell from 3.8 to 3.7%.

Martha's trade idea is to buy the Q3 Gasnap (European Gasoline EBOB, sell European naphtha).

If you would like to connect with any of our hosts on LinkedIn, please click on the hyperlinks below:

Greg Newman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oilderivatives/
Vincent Wu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincent-wu-099816125/
Martha Dowding: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martha-dowding-ab84801a6/
James Brodie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesbrodiecmt/

Chapters for this episode are:
0:00 Welcome
0:54 This Week in Trading
4:36 CFTC Positioning
6:05 Macro Market News
13:48 Refinery Margins
20:50 LPGs
23:34 Chinese Economy
27:59 US Economy
28:39 "Googling Oil:" World Oil News
36:30 Biden Banning LNG Exports
41:58 Trade Idea
45:41 Poll Results and Outro

Refinery Profitability | S6 E06

Flux News