MABUX: Bunker market this morning, Sept 13

The Bunker Review was contributed by Marine Bunker Exchange (MABUX)

MABUX World Bunker Index (consists of a range of prices for 380 HSFO, 180 HSFO and MGO (Gasoil) in the main world hubs) demonstrated slight downward trend on Sep.12:

380 HSFO - USD/MT - 390.44 (-2.21)
180 HSFO - USD/MT - 432.42 (-1.47)
MGO - USD/MT – 656.80 (-6.13)

Meantime, world oil indexes fell on Sep.12 after a meeting of the OPEC+ alliance yielded no decision on deepening supply cuts but focused instead on bringing Nigerian and Iraqi output down to their agreed quotas.

Brent for November settlement decreased by $0.43 to $60.38 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. West Texas Intermediate for October delivery fell by $0.66 to $55.09 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The Brent benchmark traded at the premium of $5.29 to WTI. Gasoil for September unchanged: $589.50.

Today morning oil indexes do not have any firm trend so far.

Trump is considering easing sanctions on Iran as a way to increase the odds of a face-to-face meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. As per Bloomberg’s report, part of the motivation behind Bolton’s ouster was a recent meeting in which Trump considered easing oil sanctions on Iran as a sign of good faith, hoping to warm up the Iranian side to agree to a meeting. The idea would be that Trump could meet President Rouhani on the sidelines of the UN Conference in New York later this month. It’s not clear that the Iranian side would agree to such a meeting, which would carry enormous risks for President Rouhani, who has battled with hardliners for years. But even if a meeting does not take place, the fact that Bolton is out and Trump is considering pulling back on the sanctions is a potential driver for lower oil and fuel prices.

OPEC revised down its forecast for global oil demand growth this year by 80,000 bpd to 1.02 million bpd, citing weaker demand in the first half and expectations of slower economic growth for the rest of the year.  The cartel also trimmed its forecast for global oil demand growth in 2020 by 60,000 bpd to 1.08 million bpd, mainly due to changes to the economic outlook for next year. OPEC’s revised estimates are now closer to generally known forecast that global oil demand growth this year won’t exceed 1 million bpd by much. OPEC said that weaker oil demand growth, which is expected to be outpaced by the strong growth in non-OPEC supply, highlights the shared responsibility of all producing countries to support oil market stability to avoid unwanted volatility and a potential relapse into market imbalance.

A key OPEC/non-OPEC monitoring committee met on Sep.12 in Abu Dhabi. The officials stressed that the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee does not have the mandate to consider policy changes but only to evaluate the current market situation and look at implementation. Meantime, ministers have blamed slumping oil prices on demand-sapping trade tensions between the US and China, which are out of their control. From a physical balances standpoint, analysts say the market has been tightening in the past few months due to the OPEC/non-OPEC cuts and US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela.

Besides, Iraq's and Nigeria's oil ministers pledged on Aug.12 to reduce oil output to comply with their OPEC output targets. An OPEC+ statement said it was important for all countries to reach full conformity with cuts. It also said OECD oil stocks remained above the 5-year average. Market monitoring will continue ahead of the next OPEC meeting in December.

The European Central Bank cut its deposit rate to a record low -0.5% from -0.4% and said it will restart bond purchases of 20 billion euros a month from November to prop up euro zone growth.

China’s imports of refined oil products in August jumped by 462,000 mt or 28.4% from the previous month but dropped by 615,000 mt or 22.7% from year-ago level to 2.089 million mt. The country’s exports of oil products in August were 1.414 million mt or 25.8% lower at 4.075 million mt from month-ago level and decreased by 1.245 million mt or 23.4% from the same month of last year.

It forecasts that US shale supply will peak at approximately 14.5 million barrels per day (bpd) around 2030. In the past decade, crude oil coming from shale patches such as the Permian in the US has grown from a negligible contributor to an upstream behemoth, reshaping the industry and the oil market. US Light Tight Oil (LTO) represented less than 1% of global oil supply just nine years ago. Today, US LTO represents close to 10% of total global oil supply, a percentage which is expected to continue its ascent going forward.

We expect bunker prices will slightly down today in a range of minus 2-4 USD.