- Oil extends gains after trading lower earlier today
- Feb ’23 WTI gains nearly $1 this morning to trade above $76/Bbl
- Crude fell by about $1/Bbl during the overnight session after API estimated a 14.9 MMBbl crude build for last week
- It would be the largest build since February 2021 if confirmed by the EIA today
- The market focus remains on the outlook for recovery in Chinese demand and U.S. monetary policy
- Additionally, the U.S. Dollar fell to its level in seven months, supporting crude prices
- A weaker dollar (DXY Index) can cause foreign buyers of dollar-denominated commodities to pay more for the same amount of goods
- Thursday’s CPI data will be closely watched for further indications of the pace of future rate hikes
- Nigeria's crude production increases to 1.5 MMBbl/d after a reduction in oil theft
- Due to a reduction in theft, Nigeria's crude production increased to 1.5 MMBbl/d from less than 1 MMBbl/d in September 2022, according to the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC)
- Additionally, they noted that they were still fighting oil theft, which is expected to result in more production levels in the long term
- Africa's largest producer has struggled to stabilize its production due to Internal strife, especially in the Delta region, compounded by rampant theft from its pipelines and years of underinvestment
- IEA says the EU's ban on Russian oil products will alter trade flows and reconfigure markets (S&P Global)
- The EU's ban on Russian oil product exports on Feb 5 would be more complex than the impact of the sanctions on seaborne Russian crude that came into force on Dec 5, said Tim Gould, IEA's Chief Energy Economist at the 13th Global UAE Energy Forum
- "We are going to need to have a very complex reconfiguration of flows also in the Atlantic Basin with Europe taking more from Middle Eastern suppliers and from North America, and then potentially Russian oil product exports finding a home in parts of Latin America or in Africa," added Gould
- The IEA is forecasting that Russian output will fall by 1.4 MMBbl/d in 2023 due to the impact of EU sanctions and the G7 price cap