- Oil extends gains amid short-term supply outages and expectations of a rebound in Chinese demand
- March ’23 WTI gained nearly $1.37 this morning to trade above $75/Bbl
- Saudi Arabia unexpectedly raised rates for its primary market Asia indicating its optimism in oil demand
- An earthquake in Turkey halted oil flows to the Ceyhan oil terminal, and technical issues in one of Norway's North Sea oil fields also halted production
- Additionally, the market awaits comments on monetary policy from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell
- Saudi Arabia raised its prices for crude that will be shipped to Asia in March (Bloomberg)
- Saudi’s flagship Arab Light grade to Asia for March loadings was increased by $0.20/Bbl to a premium of $2.00/Bbl over the Dubai/Oman average
- This is the first price hike in six months and indicates that Saudi Arabia might be optimistic about an oil demand rebound
- Iraq hopes to resume flowing oil through Turkey to the Ceyhan terminal as soon as today, according to an official from SOMO, the country's state oil-marketing company (Bloomberg)
- The official added that the pipes were checked, and “there was no damage to them or to the storage tanks”
- Supplies to Turkey’s Ceyhan export terminal were halted following an earthquake on February 5
- In January, the port exported more than 1 MMBbl/d or 1% of global supplies
- Norway’s Equinor said it halted output at the largest North Sea oil field due to a technical issue
- Output from Phase 1 of the Johan Sverdrup field (0.5 MMBbl/d) was halted on Monday after an issue with the cooling system
- According to a company spokesman, the problem was being repaired, and the disruption was expected to last at least two days