- Oil trades lower amid ongoing concerns over potential interest rate hikes
- August ’23 WTI lost 13c this morning to trade around $69.43/Bbl
- Expectations of future rate hikes continue to weigh on crude prices in addition to moderate Chinese demand recovery
- Furthermore, the strength of the U.S. dollar has made commodities priced in USD expensive for holders of other currencies
- World central bank chiefs on Wednesday agreed that more policy tightening is needed to curb high inflation, confident it won't lead to recessions (Reuters)
- Fed Chair Powell and ECB President Christine Lagarde signaled continuous rate hikes in the US and Europe
- Also, Bank of England's Andrew Bailey vowed to tackle the UK's persistent inflation, and Japan's Kazuo Ueda hinted at possibly ending their ultra-easy policy
- Unyielding Saudi Oil Tanker Queue at Egypt's Ain Sukhna Terminal (Bloomberg)
- Since mid-June, a backlog of seven Saudi and two Chinese supertankers carrying Saudi oil persists at Egypt's Ain Sukhna terminal
- Despite the departure of three tankers, new ones have joined the queue, suggesting an ongoing problem likely due to storage shortage, exacerbated by recent maintenance in European and North American refineries
- Additionally, Saudi crude exports dipped from 7.5 MMBbl/d in April to 6.6 MMBbl/d in May, continuing the trend this month, according to Kpler