By Srinivas Chowdary Sunkara // Petrobazaar // 4th Sep, 2020.
Brent oil futures for Oct delivery settled 36 cents or 0.81% lower at $44.07 on London based ICE futures Europe exchange and WTI Oct futures closed 14 cents or 0.34% at $41.37 a barrel on NYMEX last night. In Shanghai, Crude oil main contract futures prices dropped by 3.8 Yuan or -1.32% at 284.4 Yuan/barrel while MCX crude oil current month futures contract prices inched Rs.10 up at Rs.3056 a barrel yesterday. Brent premium over WTI narrowed down to $2.66 during the session.
The world crude oil benchmark prices opened flat today and trading sideways during the session. Weak demand added to the pandemic worries that got strengthened with yesterday's weekly U.S data , showed fell in gasoline demand along with soaring distillates during the last week. Traders are looking at macro economic picture while today's solid U.S payrolls figures failed to please the crude bazaar.
Analysts are in the opinion that weak dollar is the only support that may push oil price up since broad fundamentals do not really move the oil prices either way at this point of time. Slowing consumption recovery, Signs of faltering supply cut pact are the other factors that made investor more sceptical. John Kemp reported that Brent's six month calendar spread has slumped to a contango of -$2.29 from a contango of just -$0.48 on June 19. He further said that betting prices will fall, some hedge funds and other money managers have boosted short positions in Brent futures and options to the equivalent of 84 Mb from just 51 Mb at the end of June. U.S rig numbers are awaited.
Good day to all and happy week end.
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