News

1) With the latest monthly OPEC report out today, it seemed a fun exercise to take a peek at how exports are doing for Saudi, Iraq and Iran amid current production freeze chatter.

And, yep, crude loadings from the triumvirate are up 12 percent from January’s volume, with Saudi exports above 7.5mn bpd last month, Iraq at 3.2mn bpd, and Iran at 2.6mn bpd. Very healthy indeed.

2) As mentioned above, we have all the fun of the fair over the next couple of days, with OPEC’s monthly oil market report out today and IEA’s released tomorrow.

According to secondary sources, OPEC production ticked lower last month, as an increase from Iran and Saudi was offset by losses from Nigeria, and to a lesser extent, Libya. (Primary sources were particularly contrary this month, with a huge increase of 185,900 bpd of production from Nigeria, compared to secondary showing a drop).

The cartel has kept its demand-side expectations basically the same as the prior month (+1.23 million barrels per day of growth this year, +1.15mn bpd in 2017), but has revised up its expectations for non-OPEC supply both this year and next.

This year’s upward revision is due to U.S. production holding up better than expected, while non-OPEC supply next year is set to get a boost from new production at Kazakhstan’s Kashagan oil field. After projecting a drop in non-OPEC supply next year in the last few months, the cartel now sees a 200,000 bpd increase.

3) The charts below are also from the latest OPEC report, highlighting its expectations for the global economy going forward. While it sees Brazil and Ru...