KUWAIT CITY: Has no one really done a “getting riggy with it” pun yet? OK then, here it goes. We’ve made it to Friday, which means we get a couple of data points to hold our attention at the tail-end of the trading week. First we get the Baker Hughes report, which will once again likely be getting riggy with it (ta-dah!), as prices in fifty-dollardom continue to incentivize drilling activity. After that we get CFTC data, which will likely show an ongoing overcrowded tilt towards the bulls. But for now, hark, here are five things to consider in oil markets today:
The more we look at OPEC loadings, the more that Jack Nicholson movies come to mind. After we mused that last month’s loadings were “As Good As It Gets,” our focus this month has switched to “Something’s Gotta Give,” given the current status of net long financial positioning (at a record), US oil inventories (at a record) and Singapore’s floating storage in recent weeks (at a record).
As for OPEC loadings, it invokes “The Departed,” as that best describes both vessels and OPEC’s discipline. As our ClipperData illustrate below, total OPEC export loadings so far this month are now higher than October’s reference level, after being 1 million barrels per day below it last month.
Granted, some of this rebound can be attributed to rising exports from exempted cartel members (think: Libya, Nigeria), but this doesn’t fully explain the rebound. Venezuelan and Qatari loadings this month are well above both October and December’s levels, while Angolan loadings have rebounded also.
As we have said from the onset of this production cut deal, Saudi, Kuwait and UAE should lead by example — and they appear to be doing so, although full compliance isn’t reflected in lower Saudi loadings. On the aggregate, this leaves us a little higher in terms of OPEC loadings than where we were in October.
