ING hæfter sig ved, at den russiske olie slipper for de nye vestlige sanktioner. I stedet or bliver der et EU-stop for import af russisk kul, selv om det vil ramme Europa. Beslutningen skabte ro på oliemarkedet. Men hvis EU-landene mener, at nye sanktioner er påkrævet, vil ING ikke udelukke, at der bliver forbud mod import af russisk olie.
The Commodities Feed: Russian oil escapes sanctions for now
Energy
The oil market gave back a lot of its earlier gains on Tuesday, with it becoming clear that the EU would not target Russian oil under the latest round of sanctions. Instead, coal would be targeted when it comes to Russian energy exports.
Volatility in the oil market has eased as the market comes to terms with the impact from self-sanctioning of Russian oil. There are also signs that tightness in the physical market is easing or at least the market is not as concerned about tightness at the moment.
The prompt Brent timespread has fallen sharply over the last month. This spread was above US$4/bbl back in early March, whilst it is now trading at below US$1.50/bbl. The DFL spread is also at its weakest level since late January. In addition, the physical market in the North Sea has seen cargoes offered well below levels seen just a few weeks ago.
This suggests that many in the market were assuming a bigger impact on Russian oil flows than we are currently seeing. However, there is still plenty of uncertainty over how sanctions evolve in future. If the EU believes that further rounds of sanctions are needed, we cannot rule out that this will eventually include oil.
API numbers released overnight were fairly uneventful. The API reported that US crude oil inventories increased by 1.08MMbls over the week, whilst crude stocks at Cushing increased by 1.79MMbbls. The products side also saw relatively small changes, with gasoline inventories falling by 543Mbbls, whilst distillate stocks grew by 593Mbbls.
