World News
Three Straight Losses For Oil As More Bad News From China Spooks Traders
Oil suffered a third straight day of losses on Tuesday due to persistent worries about lagging demand in China, as new data showed that the world's second-largest economy grew somewhat less than expected last month.
After it was learned that China's growth rate was 4.7 percent in April-June compared to expectations of a 5.1 percent boost, Brent settled down $1.12 to $83.73 per barrel.
West Texas Intermediate settled down $1.15 to $80.76.
The International Monetary Fund contributed to bearish sentiment on Tuesday by warning that risks abound even though the global economy is set for modest growth over the next two years amid a bottoming-out in Europe and stronger consumption and exports for China.
Daniel Ghali, a commodity strategist at TD Securities, wrote in a note to clients, "With our gauge of global commodity demand trending notably lower, we expect downside pressures to continue to build without an additional boost to supply risk."
By contrast, the American Petroleum Institute reported a third straight week of drawdowns for crude in the U.S., by 4.44 million barrels for the week ending July 12 and for a total loss of 15.5 million barrels.
Also, the Department of Energy reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve rose by 0.6 million barrels as of July 1 to 373.7 million barrels, the highest level since December 2022 but still below the 656 million barrels of inventory in June 2020.
In other oil news on Tuesday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) ongoing crude production cuts were cited as the reason why the IMF downgraded its economic growth forecast for Saudi Arabia to just 1.7 percent, compared to its earlier projection of 2.6 percent.
The IMF added that it expects the effects of the cuts to spill over into 2025, with GDP growth of 4.7 percent next year (a downward revision of 1.3 percentage points from April).
Key Bunker Prices More
| VLSFO | MGO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $/mt | +/- | $/mt | +/- | |
| Singapore | 627.50 | 3.00 | 643.50 | 2.00 |
| Rotterdam | 530.50 | 3.00 | 636.50 | 3.50 |
| Houston | 526.00 | 0.00 | 665.00 | 0.50 |
| Fujairah | 608.50 | 8.00 | 778.50 | 2.00 |
| Global 20 Ports Average | 612.50 | 3.50 | 746.50 | 1.00 |
| Global 4 Ports Average | 573.00 | 5.00 | 681.00 | 3.00 |
| Global Average Bunker Price | 657.00 | 4.00 | 827.50 | 2.50 |
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