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Trends

Rotterdam: $ 1 higher
Singapore: $ 1 higher
US Gulf: $ 1 higher

Mixed oil news (Brent: $111.2)

Minor news across the board, but adding up they all influenced oil prices.

The ECB decided to keep interest rates unchanged at 0.75%. At the subsequent press conference chairman Mario Draghi was upbeat about growth expectation in the Euro Zone, and expected a modest acceleration in the second half of 2013.

Negotiations between P5+1 and Iran experienced a setback yesterday. As Iran accused Israel of genocide the U.S. envoy walked out. The next technical meeting is 17-18 March, and the big political get together will be early April (4-5).

In the North Sea a pipeline has been restarted after a 5-day halt. In the past 10 years North Sea production has, on average, fallen short of expectations by almost 250,000 bpd. Amongst others the weather conditions make extractions "slightly" more difficult than the average production.

Later today, at 14.30 CET, the unemployment figures from the U.S. will be published. Consensus is for 7.9%. Regarding the FED, they still seemed fixed on continuing QE3 until unemployment drops towards 6-6.5%.

Recommendation

Consumers are advised to establish partly hedges at current levels. Improving macro figures; two geopolitical wildcards (Venezuela and Iran) and accommodating central banks are all supportive for oil prices. Debt issues seems to be the only factor pulling in the other direction. As the markets are well aware of the debt, it no longer works as surprising jack-in-the-box.