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Fuel oil trend

Rotterdam: $ 3 lower
Singapore: $ 2 higher
US Gulf: $ 1 lower

The downtrend continues

OPEC September production seamed to increase to 30.935 mbpd; the highest in 13 months; stressing that the world is well-supplied with oil at the moment and oil prices slid further yesterday to just below $94, settled at $94.16 per barrel, lowest since June 2012.

The EIA weekly oil inventory data published yesterday followed Tuesday’s API data with draws all over – main surprise was the large draw in crude where a build was expected.

Release: EIA oil data (Consensus)

Crude: -1,363M barrels (0.700M)
Distillates: -2.894M barrels (-0.100M)
Gasoline: -1.836M barrels (-0.767M)
Refinery utilization: -3.6%

Unexpectedly, the ISM Manufacturing PMI (U.S. manufacturing growth) dropped to 56.6 from 59.0 previous. The employment data from ADP, which is published 2 days ahead of the government nonfarm payroll data (Friday), showed an increase to 213K from 202K previous.

We expect some volatility around the ECB interest rate decision and press conference this afternoon. Markets are still wondering what the extent of the easing measures from the central bank will be. Economic data from Europe has lagged lately and PMIs from the area published yesterday were lower than previous month.