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By the Oil Desk at Freight Investor Services Ltd.

Brent closed last night at $51.52 and WTI closed at $48.84. Well the whole world seems to have descended on Dubai for MPGC and in times where people need direction then why not listen to some bullish presentations? I read yesterday that the Saudi's are looking to increase their crude oil capacity by 4.5mn bpd to 15mn, barrels per day. 15.5 mn bbls. That is 5,657,500,000 barrels per year. I don't care if you have lived under a rock for the last 10 years and you have a football called Wilson as your best friend like Tom Hanks from Castaway, 5.657 billion barrels is a lot of oil. A lot. So you're probably thinking wow, with a 40pct increase in export capacity, who's going buy it all? It has a home, right? Otherwise that's a huge collection of barrels that's going to be sitting there in the Middle East. Well, even if demand does pick up as dramatically as every oil minister hopes (and that is a big IF), then even that will not be enough to take on additional capacity. Let's also not forget that this is the clearest signal yet that any "cut" will not be extended beyond the end of the year. In fact, it is pretty clear to me that there will be an increase in exports, so the cut is dead in the water. With crude hovering around the bottom of this 50 - 55 range, I'm not sure if it is waiting for a headline to boost back to the upper limits of the range or if it has genuinely had enough of trying to support itself and is going to keel over like Bambi. We shall wait and see.

Economic Data/Events: (Times are London)

* 7am: Markit Russia manufacturing PMI for April, est. 52.6 (prior 52.4)

* 8:50am: Markit France manufacturing PMI for April, final, est. 55.1 (prior 55.1)

* 8:55am: Markit/BME Germany manufacturing PMI for April, final, est. 58.2 (prior 58.2)

* 9am: Markit Eurozone manufacturing PMI for April, final, est. 56.8 (prior 56.8)

* 9:30am: Markit U.K. manufacturing PMI for April, est. 54 (prior 54.2)

* 9:30pm: API issues weekly U.S. oil inventory report

* Argus Canadian Crude Summit, final day

* Today:

* Russia issues April oil production, export estimates

* Bloomberg to publish tanker-tracking estimates of crude exports from Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia this day, or next

* Bloomberg to publish estimate of OPEC April crude production this day, or later in week. This will be last full month of data published before OPEC meets on May 25 in Vienna

* North Sea Norwegian crude loading programs for June

* Bloomberg-compiled weekly snapshot of key U.S. refinery outages with offline capacity projections for CDU, FCC units

* Argus Canadian Crude summit, final day, including Alberta's energy minister, speakers from Pacific Future Energy, Canadian Energy Research Institute, Genesis Energy, LCM Commodities, Macquarie Bank, Canadian Assoc. of Petroleum Producers

Singapore 380 cSt

Jun17 - 291.75 / 293.75

Jul17 - 291.25 / 293.25

Aug17 - 290.75 / 292.75

Sep17 - 290.25 / 292.25

Oct17 - 289.50 / 291.50

Nov17 - 289.25 / 291.25

Q3-17 - 290.75 / 292.75

Q4-17 - 289.25 / 291.25

Q1-18 - 288.00 / 290.50

Q2-18 - 287.00 / 289.50

CAL18 - 285.00 / 288.50

CAL19 - 276.75 / 281.75

CAL20 - 253.25 / 261.25

Singapore 180 cSt

Jun17 - 299.00 / 301.00

Jul17 - 298.25 / 300.25

Aug17 - 297.75 / 299.75

Sep17 - 297.25 / 299.25

Oct17 - 296.75 / 298.75

Nov17 - 296.50 / 298.50

Q3-17 - 297.75 / 299.75

Q4-17 - 296.50 / 298.50

Q1-18 - 295.50 / 298.00

Q2-18 - 294.75 / 297.25

CAL18 - 291.75 / 295.25

CAL19 - 284.75 / 289.75

CAL20 - 262.25 / 270.25

Rotterdam 380 cSt

Jun17 275.75 / 277.75

Jul17 275.50 / 277.50

Aug17 275.00 / 277.00

Sep17 274.25 / 276.25

Oct17 273.25 / 275.25

Nov17 271.75 / 273.75

Q3-17 274.75 / 276.75

Q4-17 271.75 / 273.75

Q1-18 271.25 / 273.75

Q2-18 271.00 / 273.50

CAL18 268.25 / 271.75

CAL19 260.00 / 265.00

CAL20 234.75 / 242.75

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For further details about fuel oil swaps or to discuss trading opportunities, please contact Andrew Cullen, Client Relations & Development Manager, on +44 207 090 1126, or email AndrewC@freightinvestor.com.