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By Michael Poulson, A/S Global Risk Management

Lately the market consensus has been bearish; could this slight rise in oil prices be an indicator that market has reached its bottom and will gain further from here?

OPEC continues to "consider" deeper cuts although little credibility has been given to these headlines thus far. This was supported by rumours that Saudi Arabia was thinking about ways to achieve $60 oil for the Aramco IPO.

Sentiment remains soft as market participants continue to worry about the ongoing oversupply glut at hand. Iraq's exports of crude oil from fields owned by the Baghdad central government is running at around 3.27 mil bpd so far in June, which is roughly the same level as in May, Iraq's Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said on Thursday. Iraq also exports oil from the Kurdish region in the north, and those exports have been running at 520,000 to 530,000 bpd so far in June, to bring Iraq's total exports to around 3.8 mil bpd. Al-Luaibi added that the country as a whole is producing about 4.315 mil bpd. Finally, Al-Luaibi told reporters that he believes oil prices should start recovering by the end of July, to reach $54/bbl to $56/bbl by the end of 2017. Additionally production in Libya and Nigeria seems positive to increased output during the rest of the year. Libya has already increased production by little less than 0.2 mbpd since late April and Nigeria plans to increase output to 2 mbpd by August, though it is an optimistic target as their May production averaged 1.64 mbpd.

Later today, Baker Hughes will publish their latest rig count, which potentially could give an indication of American shale oil producer's profitability to this week's low prices.

Furthermore the Eurozone and US manufacturing PMI will be released today. With neutral to bearish expectations on top of the lately bearish PMI figures for US and China, a bullish result this month could possibly indicate some bullish momentum for oil prices.

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A/S Global Risk Management is a provider of customised hedging solutions for the management of price risk on fuel expenses. The company has offices in Denmark and Singapore. For further details about its risk management products and services, please call +45 88 38 00 00 or email hedging@global-riskmanagement.com.