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By the Oil Desk at Freight Investor Services Ltd.

Brent closed up $0.77 last night to $50.97 and WTI closed at $48.75 up $0.96. Stats yesterday proved helpful for the bulls and up we went past $50 per bbl on Brent quicker than you can say "More shale please". Crude is up more than 5% since last Friday, so a pretty impressive rally has been witnessed, and why not? All the signs are actually starting to point in the right direction for the dreaded "glut" to stop being written about and for the world to start balancing the amount of oil it has readily available. It's funny you know, Wednesday's are always the day that people look to for short-term demand direction in the form of EIA data, but is that tide turning? It is clear that the USA now have a clear energy independence agenda and Trump and his administration have come good on their original manifesto in that the domestic energy sector is slowly deregulating and production of crude and thus exports continue to rise. Let's not forget that when Trump won the election on 8 November, flat price was round $46 per barrel. So even in the face of low prices the US have has still ramped up production. All this production has led to the US producers investing in export infrastructure. Take the LOOP, for example; it is currently the only place to load a VLCC, but others are building deepwater ports in the USGC to export some of the Permian's finest. So if the US eventually becomes a net exporter why would EIA data make any difference to the market? Hmmmm, other indicators need to be looked at, but until those are sought, the oil world will still watch Wednesdays in the only way it knows how.

Economic Data/Events: (UK times)

* ~12pm: Russian refining maintenance schedule from ministry

* 1:30pm: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims for July 22, est. 240k (prior 233k); U.S. Continuing Claims for July 15, est. 1,960k (prior 1,977k)

* 1:30pm: U.S. Durable Goods Orders for June, prelim., est. 3.7% (prior -0.8%); U.S. Wholesale Inventories m/m for June, prelim.

est. 0.3% (prior 0.4%)

* 2:45pm: Bloomberg Consumer Comfort for July 23 (prior 47.6)

* Today:

** Earnings: Statoil, Total, Marathon Petroleum, Conoco, Repsol, Shell

Singapore 380 cSt

Aug17 - 301.75 / 303.75

Sep17 - 302.00 / 304.00

Oct17 - 301.50 / 303.50

Nov17 - 301.00 / 303.00

Dec17 - 300.75 / 302.75

Jan18 - 300.25 / 302.25

Q4-17 - 301.00 / 303.00

Q1-18 - 300.00 / 302.00

Q2-18 - 300.25 / 302.75

Q3-18 - 300.75 / 303.75

CAL18 - 299.25 / 302.75

CAL19 - 295.75 / 301.25

CAL20 - 278.75 / 286.75

Singapore 180 cSt

Aug17 - 307.50 / 309.50

Sep17 - 307.75 / 309.75

Oct17 - 308.00 / 310.00

Nov17 - 307.50 / 309.50

Dec17 - 307.25 / 309.25

Jan18 - 306.75 / 308.75

Q4-17 - 307.50 / 309.50

Q1-18 - 307.00 / 309.00

Q2-18 - 307.50 / 310.00

Q3-18 - 308.75 / 311.75

CAL18 - 306.75 / 310.25

CAL19 - 304.75 / 310.25

CAL20 - 287.75 / 295.75

Rotterdam 380 cSt

Aug17 292.00 / 294.00

Sep17 290.00 / 292.00

Oct17 287.75 / 289.75

Nov17 285.75 / 287.75

Dec17 283.75 / 285.75

Jan18 285.25 / 287.25

Q4-17 285.75 / 287.75

Q1-18 286.25 / 288.25

Q2-18 286.75 / 289.25

Q3-18 287.25 / 290.25

CAL18 284.75 / 288.25

CAL19 278.25 / 283.75

CAL20 259.00 / 267.00

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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.