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Commentary

Brent closed 2017 at $66.87, WTI closed at $60.42. Crude has started the New Year with the same fanciful wishing as an overweight bloke who has seen a personal trainer for the first time this morning. $70 for Brent is in touching distance and who knows where we go from there? $80? $100? It is incredible though - I made a point last week about whether the market will retrace after the Forties pipeline is back or when the Es Sider pipe in Libya is repaired. The market jumped significantly after news emerged of these two temporary production shutdowns, but now that Forties is back and Es Sider is due to come back online soon, has flat price weakened? Not a bit of it. We really do seem to be in a bull market and with the market not seemingly happy to readjust after production is back in these two areas, could that mean that we are in an overbought market? Caution on flat price over the coming week. What else is going on? Well, the US rig count closed 2017 up 42% from 2016. Quite a jump. Apparently US production is at 10mn bpd. Let's not forget that in May 2016 the US rig count was at 404; today we are 747. Will the US rig count ever return to the record set in 1981 of over 4,500 wells? Well, if flat price continues to rise, who knows?

Fuel Oil Market (December 29)

The front crack opened at -8.40, weakening to -8.55, before strengthening to -8.50. The Cal 18 was valued at -8.10.

Economic Data and Events

* Bloomberg OPEC output survey

* Russian oil ministry data on production, exports for December

* Bloomberg fcast of U.S. waterborne LPG exports

* Bloomberg proprietary forecast of Cushing crude inventory change plus weekly analyst survey of crude, gasoline, distillates inventories before Wednesday EIA report

* See OIL WEEKLY AGENDA for this week's events

Singapore 380 cSt

Feb18 - 376.50 / 378.50

Mar18 - 376.00 / 378.00

Apr18 - 375.75 / 377.75

May18 - 375.25 / 377.25

Jun18 - 374.25 / 376.25

Jul18 - 373.25 / 375.25

Q2-18 - 376.00 / 378.00

Q3-18 - 371.75 / 373.75

Q4-18 - 366.50 / 369.00

Q1-19 - 358.75 / 361.25

CAL9 - 356.50 / 359.50

Singapore 180 cSt

Feb18 - 378.25 / 380.25

Mar18 - 378.25 / 380.25

Apr18 - 378.00 / 380.00

May18 - 377.75 / 379.75

Jun18 - 377.00 / 379.00

Jul18 - 378.75 / 380.75

Q2-18 - 380.75 / 382.75

Q3-18 - 377.25 / 379.25

Q4-18 - 372.25 / 374.75

Q1-19 - 366.75 / 369.25

CAL19 - 365.00 / 368.00

Rotterdam Barges

Feb18 362.50 / 364.50

Mar18 362.25 / 364.25

Apr18 362.00 / 364.00

May18 361.25 / 363.25

Jun18 360.00 / 362.00

Jul18 358.50 / 360.50

Q2-18 362.25 / 364.25

Q3-18 357.50 / 359.50

Q4-18 348.25 / 350.75

Q1-19 340.50 / 343.00

CAL19 336.00 / 339.00