Image: Global Risk Management

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The U.S. rig count is increasing and the infrastructure is under pressure as bottlenecks are arising. The result can, among other things, be observed when looking at the difference between Brent crude and WTI crude. WTI now trades at a premium of more than 10$ to Brent. The U.S. refineries have been running a high utilisation rate the last two weeks, which resulted in a large build in gasoline inventories last week. This could be a sign of refiners starting to prepare for the summer driving season. Until the seasonal gasoline demand really kicks in, such builds could continue and weigh on gasoline prices.

During Friday and Saturday, the G7 countries met in Canada for the annual summit. U.S. president Donald Trump shook things up further after tariffs have been imposed on both the European Union and Canada. Allegedly, there should have been some disputes between Trump and the Canadian top politicians deteriorating the relationship.

Speaking of U.S. international politics: after the US withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, Iran now seems to be finding new buyers of their crude oil. Bloomberg reported that the first Iranian cargo in 16 years left for Chile However, the sanctions are still expected to hit the Iranian oil production quite hard.

Tomorrow API is releasing its inventory stats and it will be especially interesting to see if another build in gasoline is observed. Also tomorrow, the monthly oil market report from OPEC is published, followed on Wednesday by the monthly IEA report. Expect some market jitters, depending on the info the reports reveal.