MOSCOW (MRC) -- Crude oil futures were marginally higher in mid-morning Asian trade Aug. 7 as optimism over a better-than-expected US jobs report and pledged compensation cuts by Iraq buoyed the market despite the growing COVID-19 case counts worldwide, reported S&P Global.
At 10:25 am Singapore time (0225 GMT), the ICE Brent October crude futures was up 6 cents/b (0.09%) from the August 6 settle at USD45.15/b, while NYMEX September light sweet crude contract was up by 4 cents/b (0.1%) at USD41.99/b.
The global crude complex found strong support this week on the back of a larger-than-expected 7.37 million barrels drawdown in US commercial crude inventories as well as improvement in US factory orders for June and manufacturing PMIs in July.
This slew of positive economic data allowed the Brent marker to break out of its USD45/b resistance level, while WTI was also able to settle above USD42/b.
Further support was extended to the market over the state of the US economy after US initial jobless claims for the week ended Aug. 1 was reported at 1.186 million, lower than analysts' expectations of around 1.4 million and the 1.435 million figure reported in the previous week, US Labor Department data released on Aug. 6 showed.
This snapped a two-week uptrend of rising claims that had sown doubt regarding the strength of the US economic recovery. Investors will be looking to fresh cues from the official US non-farm payroll data for July due later today.
Meanwhile, Iraq had pledged to cut an extra 400,000 b/d in August to compensate for overproduction in the previous three months, as it tries to meet quotas under the OPEC+ supply agreement, S&P Global Platts reported earlier. This is positive for the global supply and demand fundamentals, especially as the group had begun to ease their output curbs to 7.7 million b/d in August.
However, the rapidly rising number of COVID-19 case counts worldwide continued to weigh heavily on market sentiments, capping further gains in the global crude complex. Global COVID-19 cases stand at 18,986,629, on track to breach the 19 million mark, latest data from John Hopkins University showed.
The number of daily infections worldwide had also climbed back up to 271,164 on Aug. 5, after four consecutive day of declines that culminated in a 3-week low of 202,486 cases on Aug 3.
Furthermore, rising geopolitical tensions between US and China remains a key concern.
"Given Asia's traders unfortunate predisposition to US-China tensions ahead of the August 15 trade talks, I expect Asia oil market activity, barring a big headline, could remain muted as it has been the past few days, but even more so ahead of the US Non-Farm Payroll report," Stephen Innes, chief global markets analyst at AxiCorp, said in a note Aug. 7.
As MRC informed before, US crude oil inventories moved sharply lower during the week ended July 24 as exports and refinery demand climbed to multi-month highs, US Energy Information Administration data showed July 29. Commercial crude stocks fell 10.61 million barrels to 525.97 million barrels that week, EIA data showed. While the draw pushed stockpiles to 14-week lows, they remained more than 17% above the five-year average for this time of year.
Earlier this year, BP said the deadly coronavirus outbreak could cut global oil demand growth by 40 per cent in 2020, putting pressure on Opec producers and Russia to curb supplies to keep prices in check.
And in September 2019, six world's major petrochemical companies in Flanders, Belgium, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and the Netherlands (Trilateral Region) announced the creation of a consortium to jointly investigate how naphtha or gas steam crackers could be operated using renewable electricity instead of fossil fuels. The Cracker of the Future consortium, which includes BASF, Borealis, BP, LyondellBasell, SABIC and Total, aims to produce base chemicals while also significantly reducing carbon emissions. The companies agreed to invest in R&D and knowledge sharing as they assess the possibility of transitioning their base chemical production to renewable electricity.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
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