Dubai futures intermonth spreads rangebound on stable fundamentals

Singapore — The market structure for Dubai futures was steady in mid-morning trade July 13 from the previous session as supply-demand fundamentals remained little changed from before the weekend.

At 11 am Singapore time (0300 GMT), the August/September Dubai futures intermonth spread was pegged at a 27-cent/b backwardation, edging up 1 cent/b from the Asian close July 9. The September/October spread was pegged stable over the same period at a 10-cent/b backwardation, S&P Global Platts data showed. July 10 was a public holiday in Singapore.

While OPEC+ compliance efforts have largely lent support to the market in recent weeks, the outlook for demand remains weighed by producer price hikes for the third straight month, market sources said.

The steady structure also suggests that the producer price hikes have largely been priced into market expectations.

Saudi Aramco has raised the August official selling price differential for all of its crude grades heading to Asia by $1/b from the month before, while ADNOC raised its August OSP differential for Murban crude by 75 cents from July and Qatar Petroleum raised its OSP differentials for August-loading Land and Marine crude grades by 55-60 cents/b from July.

More recently, Kuwait raised its OSP differential for Asia-bound barrels of Kuwait Export Crude by $1.05/b from July.

Market participants will be monitoring further progress on volume nominations this week, as well as an OPEC+ meeting scheduled for July 15.

Meanwhile, the September Brent/Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps was pegged at 66 cents/b at 0300 GMT July 13, down 14 cents/b from the Asian close July 9. The narrower EFS was due to the larger decrease in outright Brent crude prices in mid-morning trade ahead of mid-week deliberations by OPEC+ on whether to maintain its current supply cut for another month.