kenie

俄沙"割喉战"停火 惟油价仍难止血
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJgW-SwIlaA

2020-04-21 21:21

kenie

Oil plunges below US$12 as storage rapidly fills amid demand slump
April 21, 2020

Oil plunged the most on record to below US$12 (RM52.56) a barrel in New York as a historic demand slump fills inventories to the brim.
Futures fell as much as 40%. While the collapse reflects the most immediate May contract expiring today, it nonetheless highlights a fast-growing glut of oil, and rapidly expanding stockpiles at the American hub at Cushing, Oklahoma. Opec+’s record production cuts from next month are paling in the face of this evaporating demand.
The upcoming May contract’s expiry means traders are shifting their positions to June as they try to avoid taking deliveries of cargoes because of the lack of space to store them. That has opened up an unprecedented discount of more than US$10 between the two nearest contracts.
May WTI has fallen far lower than June ahead of expiry
There are signs of weakness everywhere. Buyers in Texas are offering as little as US$2 a barrel for some oil streams, raising the possibility that producers may soon have to pay to have crude taken off their hands. China reported its first economic contraction in decades last Friday, an indication of what is to come in other major economies that have yet to emerge from coronavirus-driven lockdowns.
“There is no limit to the downside to prices when inventories and pipelines are full,” commodities hedge fund manager Pierre Andurand said on Twitter. “Negative prices are possible.”
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for May plummeted as much as 40%, the most since futures began trading in 1983, and was 35% lower at US$11.95 a barrel as of 1.13pm in London. The June contract declined 11% to US$22.37. Brent for June fell 5.7% to US$26.48 a barrel.
Crude stockpiles at Cushing — the key US storage hub — have jumped 48% to almost 55 million barrels since the end of February. The hub had working storage capacity of 76 million as of Sept 30, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Despite the weakness in headline prices, retail investors are plowing money back into oil futures. The US Oil Fund ETF saw a record US$552 million come in last Friday, taking total inflows last week to US$1.6 billion. The fund has said it would move some of its WTI holdings into the July contract, citing regulatory and market conditions.
The price collapse is reverberating across the oil industry. Crude explorers shut down 13% of the American drilling fleet last week. While that could cut production, with companies crimping their spending, it may not be enough.
“US shut-ins are gaining pace, but not fast enough to avoid storage filling to max,” said Paul Horsnell, head of commodities at Standard Chartered. — Bloomberg

2020-04-21 21:21

kenie

Oil prices under pressure after sub-zero plunge
Brent crude drops below $20 per barrel for first time in 18 years after WTI crash
Global oil markets remained under intense pressure on Tuesday, with Brent crude dropping below $20 per barrel for the first time in 18 years while other major benchmarks across the world tumbled.
Brent, the international marker, slipped as low as $18.10. The fall suggests markets see no immediate let-up to the collapse in oil demand that sent some US oil benchmarks plunging below $0 for the first time on Monday, leaving producers paying for buyers to take their oil away while available storage is scarce.
“The weakness we’re seeing in Brent today is more of a reflection of fundamentals — the fact that demand today is so weak,” said Christopher Haines, an analyst at Energy Aspects.
Coronavirus has sent the oil sector into a state of crisis, with lockdowns implemented by authorities to contain the outbreak slashing demand for crude by as much as a third.
Contracts for the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for delivery next month tumbled as low as minus $40 a barrel on Monday — an unprecedented drop of more than $55. The slide was exacerbated by traders seeking to offload any obligations to take on physical product ahead of the contract’s expiry today as storage reached capacity at its delivery point in Cushing, Oklahoma.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs said retail investors, forced into last-minute sales as storage filled up, had been hit hardest by the slide in the May contract, which remained in negative territory on Tuesday at minus $4 a barrel, with the volume of trades on the day just a tenth of the volume of contracts for June delivery.
The June contract, which held above $20 a barrel on Monday, has also come under heavy selling pressure, dropping as much as 42 per cent on Tuesday to trade at lows of $11.79, suggesting the blowout in the May contract was more than just a blip.
While Monday’s slide reflected in part financial and storage issues, the fall in Brent — which can be stored on ships and more easily shipped to areas of higher demand — is “more reflective of the broader demand picture”, said Mr Haines.

Analysts said the June WTI contract — which has pared some of its losses to trade down 20 per cent at $16.34 a barrel — was likely to face further downward pressure in the coming weeks, given the supply glut shows little signs of abating. A record cut by Opec and its allies does not start to take effect until May and has so far failed to prop up prices.
Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING, said it was likely that “storage this time next month will be even more of an issue, given the surplus environment”.
“And so in the absence of a meaningful demand recovery, negative prices could return for June,” he added.

European equities traded lower, dragged down by losses in energy stocks. The continent-wide Stoxx 600 was down 2.4 per cent, with its oil and gas sub-index dropping 4.5 per cent. In London the FTSE shed 2.1 per cent, while Frankfurt’s Dax slid 3 per cent.
“Whilst we await the nature of the recovery, extreme oil price weakness — however it manifests itself — is not a flash in the pan and suggests equity risk in the oil & gas sector remains to the downside,” said Stuart Joyner, an analyst at Redburn.
Equities were also broadly lower in Asia, while futures tip US stocks to fall 1.8 per cent when trading in New York begins later.

2020-04-21 22:01

foo

Covid-19 shifting consumer behaviour in technology-based solutions
CORPORATE NEWS
PETALING JAYA: The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is causing a shift in consumer behaviour towards favour technology-based solutions for consumers.
“E-commerce, which has relatively low penetration rates in Asean, is seeing a significant leap. Singapore’s online sales jumped by 38% in February, a sharp contrast to the fall of 10% in overall retail sales, ” said Maybank Investment Bank (Maybank IB) in its report.
“Demand for food delivery services – which has lower penetration rates ranging from 1.9% in Indonesia to 5.5% in Philippines – is rising across Asean. With the ban on dine-in services, more food merchants are signing up with delivery platforms such as GrabFood, Foodpanda and Deliveroo, ” it added.
It also notes that telehealthcare is becoming increasingly important in countries with a scarcity of doctors such as Indonesia (0.38 doctor per 1,000 people) and Thailand (0.81) where video consultations have nearly doubled.
Meanwhile the report said that in Singapore, concerns over food supply disruption had increased searches for staples such as eggs, rice and vegetables.
“On the other hand, searches for discretionary items such as footwear, formal wear and cosmetics have plunged, ” it said.
“With people staying home, cooking items and recipes, indoor sports equipment, and entertainment (such as Netflix and Nintendo) are popular searches, ” it added.
The increase in work-from-home policies have also increased demand for office-related equipment (computer monitors and office chairs) and teleconferencing platforms,Maybank IB said.

2020-04-27 09:49