BlackMask Breaking News

In what feels like an increasingly bullish oil market, $90 Brent is now a real possibility. While demand uncertainty persists, geopolitical risk, a weakening U.S. dollar, and OPEC+ supply cuts have moved prices higher. Long positions held by hedge funds and other money managers have seen the strongest influx of bullish interest since September 2023, indicating the market believes geopolitical pressures will keep on pushing oil prices higher.

– Net long positions held in Nymex WTI rose by 50 million barrels in the week ending March 19, whilst ICE Brent net longs increased by almost 55 million barrels, the biggest positioning move of the year so far.

– With physically deliverable Nymex WTI being the riskier financial instrument to bet on, ICE Brent has seen its net length soar to the highest level since March 2023, coming in at 289 million barrels (combined with the period a year ago, short positions have tripled in size to 70 million barrels).

– Proving that oil is becoming fashionable again amidst Middle Eastern conflict and Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries, the combined open interest of WTI and Brent now stands at 518 million barrels equivalent, up 14% since the beginning of this year.  ated by Russia doubling down on its OPEC+ production cuts, the US dollar continuing to weaken, and any semblance of an Israel-Palestine truce being off the cards right now. With Brent futures seeing signs of a stellar golden cross pattern developing, it might only take one bullish piece of news for $90 per barrel to happen.

Kurdish Production Sees No Light at the End of Tunnel. One year since the shutdown of Kurdish oil flows through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, Iraq is yet to find common ground with oil companies operating in the separatist region, with Baghdad seeking to revise production terms and rights.

• OPEC+ group: no need for change in next JMCC meeting.
• OPEC+ members have collectively decided to voluntarily cut 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from the group’s production this quarter.
• The production estimates for February have shown that some of OPEC+ members – especially Iraq and Kazakhstan – continued to overproduce above their respective quotas.

OPEC and the broader OPEC+ group do not see any need to propose a change to the current oil production policy when the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) meets next week, according to delegates, commodity analyst Giovanni Staunovo reported on Monday.OPEC+ members have collectively decided to voluntarily cut 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from the group’s production this quarter, although much of that was production cuts that were already in effect, including Saudi Arabia’s 1 million bpd voluntary cut.    In early March, the members of the OPEC+ alliance that had pledged the Q1 cuts announced they would roll over the supply reductions until the end of the second quarter. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, Oman, and Russia are now cutting their respective crude oil production and exports in the first half of 2024 with extra voluntary reductions, on top of the voluntary cuts OPEC+ previously announced in April 2023 and later extended until the end of 2024.When the OPEC+ members announced on March 3 their intentions to extend the cuts into the second quarter, Russia changed its production/export cut plan and said that in the second quarter it would reduce supply by 471,000 bpd in the form of cuts to oil production and exports. In April, Russia will reduce production by 350,000 bpd and exports by 121,000 bpd. In May, the 471,000 bpd reduction would be in the form of a 400,000-bpd cut to production and 71,000 bpd cut to exports, and in June the Russian supply cut would be 471,000 bpd entirely from production reductions. The production estimates for February have shown that some of OPEC+ members – especially Iraq and Kazakhstan – continued to overproduce above their respective quotas. In the middle of February, both Iraq and Kazakhstan pledged to comply with the cuts they had announced. OPEC’s second-largest producer, Iraq, is committed to its voluntary cut in the OPEC+ agreement and will produce no more than 4 million bpd of crude oil, Iraq’s Oil Minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani said in February. Non-OPEC oil producer Kazakhstan, for its part, vowed to compensate over the coming months for a lack of compliance with the cuts in January.

Russia’s government has ordered oil companies to lower their output in the second quarter so that the country can meet its OPEC+ production target of 9 million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of June. Previously, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak announced that Russia would cut oil output and exports by an extra 471,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the second quarter, in tandem with production cuts by other OPEC+ members. The country will then gradually ease the export cuts and focus on only reducing output. Although Novak is yet to provide the targeted level for output, Reuters has calculated that production would drop to almost 9 million bpd in June if the country proceeds with the planned production cut.

Former President Donald Trump’s social media company will begin trading Tuesday under the ticker symbol DJT, the company itself announced in a new regulatory filing on Monday.

The newly merged company will be called Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (TMTG) and listed on the NASDAQ market. Trump retains a commanding 58% ownership of the merged entity, which, based on current share prices, is worth upwards of $3 billion. Eric Swider, the former CEO of DWAC, will join the board of directors. “As a public company, we will passionately pursue our vision to build a movement to reclaim the Internet from Big Tech censors,” said TMTG CEO Devin Nunes. “We will continue to fulfill our commitment to Americans to serve as a safe harbor for free expression and to stand up to the ever-growing army of speech suppressors. As we mark this milestone, I want to particularly thank Eric Swider for his unflagging dedication to our deal and our cause.” On the financial front, the news has appeared dire for former president Donald Trump this year. Within a span of just a month, two judges in two separate cases ordered him to pay about $540 million in total — a sum so great that pundits have speculated it could erode his campaign finances.

What’s gotten far less attention, though, is this: A frenetic rally in a stock tied to Trump Media & Technology Group — which operates the Truth Social platform he posts on daily — has minted a nearly $4 billion windfall for him.

There are any number of caveats to this figure, including how it’s only a paper profit for now that he’ll have to wait months to monetize, and yet the stock’s surge is a potentially huge financial boost for a billionaire candidate suddenly short on cash. The type of transaction — known as a de-SPAC or blank-check deal — that would hand Trump this new-found wealth is a complex one that briefly became popular on Wall Street during the stock mania unleashed by pandemic-era stimulus. In this particular deal, Truth Social’s owner would enter the stock market by merging with a publicly traded company called Digital World Acquisition Corp.

the come back kid

NN AUDIO

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to suspend the planned visit of a diplomatic delegation to Washington after the United States did not veto the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza without the release of the hostages held by Hamas, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. “This withdrawal hurts both the war effort and the effort to release the hostages because it gives Hamas hope that international pressure will allow them to accept a ceasefire without the release of our abductees,” the statements read. Meanwhile, US National Security Council (NSC) Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said that he prefers letting “the Israelis speak to whether they’re coming or not.”

Hamas hails UNSC’s ceasefire vote results

Hamas welcomed on Monday the United Nations (UN) Security Council’s adoption of a resolution calling for a ceasefire between the group and Israel in the Gaza Strip.The organization’s statement indicated Hamas’s readiness to “engage in an immediate prisoner exchange process that leads to the release of prisoners on both sides.” “Hamas calls on the Security Council to pressure the occupation to adhere to the ceasefire and stop the war of genocide and ethnic cleansing against our people,” it concluded. Israel objected to the results of the vote and canceled a planned diplomatic visit to the United States after the latter did not veto the resolution.

Brent crude oil surged past $87 on Monday as Russia’s war on Ukraine increasingly focuses on attacks on energy installations, and as mediation in the Israel-Gaza conflict fails. On Monday at 10:14 a.m. ET, Brent crude was trading at $87.16, up 2.03%, for a 1.72-cent gain on the day. The U.S. crude oil benchmark, West Texas Intermediate (WTI), was trading at $82.45, up 2.26%, for a $1.82 gain on the day.  The latest rally also comes after OPEC+ said on Monday that it saw no need for any policy changes during next week’s planned Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) meeting. In combination with geopolitical developments in the Middle East and Russia, including continuing attacks by Iran-backed Houthis in the Red Sea, analysts are eyeing tighter supply as the global economies fight off recession and the Fed sticks to its tentative plans for rate cuts this summer. A Ukrainian drone attack over the weekend has reduced capacity at a Russian oil refinery to around half. Kyiv struck Russia’s Kuibyshev oil refinery in Samara, taking out one refining unit and reducing capacity by half, Reuters reports. According to Reuters calculations, in the first quarter of this year, Ukraine attacked seven Russian refineries, taking nearly 400,000 barrels per day of capacity offline.  Russia, in turn, attacked an underground natural gas storage site in Ukraine, though supplies have not been disrupted, according to Kyiv. DTEK, Ukraine’s largest energy producer, is running at 50% capacity, forcing it to suspend electricity exports, according to Ukraine’s energy ministry.

In the Middle East, hopes are now fading, again, for a ceasefire deal as Israel continues with its assault on Gaza.

Also on Monday, Goldman Sachs said commodity demand would increase this year, driven by interest rate cuts by central banks, with potential returns as high as 15%.

NN AUDIO

A refinery in southwestern Russia owned and operated by state oil giant Rosneft has halted roughly half of its crude processing capacity following a drone attack from Ukraine over the weekend, industry sources told Reuters on Monday.  On Saturday, Dmitry Azarov, governor of the Samara region where Rosneft’s Kuibyshev oil refinery is located, said that the facility was attacked by drones. One of the two primary crude refining units at the refinery caught fire, the governor said, as quoted by Russian news agency Interfax. There were no casualties, Azarov added.    Ukraine has stepped up attacks on oil refineries in Russia in recent weeks, which have reduced Russian refining capacity, and which, reportedly, have the White House concerned about rising international prices.

• Deputy premier says refineries fair target after FT article
• Strikes deep into Russian territory have damaged refining rate

Senior Ukrainian officials defended Kyiv’s attacks on oil infrastructure deep within Russian territory following a report that US officials had warned against the operation because of surging oil prices and the prospect of Kremlin retaliation. Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna said refineries in Russia are legitimate targets providing resources to President Vladimir Putin’s war machine. Even as the strikes appeared to stop this week, the official was queried on the report in the Financial Times at a conference in the Ukrainian capital Friday. “We understand the calls by American partners,” Stefanishyna responded during a panel discussion at the Kyiv Security Forum. “At the same time, we fight with the capabilities, resources and practices that we have today.” Ukrainian forces attacked more than a dozen refineries inside Russia with explosive-laden drones this month, prompting the country’s daily oil refining rate to fall to the lowest weekly level in ten months. The successful attacks contrast with fighting on the front line, where the balance is shifting in Russia’s favor — though the damage to oil facilities poses a risk to world markets. US officials, who have long warned Kyiv against widespread strikes on Russian territory, told counterparts in Ukraine’s State Security Service, or SBU, and military intelligence that the attacks risk driving up the global oil price and provoking a response by Moscow on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, the FT reported, citing unidentified officials familiar with the discussion. Another official, Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to President VolodymyrZelenskiy, said the report on the US request was “fictional” — and that Ukraine has the right to destroy Russia’s “instruments of war.” “Nobody after two years of large-scale war can dictate conditions of waging this war to Ukraine,” Podolyak said on Dozhd TV. After the Ukrainian attacks last week, the strikes ceased after the weekend, with Russia reporting no new refinery hits after the last one took place on Sunday. The SBU declined to comment on whether the US requested a halt to the attacks. Russia meanwhile on Friday staged the largest missile and drone barrage against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since the start of the invasion. The attack damaged the nation’s biggest hydro power plant in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, a crucial nerve center for power generation, particularly in the winter months.

Israeli PM will call off visit of senior aides this week if US does not use veto to block UN security council ceasefire resolution.

NN: This is a developing story

UN vote is in progress 

The Lebanon-based Hezbollah group claimed that its fighters shelled a group of Israeli soldiers on Monday, the Times of Israel reported. The group said it targeted Israeli soldiers situated southwest of Kiryat Shmona, a city in the Northern District of Israel located near the Lebanese border. No detailed information was given regarding the outcome of the assault, nor was the claim confirmed by Israel.

Israel reportedly strikes Hezbollah sites deep in Lebanon

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched airstrikes targeting Hezbollah positions in the Lebanese city of Baalbek, the AFP, and Lebanese media outlets reported.  The Israeli military’s alleged strikes come following several Hezbollah missile, rocket, and drone attacks on northern Israel on Saturday. If confirmed, this would be the fourth time the IDF has launched attacks on Baalbek, which is located approximately 100 kilometers from the Israeli border and is considered a Hezbollah stronghold.