Oil Prices Under Pressure Despite Continued Geopolitical Uncertainty

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As the global markets bounced back from the all-encompassing panic seen a week ago, oil prices were ideally set for a technical recovery, with both Brent and WTI pulling off a string of five straight days of price gains. OPEC’s belated acknowledgment that 2024 demand growth will not be as stellar as they’ve signaled for months has sapped some of that upward momentum, but Brent futures still sit comfortably above $81 per barrel.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut its forecast for global oil demand growth in 2024 on the back of weaker-than-expected H1 data and a slacker outlook for China, predicting 2.11 million b/d year-over-year growth, down 140,000 b/d from the previous forecast, OilPrice.com reports.

Investors have cut their market positions in crude oil futures and options to the lowest level for at least a decade, selling a whopping 110 million barrels in the six most important contracts in the week ending August 06.

UK-based energy major Shell (LON:SHEL) has taken an FID on the 2.7 TCf Manatee offshore gas field straddling the border between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, slated to start production in 2027 and feed gas to the 15 mtpa Atlantic LNG plant.

US oil major Chevron (NYSE:CVX) has reported first oil in the Gulf of Mexico’s first-ever field under extreme subsea pressures, as strong as 20,000 pounds per square inch, with the $5.7 billion Anchor project expected to reach output of 75,000 b/d.

A week after Libya’s largest field El Sharara was forced to shut down amidst military protests, the country’s second-largest crude stream Es Sider is set to be disrupted after a fire along the pipeline connecting the port’s storage tanks with oil fields.

Workers at BHP’s (NYSE:BHP) Escondida copper mine, the world’s largest producing unit, have rejected the Australian mining giant’s collective offer and after the government’s mediation failed to reach any substantive advances, declared industrial action on Tuesday.

Having already farmed into Mexico’s largest upcoming oil project, the Zama offshore field, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is now buying up stocks of Talos Energy (NYSE:TALO), purchasing 1.26 million shares in the first week of August and now owning 21.3% of the firm.

Less than a month after the Serbian government reinstated Rio Tinto’s (ASX:RIO) license to develop Europe’s largest lithium mine in Serbia, the country’s Energy Minister said permits and approvals could take two years to secure.

The Biden administration is set to restrict oil and coal leasing in more than 210,000 acres of federal land in North Dakota, classifying the territories as low potential as only 2% is currently under lease and there is no active production there.

For the first time on record, Chinese consumers bought more new energy vehicles (NEVs) than gasoline ones, tallying 878,000 units vs 840,000 units, as buyers benefit from generous government subsidies and traction in the car-hailing market.

Iran’s recently elected President Masoud Pezeshkian nominated Mohsan Paknezhad as his oil minister, formerly deputy minister for the supervision of hydrocarbon resources, in what is seen as a sign of Tehran’s policy continuity.

Defying the April ban of the London Metal Exchange on Russian-origin metals, the share of available aluminum stocks in warehouses approved by the LME rose to 65% in July compared to 50% in June, as Indian supplies have seen a dip to 33%.

Chinese term buyers of Saudi Arabian crude oil have nominated 43 million barrels from the September-loading program, slightly lower than the 46 million barrels this month, despite Saudi Aramco raising the OSP of Arab Light to $2 per barrel above the Oman/Dubai benchmark.