Oil Markets Are Pricing A Supply Surge That Isn’t Guaranteed

Crude oil prices are in freefall after the United States and Iran agreed on a ceasefire, set to last 60 days. Traders expect the ceasefire to unleash an avalanche of crude, and indeed, tankers are leaving the Persian Gulf in growing numbers. And yet Iran just struck a commercial ship in Hormuz.

Bloomberg reported earlier this week that the ceasefire prompted huge discounts in available crude cargoes, noting how Angolan crude was selling at a $10 discount to dated Brent—for the first time in a decade. Not only this, but Chinese refiners were offering crude oil cargoes for sale, the publication wrote, citing unnamed traders.

"You actually get a discount to buy a barrel now versus a barrel tomorrow because of the weakness in the Asian pull on Middle Eastern grades," Daan Struyven, co-head of global commodities at Goldman Sachs, told Bloomberg. "Reopening is going well and quickly."

This appears to be the general feeling in trading and analyst circles. Indeed, analysts were somewhat baffled by the speed with which oil prices dropped amid the reports of more tankers exiting the Strait of Hormuz loaded.

"The market has rebalanced through a meaningfully different mix of demand losses

Fuente original: Yahoo Finance (https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/oil-markets-pricing-supply-surge-230000951.html)