Oil & Gas Prices - Aug 9

[dan_s]

Opening Prices:
> WTI is up $1.24 to $92.00/bbl, and Brent is up $1.30 to $97.95/bbl.
> Natural gas is up 14.3c to $7.732/MMBtu.

AEGIS Notes
Oil

The U.S. and Iran are coming near to the deadline for reviving their nuclear deal after receiving a final draft from EU officials this week
> Discussions concerning the deal finished yesterday, after over 15 months of negotiations
> Josep Borrel, in charge of EU policy, stated that "what can be negotiated has been negotiated," and both nations are expected to decide within a few weeks
> The final draft calls on Iran to remove its uranium stockpiles in exchange for U.S. economic concessions < The chance of Iran agreeing to this are slim and none. They no longer fear the U.S., so they will keep moving toward weapons grade uranium. This will go down in history as one of the dumbest things we have allowed to happen.

Russian oil shipped along the Druzhba pipeline toward Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia was halted, according to Russian pipeline operator Transneft PJSC, because of failed payments of their transit fees brought on by sanctions (Bloomberg)
> Russian crude deliveries were halted by Ukraine's pipeline operator Ukrtransnafta last week, and Transneft is looking into other options to transfer funds
> About 2.3 MMBbl/d of Russian crude is traveling west through a network of ports and pipelines, and that section of the pipeline usually carries about 250 MBbl/d, according to Transneft data.

Natural Gas

Centrica signs $8.5B LNG deal with U.S. supplier (Reuters)
> Britain's largest energy supplier, Centrica Plc, has signed an $8.47 billion agreement with U.S.-based Delfin Midstream Inc to buy liquefied natural gas from 2026
> Centrica, which owns British Gas, said the 15-year deal would involve buying 1 million tonnes of LNG per annum from the Delfin Deepwater Port off the coast of Louisiana
> Delfin said the agreement was another milestone towards taking a final investment decision by the end of the year on the United States' first floating LNG export terminal

Potential curbs on Australian LNG exports are another blow to Asia-Pacific gas markets (CNBC)
> The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission called on Canberra to protect domestic gas supplies and curb LNG exports after projecting the east coast of the country could face a shortfall of gas next year
> For months, the Asia-Pacific region has faced competition for fuel from European buyers looking to replace restricted Russian gas
> The proposed Australian cuts amount to roughly 14 LNG cargoes. In July, Australia exported 100 shipments among over 300 cargoes shipped into Asia

The "Mother of All Bidding Wars" could push LNG prices over $100/MMBtu this morning. The most recent price that I can find for Dutch TTF (Europe bench mark for natural gas prices) is $58.01/MMBtu this morning.

[KGardiner]

NOAA is predicting La Nina will begin to weaken late winter, but no El Nino is likely to form yet.
Great for the Gassers !

https://www.climate.gov/media/14647

[dan_s]

Closing Prices:
> Prompt-Month WTI (Sep 22) was down $-0.26 on the day, to settle at $90.50
> Prompt-Month Henry Hub (Sep 22) was up $0.244 on the day, to settle at $7.833

Would be nice to see oil and gas just to flop around these prices for awhile then ramp up in September as investors start to notice the shortages of all space heating fuels.