Oil Market Snapshot – October 2018
With sanctions set to begin in November, the market is currently finely balanced between supply and demand, so how much Iranian oil is exported will remain important. Supply was adequate in September, with OPEC adding 132,000 b/d m-o-m as Saudi Arabia matched Iran’s 150,000 b/d decline and Libya’s resurgence provided much of the rest. OPEC’s compliance with targets was unchanged at c. 124%, and was reported as 111% for the full Vienna Group reflecting increases in Russian supply to 11.36 million b/d. Work by TankerTrackers.com suggests Iranian exports are untroubled in October, with clandestine movements still totalling c. 2.2 million b/d, 600,000 b/d above consensus. Alternative perspectives argue that much of that higher number has ended up in storage in destination countries, rather than exported for immediate use....