{"id":1308,"date":"2018-07-24T22:28:22","date_gmt":"2018-07-24T22:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euromenaenergy.com\/?p=1308"},"modified":"2018-07-24T22:28:22","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T22:28:22","slug":"oil-bulls-cut-and-run-as-us-trade-war-derails-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/?p=1308","title":{"rendered":"Oil bulls cut and run as US trade war derails market"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Bloomberg\/New York<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Crude oil\u2019s biggest plunge in two years has money managers heading for the hills.
\nHedge funds cut their net-long position \u2014 the difference between wagers on a price gain and bets on a drop \u2014 in Brent crude by the most since 2016. Bulls fled the market on concern that the escalating US-China trade war will imperil economic growth, denting oil demand amid signs of mounting supply from the US to Saudi Arabia.
\n\u201cExtended trade tensions with China threaten global economic growth,\u201d said Rob Thummel, managing director at Tortoise Capital Advisors LLC, which manages $16bn in energy-related assets. An economic slowdown would \u201cnegatively impact global crude oil demand growth\u201d as output from Saudi Arabia and Libya rises.
\nOil has tumbled from a four-year high in May as President Donald Trump prepares to slap tariffs on $500bn of Chinese goods. Though Trump also leaned on Saudi Arabia to lower prices by pumping more, the kingdom said it will actually trim crude exports next month after bolstering production the most in three years in June.
\nSaudi Arabia \u201cdoes not try to push oil into the market beyond its customers\u2019 needs,\u201d the Energy Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
\nThe world\u2019s largest oil exporter is fulfilling a pledge made in late June that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia would boost output by about 1mn barrels a day.
\nOutput from Libya rose last week as production from its eastern fields climbed, offsetting thousands of barrels in production lost from the partial shutdown of the country\u2019s biggest deposit after gunmen kidnapped workers there. \u201cThe return of Libya was a really big thing, and the addition from Saudi Arabia,\u201d said James Williams, president of London, Arkansas-based energy researcher WTRG Economics.
\nThe Trump administration, meanwhile, was said to be considering tapping the nation\u2019s emergency oil supply to tame rising fuel prices before congressional elections in November, according to people familiar with the matter.
\nHedge funds slashed their Brent net-long position by 21% in the week ended July 17 to 353,245 contracts, according to ICE Futures Europe data on futures and options released on Friday. That was the lowest level since August 2017.
\nMoney managers\u2019 net-long position in West Texas Intermediate crude fell by 7.4% to 401,690 futures and options, the biggest decline since May, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released Friday. Longs also slipped 7.4%, while shorts fell 7.5%.
\nThough crude has recovered from lows reached in late June as Opec weighed an output boost, trade tensions have roiled the market. A measure of crude volatility soared last week to levels last seen almost a year ago.
\nUS supply data, meanwhile, showed mixed signals for the market. Gasoline held in US storage tanks dropped by the most since May and fuel demand increased, according to government data, overshadowing the biggest increase in American crude inventories since April.
\nUS production gains have \u201ccaused some players who don\u2019t have conviction to exit,\u201d said Gene McGillian, manager of market research at Tradition Energy. \u201cWe saw some topping out of Brent around $79 and the idea that the Saudis and Russians were willing to add oil back into the market.\u201d
\nIn the fuel market, money managers trimmed their net-long position in benchmark US gasoline by 9.1%, the first decline in three weeks. The net-bullish position on diesel slid 27%, the most since February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bloomberg\/New York Crude oil\u2019s biggest plunge in two years has money managers heading for the hills. Hedge funds cut their net-long position \u2014 the difference between wagers on a price gain and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46,57,90,96,107,137,139,174,201,202,209,232,233,244,246,249,256,277,279,288],"class_list":["post-1308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aramco","tag-baroudi","tag-democracy","tag-doha","tag-embargo","tag-gas","tag-gazprom","tag-lebanon","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-opec","tag-putin","tag-qatar","tag-rosneft","tag-roudi","tag-russia","tag-saudi","tag-total","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emimer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}