The Officials

Hey folks! The Officials have been publishing for over a year and it’s time to cement the relationship with our dear readers. We would like to provide you with a free service but a more stable relationship requires a paid for subscription. We hope you can support us as we move to a subscription-based model in the coming months. After almost 600 reports, you have seen that we are capable and willing to bring you the unvarnished market truth without fear or favour. Others talk about transparency but we are the only ones that deliver it. We are very grateful to you for your support and comments over the past year, you’ve been part of the journey! If you have any questions or feedback, please do not hesitate to get in touch!

Boom boom, oil markets are zooming up and no major bombs going off anywhere… This must be Chinese purchasing, isn’t it. All indications are that China has been loading up. You gotta give it to them. They are flat price buyers and anything below or near $70/bbl looks good for China. Shippers say China has been busy with Iranian and also Iraqi barrels. A positive start to the week! While the stock market feels the hangover of Trump’s weekend tariff binge, with S&P 500 futures down 0.5%, Brent flat price boogied upwards in the afterparty, climbing to $71.50. The prompt spread enjoyed itself too and rose to a peak of $1.29 after the Asian close, hitting its highest since the end of the 12-day war. Not quite like the party going on in Crypto but good enough!

The bullish vibes had dissipated somewhat earlier this week but made a late comeback this afternoon. You could argue that the market is pricing an upcoming event. We keep digging. Flat price fancied another crack at $70, breaking through at 15:30 GMT. By the close, it had risen to $70.37/bbl, while the prompt spread reached $1.20. As we saw in this morning’s allocations, China can’t stop buying, the Saudi OSPs were bullish too! We can’t help but feel we are at a turning point.

51 mil bbl crude oil Saudi allocation to China stuns the market! That’s the biggest monthly allocation since we began publication of The Officials – and even in recent memory beyond that! That’s up 4 mil bbl, with all except Unipec receiving a repeat of previous month’s allocations – and Unipec’s surged from 11 mil bbl to 15 mil bbl! “Why are they doing that?” asked another refiner. A source speculated Unipec is selling more oil into tea pots and another said that oil and premiums for oil loading in August are still ‘cheap,’ when compared with those forecasted for September.

OPEC made the most of its mega seminar to launch its World Oil Outlook, amidst a market downward correction. Talk about timing! The market fell more than $1 and is showing signs of exhaustion, whatever that is🤣. It’s just a bit sad that there were hardly any reporters there to comment on it! Or only the ones that dare not question the fakery. OPEC took the opportunity to dunk on the IEA’s forecast of peak global oil demand by the end of the decade, seeing world oil demand growing by 19.2 mil b/d to 122.9 mil b/d by 2050, despite seeing the OECD losing 8.5 mil b/d of demand! But really if nobody knows what production and demand are currently how can anyone say they know what will happen in 25 years. This is an exercise in nonsense. OPEC expects transport to play the biggest part in boosting global demand over the next 25 years. Underestimate NEV development at your peril! Read Asia 2.130 report for an update on their rampage through the market.

Chinese sources report that the Saudis are increasing allocations to the country by 3 mill barrels to 50 million in August. This would be normally bearish but the OPEC PR machine came with the nonsense that production quota increases would be paused from October. But since quotas are fakery to begin with, we advise the reader to focus on the actual production volumes. Flat price jumped on the reports but immediately fell back to its lowest point of the day, below $69.50.

Flat price spent its day fighting tooth and nail for the $70 waterline. It dipped below in the afternoon, but the Tariff Man got something out of his system and threatened roughly 20-30% tariffs on seven countries and some are oil exporters to the US. The tariffed countries constitute 6.7% of the US total crude imports, minor really but enough to cause operational headaches before the buyers resell their contracts and import from other countries. Operational and contractual headaches. This spurred a recovery before the close, at which it reached at $70.39/bbl. The prompt spread meandered upwards today too, reaching a high of $1.26, just shy of setting a new high point for July trading.

Clinging on! Brent battled throughout the Asian session, just about holding onto the prized $70 handle. It fell back from its high above $70.66 during yesterday evening’s trading but traded in a tight range since this morning’s open. Once Europe woke up, though, Brent began working its way up again and reached the close at $70.53. The prompt spread appreciated the good vibes of yesterday afternoon and this morning too, climbing to $1.20. The more deferred structure also looks much more comfortable these days, with the Dec25/Dec26 spread now trading around 90c, with just a few cents of contango creeping into the spreads at the back. Many traders are perplexed about the strength in the market. ‘Why,’ asked one but we explained the mood had changed with the summer and post Iran’s retaliation. Another thing helping crude is the dollar weakness. If you shave off the drop in the dollar this year we are in the equivalent of low 60s in other currencies.

$70!!! Brent made it. After taking most of the day to gather itself and prepare an assault on the 70s, which it broke into for the first time since the mega selloff on the escalatory de-escalation by Iran a couple of weeks ago. And this time it worked its way up there on its own steam: no missile bunkers launched it over the parapet, except the bullish vibes that spurred it on this afternoon. And more publications have joined us in saying the market is tighter than it looked. We are not shy in saying it feels nice to be followed.

After a less hectic week and the US bank holiday, in the week ending 4 July 2025, exchange traded futures volumes declined w/w across all instruments and across the three front tenors with the only exception being the October Heating Oil future contract (up 9.74%). Brent and WTI saw the biggest drop in exchange trade volumes for the front month contract, down 41.18% and 49.87%, respectively. For WTI, volumes in October and November contracts decreased by 42.70% and 47.72%, respectively.

Controversy in the Murban assessment is brewing again! No rest for the wicked! Platts has proposed a new methodology for a ‘quality adjustment’ rather than just a ‘quality premium’. In practice, this means Murban could be discounted through a negative QP: the seller would then have to reimburse the buyer the value of the adjustment if a Murban cargo is declared into the window. But the adjustment is asymmetric. When Murban prices above Oman, the adjustment will equal 50% of the average spread over the previous five days, only when the spread is greater than $1. When Murban prices below Oman, the adjustment will equal 100%, with no minimum spread. As one trader said, Platts have made it harder for Murban to be assessed expensive.

Markets are bullish again! The OPEC fakery on increasing volumes is suddenly becoming clear and everyone is waking up from their data slumber. We The Officials tell you, do not trust most government data as it is all massaged. OPEC data falls in this category, highly erroneous and one could claim that it is on purpose. But web of lies have a way of catching you. And yeah, we told we were bullish, didn’t we?

What a hectic weekend: an outsized OPEC fake quota boost, massive Saudi OSPs increases and an all-you-can-eat buffet of TACOs on Sunday! OPEC wants to rip off the plaster and get out from under the reports of – hey, if there are no quotas, there are no concerns about compliance! 4D chess! So, OPEC goes up on paper, but the real increases are marginal while demand booms, so…prices go up!

It’s mayhem time… Based on numerous calls and communication with Prax, the refinery and the government it is quite clear nobody knows what’s happening. An employee told us they are unsure if they will have a job in a week’s time. Others have already taken to LinkedIn try to get a new job.
Not to worry, as Mr Miliband stepped into the breach and reassured us that the government is “ensuring continued safe operations at the site”. Note that they told us “stock levels are normal across the UK”, dodging the question of whether Lindsey itself has enough supply to last more than a few weeks. They also declined to comment when asked repeatedly where the money’s coming from! There certainly isn’t an abundance of the stuff…

9 July is the deadline, right? Oh, maybe it’s 1 August or 1 September instead… Trump is apparently planning to impose tariffs according to the new trade deals with those he whacked with his reciprocal tariffs. While the Americans are busy launching fireworks and Trump sharpens his pencil to sign the Big Beautiful Bill at 5pm, they don’t want to think about the looming tariff fight. But the market reaction was depressing on the Trump tariff news, as he crystallised the upcoming trade disruption he’s ready to unleash again, as oil just slid briefly below $68. The equity market struggled more, with S&P 500 futures dropping over 0.5% today, while gold rose as its safe haven status is reignited.