EUROPEAN COMMODITIES UPDATE: Crude swings between gains and losses, Nat Gas futures diverge, and metals give up earlier gains

Analysis details (10:15)

• 
  WTI and Brent March futures trade between modest gains and losses but prices, in the bigger picture, remain underpinned by the broader, and improving, demand picture on account of the China reopen, alongside added travel demand from the week-long Chinese Lunar New Year. The first three days of the Chinese Spring Festival holidays saw domestic air ticket bookings rising by 30%, whilst China's passenger trips via railway, road, waterway and plane amounted to 23.53mln on Monday, up 67.7% Y/Y, according to data by online travel agency Tongcheng Travel cited by these Global Times. On the supply front, EnergyIntel sources suggested the US is reviewing and considering cancelling a planned sale of crude oil from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), scheduled to take place by September of this year. Furthermore, on this front, US Energy Secretary Granholm said US President Biden would veto the House Republican bill on restricting strategic oil reserve releases if it passes Congress, according to The Hill. WTI and Brent futures experienced some downside which coincided with UK PMI data and commentary which underscored the risk of recession and hit the GBP, and in turn, the Dollar index rose to session highs shortly after. WTI now resides just above USD 81/bbl (vs low 80.75/bbl) whilst Brent trades slightly under USD 88/bbl (vs low 87.31/bbl).


• 
  US Nat Gas prices are on a firmer footing this morning whilst Dutch TTF trade with losses of some 10% intraday at the time of writing, with the latter seeing healthy gas storage levels amid the milder-than-expected winter. US Nat Gas futures are supported as Freeport LNG asked federal regulators for permission to restart the Freeport LNG export plant in Texas and said it has completed repairs to the Texas LNG plant. The Freeport outage previously led to a slide in US Nat Gas prices as export channels remained offline and thus caused an accumulation of gas in the US, thus pressuring domestic prices.


• Over to metals, spot gold edged lower from its USD 1,942.45/oz intraday high amid the recent Dollar strength seen after the European flash PMIs, but remains above yesterday’s USD 1,911.37/oz trough, with technicals also keeping an eye on the 10DMA which acted as a support level yesterday – today the level stands at 1,914.97/oz. Elsewhere, LME copper has dipped into the red as the Dollar gains ground but the red metal remains near recent highs of just under USD 9,500/t.

24 Jan 2023 - 10:10- MetalsData- Source: Newsquawk