Recap: The crude oil market traded higher on Thursday despite U.S. President Donald Trump stating that the U.S. is close to a deal with Iran. The market remained skeptical of any immediate end to the war as Iranian sources stated that U.S. and Iranian negotiators scaled back their expectations for a comprehensive peace deal and are instead seeking a temporary memorandum to prevent a return to conflict. The market also seemed to dismiss President Trump’s announcement of a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon in their conflict, starting Thursday. The oil market traded mostly sideways in overnight trading, posting a low of $90.52. The market later retraced some of its losses and breached its previous high as it traded higher on concerns whether the peace talks between the U.S. and Iran would achieve a deal to end the war. The oil market traded to a high of $95.44 in afternoon trading before it gave up some of its gains ahead of the close. The May WTI contract settled up $3.40 at $94.69 and the June Brent contract settled up $4.46 at $99.39. Meanwhile, the product markets ended the session higher with the heating oil market settling up 7.97 cents at $3.8329 and the RB market settling up 9.45 cents at $3.1637.
Technical Analysis: The oil market on Friday will remain in its recent trading range as the market awaits for news regarding the talks between the U.S. and Iran. The market is seen finding support at $90.52, $86.96, $86.46, $86.34 and $84.37. Meanwhile, resistance is seen at $93.69, $95.44, $98.00, $98.68, $102.30, $105.63, $105.91, $109.19-$109.20 and $117.63.
Fundamental News: According to new satellite imagery captured on April 15th by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellites, smoke is rising from the site of a crude oil storage facility on Sirri Island, an Iranian oil terminal in the Persian Gulf. The damage, initially reported on Thursday by the shipping-monitoring group TankerTrackers.com, appeared to cost Iran at least one large tank capable of storing 1 million barrels of crude oil, about one-fifth of the island’s capacity. American, Israeli and Iranian forces have not exchanged fire since the ceasefire started on April 7th, but Iranian state media reported explosions on Sirri and the Lavan Island oil hub, off Iran’s south coast, hours after the pause in fighting. It was unclear whether the fire seen on Sirri was linked to the April 7th explosion, but large plumes of smoke were also seen in ESA imagery of the site taken on April 10th. A separate blaze at the Lavan crude storage facility was seen in a satellite photograph dated April 10th but appeared to have been contained in a picture taken two days later.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Pentagon briefing that U.S. forces in the Middle East are postured to restart combat operations if Iran doesn’t agree to a peace deal.
The EPA reported that the U.S. generated 651 million biodiesel blending credits in March compared with 481 million biodiesel blending credits in February. It reported that the U.S. generated 1.24 billion ethanol blending credits in March, up from 1.14 billion in February.
The gasoline-producing fluid catalytic cracking unit at Marathon Petroleum’s 631,000 bpd Galveston Bay refinery in Texas returned to normal operation on Wednesday after a Tuesday malfunction. An electrical outage cut power to several pumps on the 140,000 bpd fluid catalytic cracking unit on Tuesday, causing a malfunction.
Early Market Call – as of 8:55 AM EDT
WTI – May $84.92, down $8.19
RBOB – May $2.9693, down 18.53 cents
HO – May $3.3065, down 51.19 cents
