Asian refiners are increasingly finding reasons to cut their exposure to Middle Eastern crude in the second half of 2019 amid prolonged
backwardation in the Dubai benchmark price structure and the latest tanker fire incident in the Gulf of Oman.
These production concerns resulted in a "
backwardation" in six-month Brent crude futures surging to the highest level in over five years at $3.31 in May, breaching the 2018 peak of $3.
Brent was also in
backwardation, hitting its highest front-month premium in three weeks.
The Brent crude futures structure has flipped into
backwardation for the first time in two-and-a-half years, mimicking the shift in the US crude futures market last week.
KUWAIT, April 26 (KUNA) -- Oil prices are expected to slip from a state of "contango", a situation where future price is higher than the spot price, into a phase of "
backwardation", where the future price is below the spot price, an oil analyst foreboded Tuesday.
In fact, Brent front month timespreads have already strengthened in the last three months and could briefly flip into
backwardation this summer.
The paper examines the impact of oil price volatility, the behavior of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the volatility of the US Dollar exchange rate on the
backwardation of crude oil futures during 1995 and 2006.
The premium for prompt cargoes, a market structure known as
backwardation, influences the level at which Middle East exporters including Saudi Arabian Oil Co set official monthly prices for buyers in Asia, according to industry consultants KBC Energy Economics and JBC Energy.
If the later-dated contracts are less expensive than the contracts held by the fund, then the commodity market is in '
backwardation', which may add to performance.