Friday Bunker Update: Oil prices vs. Iran, Stimulus, Debt Concerns!

In this week’s As the Oil Pump’s: With holidays in a number of locations on Monday and Tuesday there was limited trading done on the world’s commodity exchanges.  Along with limited volume, comes higher volatility as it is easier for market players to move the market in one direction or the other.  At the beginning of the week we saw markets moving up anticipating stimulus world wide, but by the end of the week it was clear that the United States is not currently planning on running the printing press.

What is also clear is that Iran’s budget is largely dependent on oil prices.  This of course comes as no surprise, but it was very interesting to see that once Brent went below $100 bbl they immediately began “saber rattling” about their nuclear ambitions and the coming meeting to resolve the embargo against them.

By the end of the week though, sovereign debt concerns trumped everything and real concerns over the economies of the world exist.  As expected the KPI Bridge Oil Composite shows further decline and continues to reach new lows for the year each week and is currently at $672.69 MT.

About the KPI Bridge Oil Composite

The KPI Bridge Oil Composite is a calculated fuel number based on 14 ports strategically positioned worldwide.  It is calculated on a weekly basis blending 90% fuel oil prices with 10% distillate prices.  The idea behind the number is that it would represent actual fuel costs on a global basis and what vessels would consume on average.  This number will not fluctuate as quickly as daily prices and can easily be hedged or used for voyage calculations.

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