In this week's Market Movers Europe with Rituparna Nath:
- Black Sea-East Suezmax freight hit 10-month high
- IEA Ministerial meet, Middle East in focus
- New EU mid-term gas purchase tender
- Viking Link’s first monthly auction
This week, shipbrokers will closely monitor the Red Sea conflict as Eastbound Suezmax freight rates loading from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea touched a ten-month high after shipping disruptions in the region.
Shipowners are increasingly reluctant to send their ships via the Suez Canal, charging premiums as high as $1.3 million to go via the Cape of Good Hope.
On the oil front, the International Petroleum Technology Conference kicks off today in Saudi Arabia, hosted by Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman. This will be followed by the International Energy Agency's annual meeting of energy ministers in Paris on Tuesday.
As oil prices continue to be supported by OPEC+ cuts and the ongoing situation in the Middle East, traders will be keeping an eye on the monthly oil reports from OPEC and the IEA, out on Tuesday and Thursday respectively.
In gas, the European Commission’s energy platform, AggregateEU, will launch the first tender for its new mid-term joint gas purchasing service on Thursday, which will allow gas purchases across a five-year window, divided into six-month blocks.
The expanded offering of the platform will help cater to medium-term demand requests in addition to short-term appetite.
Finally, in power markets, traders will keep an eye on the first monthly transmission rights auction of the new Viking Link interconnector from Denmark to the UK.
The new power cable has helped offset an outage on the IFA-2 interconnector that links France and the UK. IFA-2 is not set to return to service until February 21st.
I am Rituparna Nath. Thank you for kicking off your Monday with S&P Global Commodity Insights