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By the Oil Desk at Freight Investor Services Ltd.

Brent closed up $0.76 last night to $51.03 and WTI closed at $47.09, up $0.31. My old boss once said to me "Trading is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all". Well, that seems to be the adage the bulls are trying at the minute, but it's not yielding the results that they are hoping for. Brent is down $0.87 or 1.75% on the week and stuck firmly we are in this range my fellow oilanauts. Granted, the crude structure has changed this week, the front 3 Brent spreads are now backwardated and the EFS has certainly been the pick of the bunch with an impressive 25% rally this week alone, the front EFS is trading at 1.97 at the time of writing, up from 1.45 on Monday of this week. Nice. Let's add on that demand is picking up seemingly across the globe and the future looks pretty good. However, crude is being held back like an angry Vinnie Jones having a go at a referee. It's fighting to get in the face of everybody but (and I repeat this for the gazillionth time) there is just too much crude oil being produced; even with this "new" demand, there is still plenty of oil around to comfortably supply it and you'd still be left with a few leftover distressed boats. Hmmmm. Here's something for the bulls to perhaps not feast on over the weekend: "Russian scientists and local oil field services companies claim to have created a technology for thermochemical gas fracturing that could be an alternative to hydraulic fracturing and could increase oil production by between 1.7 and 6 times," Russian news agency RIA Novosti reports.

Economic Data/Events: (UK times)

* 3pm: University of Michigan Sentiment, Aug. (prelim.)

* 3:15pm: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan participates in a moderated Q&A session at the Dallas County Community College District Conference Day 2017, Dallas

* 6pm: Baker Hughes weekly U.S. oil, gas rig counts

* 8:30pm: Commodity Futures Trading Commission weekly scheduled report on futures and options positions.

** Nigeria, other WAF countries loading programs for October start to be released

** OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report, usually ~11am-12pm

** India celebrates World Biofuel Day, speakers include Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan; Power Minister Piyush Goyal and Indian Oil Corp. Chairman Sanjiv Singh

** U.S. updates El Nino/La Nina monthly forecast

** Iraqi loading programs for September

Singapore 380 cSt

Sep17 - 297.50 / 299.50

Oct17 - 296.75 / 298.75

Nov17 - 296.00 / 298.00

Dec17 - 295.00 / 297.00

Jan18 - 293.00 / 295.00

Feb18 - 292.25 / 294.25

Q4-17 - 296.00 / 298.00

Q1-18 - 293.25 / 295.25

Q2-18 - 292.25 / 294.75

Q3-18 - 291.75 / 294.25

CAL18 - 291.00 / 294.50

CAL19 - 285.00 / 290.00

CAL20 - 267.25 / 274.25

Singapore 180 cSt

Sep17 - 302.25 / 304.25

Oct17 - 302.00 / 304.00

Nov17 - 301.50 / 303.50

Dec17 - 300.75 / 302.75

Jan18 - 299.75 / 301.75

Feb18 - 299.25 / 301.25

Q4-17 - 301.50 / 303.50

Q1-18 - 300.00 / 302.00

Q2-18 - 299.50 / 302.00

Q3-18 - 299.25 / 301.75

CAL18 - 298.25 / 301.75

CAL19 - 293.75 / 298.75

CAL20 - 276.25 / 283.25

Rotterdam 380 cSt

Sep17 284.75 / 286.75

Oct17 281.75 / 283.75

Nov17 279.00 / 281.00

Dec17 276.75 / 278.75

Jan18 277.75 / 279.75

Feb18 278.00 / 280.00

Q4-17 279.25 / 281.25

Q1-18 278.25 / 280.25

Q2-18 277.00 / 279.50

Q3-18 276.75 / 279.25

CAL18 275.50 / 279.00

CAL19 266.25 / 271.25

CAL20 248.25 / 255.25

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Founded in 2002, Freight Investor Services is a specialist in dry bulk and commodity derivatives, including cargo freight, iron ore, fertilizer and bunker fuel. The company has offices in London, Dubai, Singapore and Shanghai.

For further details about fuel oil swaps or to discuss trading opportunities, please contact Andrew Cullen, Client Relations & Development Manager, on +44 207 090 1126, or email AndrewC@freightinvestor.com.