[RE]fuel Report Market Commentary

RTFC values weakened as sellers were heard offering Year 9 and Year 10 at parity with each other - prices on the offer heard at 21.7 p, while Year 11 also heard offered at 22.25p.

As such, the assessed values for Year 9 and 10 fell in line with the offers, to be assessed just below the offer levels at 21.6 p each. “The 9 market is massively long,” one source said with 355 million certificates still available and the year now more than half way through.

A cocktail of geopolitical concerns drove crude prices higher during the week, attaining levels that have not been seen for over two years as Dated Brent rose to around $64/b, driving up the crude complex and narrowing the differentials between the mineral energy complex and the biofuel space.

Europe could be in the sights of Argentine SME flows after the US opted to impose duties on the country’s biofuel exports. The move effectively prices Argentina out of the US market, leaving some 600 million litres, or around 530,000 mt seeking a new home.

Rising imports of SME from Argentina has already started to pressure FAME 0 prices, according to trade sources, although most of the product has flowed into the Mediterranean rather than Northwest Europe.