WTI $52.20 -54c, Brent $57.85 -88c, Diff $5.65 -34c, NG $2.86 +9c

Oil price

Its another short blog today as there isnt much company news and the Iran deal, although apparently agreed is only just coming through.

In Vienna, despite last night being the deadline, the US apparently worked hard to ensure a deal was done. I will report much more when I have all the details but the oil price is falling this morning, as I write at 0808 hrs WTI is $50.93 and Brent is $56.74, not free fall but market participants are aware that even a modest loosening of sanctions will supply more oil onto an already oversupplied market. Yesterdays Opec report showed that the cartel produces 283/- barrels more in June than it had in May, again I suggest that they have been producing flat to the boards before a decision has to be made about Iran.

Plexus 

Plexus has announced that its JV with IPS has secured a local Petronas licence to manage and supply POS-GRIP well head equipment in Malaysia. When I last visited Plexus they were very keen on the possible developments in Malaysia and Asia and have put a considerable amount of investment in the Singapore hub, this may be further validation of that strategy.

Tethys

I mentioned Tethys yesterday as I was due to see Mr Bell this morning and they had just received a bid from Nostrum, they have quickly checked it out and declined it. It seems that C$0.19 is more agreeable that C$0.215 even though after the AGR/Pope AM raise those vehicles will own 36% and Pope 27% of the company. Watch this space…

Sundry

I spot that Marathon Petroleum has agreed to buy MarkWest Energy Partners for $15.8bn in a midstream deal with an EV of some $20bn and debt of $4.1bn

And finally…

Carl Froch has hung up his gloves this morning, no great surprise as I guess he has done pretty much all he can.

And the summer signings just keep on coming, yesterday Man Who added Bastian Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin to the squad, already having purchased Memphis Depay and Matteo Darmian…