Market Open: Further Middle East hostilities set to impact market today

ASX today – With oil hovering just below US$100 a barrel, the ASX is expected to follow Wall Street down this morning.

Wall Street fell overnight with the SPX down 0.58 per cent to 7,673 points and the DJI down 1.18 per cent to 52,786 points.

Increasing military hostilities and shipping disruptions in the Middle East involving the US and Iran around the Strait of Hormuz, alongside reports of halted operations at regional oil facilities saw Brent Crude hit US$99 per barrel this morning.

Meanwhile, the parties behind the US$16 billion Papua LNG project are hoping a reshaping of ownership will rejuvenate the massive Papua New Guinea gas development.

A final investment decision (FID) is now close to three years behind schedule under the original operatorship of French firm TotalEnergies.

Now with pressure on the oil and gas companies involved to reach FID by year’s end, Total is handing over the reins to US major ExxonMobil.

Total has also reached agreement with Australia’s Santos to sell-off some of its majority stake in the onshore LNG development.

Santos has executed a binding agreement to acquire an additional 3.3 per cent participating interest in the project from TotalEnergies. The consideration payable by Santos is approximately US$189 million.

The acquisition will increase Santos’ participating interest in the project to 21 per cent.

On the market news front:

Olympio Metals (ASX: OLY) has commenced a US critical minerals exploration campaign;

Frontier Energy (ASX: FHE) has kicked off the construction phase at the Waroona renewable energy project;

Corazon Mining (ASX: CZN) has hit high-grade gold in Feather Cap drilling;

Forrestania Resources (ASX: FRS) has secured Hub agreements in WA; and

Maronan Metals (ASX: MMA) has intersected shallow copper-gold at Starter Zone.

Buck and ore

Now – in forex, the Oz dollar is buying US$0.722

Looking at commodities, all in the greenback,

Iron Ore was up 0.45 per cent to $100.02 per tonne in Singapore today,

Brent Crude was up 2.21 per cent to $99.310 per barrel,

Gold was selling at $4355.03,

US natgas futures were down 2.34 per cent to $2.9053per gigajoule.

That’s HotCopper’s Market Open, I’m Colin Sandell-Hay – happy trading.

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