Palisades Gold Radio · Friday, July 17, 2026
Rory Johnston explains that a collapse in prompt time spreads, moving from backwardated to contango, signals an oversupply of spot barrels in the market. This phenomenon was observed across Brent, WTI, and Dubai crude.
“the one thing I do fundamentally believe is that prompt time spreads the spread between the first and the second contract particularly if you see the phenomenon across all grades you know that's not lying”
“you saw a collapse in basically from the beginning of June through to the beginning of July and even relative to last week you saw spreads fall from very backwardated which is a sign which basically a premium on spot barrels versus future barrels signals deficits or lack of supply in the market you saw those flip from backwardated to contango outright by the end of June and early July”
“that is a pretty iron clad sign that we had too much spot supply in the market and that was seen across Brent WTI Dubai barrels”