Another Story Not Being Reported By Mainstream Media (Yet) -- December 29, 2014

India

 
Consumption is up in India. Link here. A huge "thank you" to a reader for sending this article.

This is an incredible under-reported story, but once a few stories are published, it will snowball. I talked about it earlier.

I don't watch television any more (except for sports, a few other exceptions) so I don't know what CNBC is talking about (I assume mostly about Starbucks coffee and Ackman; Herbalife and Greenberg. But I digress. This is the kind of story CNBC always seems to be behind on -- the story linked above about India. A 5% increase in crude oil consumption (gasoline/diesel) is not trivial.

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China

From Platt's, dated December 23, 2014:

China's "apparent" oil demand in November rose 3.5% year over year to 42.18 million metric tons (mt), or an average 10.31 million barrels per day (b/d), according to a just-released Platts analysis of Chinese government data.

The official data also showed China turning into a net exporter of oil products during the January – November period this year.

China's apparent oil demand in November increased 2.2% from October.

Meanwhile, total apparent oil demand was 9.99 million b/d during the first 11 months of the year, an increase of 2.3% over the same period last year.

In an unprecedented development, China has become a net exporter of oil products over January to November this year, with oil product exports surpassing imports by 70,000 mt (600,000 bbls).

Stimulus measures implemented by the Chinese government and a seasonal uptick in year-end demand helped buoy consumption in November.

"Chinese refiners requested for more oil product quotas from the government for the fourth quarter. This was mostly to accommodate additional jet fuel exports because of robust production growth."

Crude throughput by refineries in November was up 5.5% year over year to 42.25 million mt, or an average 10.32 million b/d, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) mid-December.

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The US

This graph tells the story. I suspect the 2015 - 2017 peak will look a lot like 2005 - 2007 if prices stay low.

From CrudeOilPeak:

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But At Least It's Hard To Catch

Tweeting now: Number of people infected by Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea passes 20,000, with more than 7,842 deaths, reports World Health Organization - @Reuters

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Global Warming

Rare snow to blanket Las Vegas.