Weekly NG Fill Rates, Gasoline Demand -- November 5, 2015; Look At Recent US Crude Oil Imports From Brazil

Updates

November 10, 2015: in the post below I selected a few countries to see where the US was getting its imported oil. Venezuela stands out; while imports have been decreasing overall, US imports from Venezuela have been increasing. I have talked about this before. US refiners along the Gulf Coast need heavy oil to off-set the glut of light oil. US refiners along the Gulf Coast invested $6 billion to optimize their operations for heavy oil from Canada before the Bakken shale revolution. Refiners scrambled to figure out what to do. It turns out a blend of heavy oil and light oil works (though not as good as what the refiners had expected if using only heavy oil from Canada). Now we have a Bloomberg story that says the same thing -- regular readers of the blog and RBN Energy were already well aware of this. From the Bloomberg story:

President Barack Obama’s rejection of TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline could give Venezuela’s ailing economy a lifeline.

With the world’s largest oil reserves, the South American country produces heavy crude that’s similar in consistency to the one coming from Canada’s oil sands, and its economy relies largely on shipping it to the same U.S. Gulf Coast refineries that Keystone XL was meant to supply.

“The number one beneficiary of all this will be Venezuela and other suppliers of heavy oil that ship to the Gulf Coast by tanker,” IHS Energy Inc. Vice President Jim Burkhard said by e-mail.

Venezuela is facing an economic crisis as the price of crude, its main source of revenue, has plummeted by more than half since June last year to trade below $50 a barrel. The slump has caused a rift within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, of which Venezuela is a member, as Saudi Arabia continues to pump crude from the ground at an unprecedented pace.

The Canadians should be paying attention. 

Original Post

 

Natural gas fill rate (dynamic link): 52. In the East Region, stocks were 9 Bcf below the 5-year average following net injections of 32 Bcf.

Gasoline demand (dynamic link): continues to rise though the delta between this year and last remains about the same. Four week averages:

• week ending 10/23/15: 9.149 million bopd
• week ending 10/30/15: 9.205 million bopd
• one year ago 10/31/14: 8.977 million bopd

I don't recall when I last updated crude oil import data, but at risk of repeating myself (check out the delta between Saudi imports and Venezuela imports for August, 2015):

OPEC import data updated as of August, 2015:

• OPEC, August, 2014: 101.5 million bbls
• OPEC, August, 2015: 85.3 million bbls

• Saudi imports, August, 2013: 41.3 million bbls
• Saudi imports, August, 2014: 27.8 million bbls
• Saudi imports, August, 2015: 31.2 million bbls

• Venezuela imports, August, 2013: 21.0 million bbls
• Venezuela imports, August, 2014: 26.9 million bbls
• Venezuela imports, August, 2015: 29.0 million bbls

 Imports of crude oil into the US, all countries:

• August, 2013: 317.6 million bbls
• August, 2014: 288.9 million bbls
• August, 2015: 302.8 million bbls

Imports from Canada:

• August, 2013: 95.6 million bbls
• August, 2014: 106.4 million bbls
• August, 2015: 121.5 million bbls 

Imports from Mexico:

• August, 2013: 28.2 million bbls
• August, 2014: 24.7 million bbls
• August, 2015: 22.6 million bbls

Imports from Brazil:

• August, 2013: 7.5 million bbls
• August, 2014: 6.6 million bbls
• May, 2015: 3.4 million bbls
• June, 2015: 7.7 million bbls
• July, 2015: 6.5 million bbls
• August, 2015: 12.3 million bbls