Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Oh, Oh -- The Bakken Strikes Back -- US Crude Oil Inventories Surge -- Up 6.8 Million BBls -- Saudi's Worse Nightmare -- Time To Re-Balance Jumps -- WTI Holds Above $64

Updates

Later, 9:50 a.m. CT: look at the data below -- it's really quite amazing --
  • first, look at refinery operating data -- dropped to 88% -- I haven't seen that in a long time; likely due to refineries starting to switch from winter to summer blends; possibly due to regularly scheduled maintenance; possibly increased capacity coming on line
  • second, note that despite the decrease in refinery operating data, gasoline production increased -- two important story lines:
    • refineries able to maintain production despite operating at 88% capacity
    • gasoline prices had been trending up over the past few weeks, and pundits were starting to talk about the impact higher gasoline prices might have on Trump's economy
  • third, even though crude oil imports seem to be moving up/down in a narrow range, the fact is imports have had a four-week trend of decreasing
  • fourth, the surge in US crude oil inventories is not something Saudi wants to see
  • we will see the gasoline demand graph later today
Original Post
Anticipating EIA data later today: posted here.
  • US crude oil inventories: increased by 6.8 million bbls
  • refineries operating potential collapses; well below 90% now; at 88.1%
  • despite that, gasoline production increased last week -- wow -- almost 10 million bbls per day
  • distillate fuel production decreased last week
  • crude oil imports down a bit, continuing that trend
  • at 418.4 million bbls of crude oil, US crude oil inventories are in the middle of the average range for this time of year
  • gasoline inventories near the top of the average range (all things being equal, gasoline prices should drop this week)
Re-balancing: the chart was getting too long, so I only included the data since October, 2017. This is really quite amazing. This is the first time in quite some time that the time to re-balance has increased, and the jump/reversal was not trivial. It jumped from 20 weeks to 24 weeks before we see re-balancing based on current rate of decrease in US crude oil inventories:

Week 24
October 12, 2017
2.8
462.2
40
Week 25
October 18, 2017
5.7
456.5
37
Week 26
October 25, 2017
-0.9
457.3
39
Week 27
November 1, 2017
2.4
454.9
38
Week 28
November 8, 2017
-2.2
457.1
42
Week 29
November 15, 2017
1.9
459.0
43
Week 30
November 22, 2017
1.9
457.1
42
Week 31
November 29, 2017
3.4
453.7
41
Week 32
December 6, 2017
5.6
448.1
37
Week 33
December 13, 2017
5.1
443.0
36
Week 34
December 20, 2017
6.5
436.5
30
Week 35
December 28, 2017
4.6
431.9
28
Week 36
January 4, 2018
7.4
424.5
25
Week 37
January 10, 2018
4.9
419.5
23
Week 38
January 18, 2018
6.9
412.7
20
Week 39
January 24, 2018
1.1
411.6
20
Week 40
January 31, 2018
-6.8
418.4
24

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.