Double Whammy! Crude Oil Falls 2.5%; Now Below $62 -- February 7, 2018 -- If You Have But One Metric To Gauge The Health Of The US Economy, That Metric Is Gasoline Demand -- Winston Churchill

No, I don't think Winston Churchill ever said that, but he might have. I don't know. I never met him.

We'll get to that (gasoline demand) later.

But now, the double whammy on price of crude oil. First, the Forties Pipeline will re-open overnight.

But wait, there's a report that there's a problem: Crude oil prices pop higher on reports that he critical Forties pipeline in the North Sea has shut down following an unexpected closure of a feed control valve -- that was this morning at 10:20 ET. But five hours ago, via Twitter, operators said they plan to open the pipeline overnight. It's all in flux. Last Twitter comment: the "unexpected closure of a feed control valve doesn't sound too bad." Probably Homer Simpson came on at shift change. Futures right now show WTI at $61.51.

Second, and this is even worse news: US crude oil inventories increase for the second consecutive week. So much for re-balancing this year.

Gasoline demand.

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Weekly Petroleum: Selected Data Points

Data from the weekly petroleum report, linked above:

• US crude oil inventories increased by 1.9 million bbls -- almost 2 million bbls, and the second time in two weeks to see an increase; now at 420.3 million bbls
• refineries back up to 92.5% operable capacity; much better than last week, but certainly not remarkable
• gasoline production increased and averaged above 10 million bbls per day; same with distillate fuel production -- it rose; averaging 5.1 million bbls per day: for newbies, remember the numbers "10" (for gasoline) and "5" (for distillate fuel)
• total products supplied are up an incredible 4.8% -- almost 5% -- from this time last year -- can anyone say "boom"?
• likewise, motor gasoline product supplied was up 6.5% -- almost 7% -- from this time last year -- can anyone say "boom"?
• and, let's hear an "amen": distillate fuel product supplied was up 8.9% -- almost 9%, which is almost 10% -- can anyone say "boom"?

Amen.

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Re-Balancing

Two weeks ago -- 20 weeks. Then 24 weeks. Now 26 weeks. Hey, we're going in the wrong direction!

20 weeks: about five months.

26 weeks: over six months and we're already into February.

Week	Date	Drawdown	Storage	Weeks to RB
Week 0	Apr 26, 2017		529.0	180
Week 1	May 3, 2017	0.9	528.0	198
Week 2	May 10, 2017	6	522.0	50
Week 3	May 17, 2017	1.8	520.2	59
Week 4	May 24, 2017	4.4	515.8	51
Week 5	May 31, 2017	6.4	509.9	41
Week 6	June 7, 2017	-3.3	513.2	60
Week 7	June 14, 2017	1.7	511.5	57
Week 8	June 21, 2017	2.5	509.0	62
Week 9	June 28, 2017	-0.2	509.2	71
Week 10	July 6, 2017	6.3	502.9	58
Week 11	July 12, 2017	7.6	495.3	47
Week 12	July 19, 2017	4.7	490.6	43
Week 13	July 26, 2017	7.2	483.4	38
Week 14	August 2, 2017	1.5	481.9	48
Week 15	August 9, 2017	6.5	475.4	35
Week 16	August 16, 2017	8.9	466.5	30
Week 17	August 23, 2017	3.3	463.2	29
Week 18	August 30, 2017	5.4	457.8	27
Week 19	September 7, 2017	-4.6	462.4	32
Week 20	September 13, 2017	-5.9	468.2	39
Week 21	September 20, 2017	-4.6	472.8	46
Week 22	September 27, 2017	1.8	471.0	46
Week 23	October 4, 2017	6.0	465.0	41
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
Week 41	February 7, 2018	-1.9	420.3	26

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Your Enemy Is My Enemy

These two nations have been fighting each other as long as ...  I don't know for how long ... but it's been awhile.

But now that it looks like the government might keep its word on at least one thing when dealing with Native Americans, the two nations unite to plead their case.

From Twitter:

The PennEnergy link is here. Technically, the government is not shutting the plant down -- at least not directly. The linked article has more of the story.