WTI Drops Below $65 -- June 15, 2018 -- Bakken-WTI Differential Hits All-Time High -- One "Word": DAPL -- Off The Net For Awhile

Updates

Later, June 15, 2018: closed at $65.06. This certainly suggests that the "loss" of Venezuela oil does not matter.

Original Post

Currently trading at $64.96.

Off the net for most of the day. Family commitments.

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WTI-Bakken Differential

This is pretty cool. From Platts:

The Bakken shale crude differential in Williston, North Dakota, climbed to its highest recorded level Thursday despite a narrowed Brent-WTI spread, with Clearbrook barrels climbing to an eight-month high.

Close to the Bakken oil fields, Williston barrels climbed 15 cents day on day to be assessed at NYMEX light sweet crude calendar-month average (WTI CMA) plus $1.75/b, on the back of a Dakota Access Pipeline trade heard and talked rebid 5 cents lower.

This was the highest field barrel differential since S&P Global Platts began assessing Bakken in Williston in April 2014.

Williston-origin Bakken for FOB transport on BNSF trains was heard traded at NYMEX WTI CMA plus $1.95/b.

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No Recovery In Sight

Link here.

Graphic:

One has to wonder. Did Venezuela ever matter? Before Venezuela imploded, the price of WTI was rising and hitting some new recent highs. Now Venezuela is imploding, importing oil for the first time, and the price of oil plummeted today. Again, did Venezuela ever matter? If Venezuela doesn't matter, does Libya? Does Iran? If you ask me, it comes down to the US, Saudi Arabia, and Putin. Everything else if background noise and irrelevant.