US crude oil imports:
- summer of 2021, the last twelve weeks:
- same period, one year ago, 2020:
US crude oil imports, some thoughts:
- look at the huge jump (as a percentage) in imports starting in August, 2021
- part of this is due to the mix of types of oil desired; US top heavy in light oil; needs heavy oil from Canada, Mexico, Russia
- part of this is due to price / competition
- most of this simply due to a comparison with the year of the plague (2020); a better comparison would be with 2019;
- big question: to what extent is domestic production not keeping up?
- to what extent is domestic production not keeping up by design;
- to what extent is domestic production not keeping up simply because it cannot;
Saudi crude oil inventories, link here:
Afghanistan: social media video coming out of Kabul suggests:
- things are going to get much worse, sooner (before August 31, 2021) than later
- more US combat troops will have to be sent in,
- and even then, it may not be enough
Sensing a pattern here, from social media earlier this morning. Highlights from President Biden's ABC interview:
- did not "recall" being warned by US military to not push ahead with his plan;
- did not know US has troops in Syria
- did not know certain events in Kabul happened this week
- said people falling "off" US transport aircraft happened "four, five days ago"; in fact, that happened the day before the interview
- did not know people were getting killed
- most commonly used "legal phrase" in the interview: "I do not recall."
- it's my experience folks generally don't believe "I do not recall" answer, but in this case, it's probably accurate. Very accurate.
big question: to what extent is domestic production not keeping up?
ReplyDeleteNet imports have been about 1 million bbls/day of crude and distillates.
Refining margins can be slim to none. The accounts and engineers will calculate best profit of type of crude to be processed. Sweet, sour, heavy, middle light. Many grades of crude out there, look at oilprice.com to see the many grades.
On the subject of Saudi crude inventory, reduced oil sold in the past year there should be an increase of inventory.
With the Kabul Taliban situation, CNN goes negative on the president and staff. Amazing how quickly this happened.
Saudi inventories at this post: http://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com/2021/08/notes-from-all-over-august-19-2021.html.
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