Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Notes From All Over -- Part 1 -- September 14, 2021

Hundred-dollar oil: Europe is now substituting crude oil for natural gas -- pricing now at $133 / boe equivalent (sic) TTF gas price. [TTF: Netherlands::WTI:Cushing]. Is anyone paying attention? Europe is now pulling oil out of storage to meet electricity demands. Look at graph. Bloomberg calling for $100-oil.

Hurricane Nicholas: sources suggest half of Texas without power. Link here. But oil unchanged because Nicholas had minimal effects on GoM crude oil supplies. Colonial Pipeline was shut down for a few hours today due to power outages; back up and running now.

Historic: China -- will stop hoarding oil. Say what? Link here to Haley Zaremba.

For a long time, China’s energy policy has centered around one primary and pressing goal: to establish energy security. As the biggest importer and second-biggest consumer of oil in the world, China is extremely dependent on international markets to keep the lights on and the gears of industry turning. In 2019, a whopping 72% of all crude oil consumed in China was imported. This is a dynamic that makes Beijing uncomfortable, to say the least, and President Xi Jinping’s administration has been hard at work trying to shore up a greater degree of energy independence.

That’s why it came as such a surprise this week when China made a historic decision to sell off some of the oil it has been stockpiling in a strategic reserve for years now. “The heavy dependence on foreign supply has spurred Beijing to focus on ways it can prevent energy shortages,” CNN Business reported back in April 2020. “In addition to requiring state-owned oil companies to increase production, the country has spent years working to increase the amount of oil it keeps in reserve.” Beijing is secretive about just how much oil they have stockpiled, but the nation had been planning to catch up to the world’s largest backup oil cache -- the United States’ Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which boasts an authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels. 

Amy R Sisk: I wonder if Ms Sisk would ever consider holding the "Bakken Desk" for oilprice.com? I remember when Hunter S Thompson held the "Vietnam Desk" for Rolling Stone and reporting / interest improved / increased 10-fold. Or more.

API weekly:

  • US crude: down 5.4 million bbls
  • Cushing: down 1.3 million bbls
  • gasoline: down 2.8 million bbls
  • distillate: down 2.9 million bbls

2 comments:

  1. Burning oil to make electricity to charge your battery operated vehicle makes a lot of sense

    ReplyDelete