Finally, folks are getting the message. "Quality" of oil matters.
Look at this overnight, and in the past few minutes;
Continuing from where we left off last night:
Watching oil move tonight, just has to be more interesting than the speech:
- WTI: up 5.01%; up $5.18; trading at 108.68.
- Brent: up 5.23%; up $5.49; trading at 110.46.
Now, this morning:
- WTI: up 7%; up $7.16; trading at 110.57.
- Brent: up 7%; up $7.35; trading at 112.32.
Holy mackerel: just minutes later --
- WTI: up 8.5%; up $8.74; trading at 112.15.
- Brent: up 8.4%; up $8.79; trading at 113.76.
This from yesterday: "quality of oil matters." The world needs heavy oil -- the kind Canada would have shipped down the Keystone XL -- and that's the kind Russia also supplies.
It's going to be hard to replace that Russian oil. And yes, how does that affect WTI? A light oil. It's complicated. From Brian Sullivan yesterday: absent recession or big OPEC (Saudi) surprise, easy to see oil hit $125 soon.
Russian barrels are hard to replace. Oil has different qualities.
We've been talking about this for years. And, oh by the way, the price of oil is not determined by how much the first bbl costs but how much the last bbl costs.
Many, many story lines why oil is surging. Most of it has to do with Ukraine, Russia, but a lot has to do with fact that Biden administration unable to admit it made a huge mistake. Will let that mistake get worse.
Oil companies:
- shares surging?
- where is that money coming from?
- RIVN: down 8.4% yesterday; today, in pre-market, down another 2.5%; market opens, and RIVN is down 13% in early morning trading;
- LCID: down 14% yesterday; today, in pre-market, down another 1%; in early morning trading, down another 5% from yesterday;
- F: down 5% yesterday; goes below $17; today, in pre-market, up 3.5%, back above $17, which appears to be the new floor; in early morning trading, up almost 5% over yesterday;
- FSLR: holy mackerel, down 14% in pre-market today; one-year high, $123; now trading at $65; in early morning trading, down 12%; trading at $66.73;
- I guess this is called sector rotation; wonder how BlackRock is doing?
Urals is more of a medium grade, about 31 API gravity. Comparable to Mars grade from US GOM or Alaskan North Slope. Nothing like Canadian or VZ grades that can be 10 API or lower, and are usually around 17 API during transport. (California crude is also about 17.)
ReplyDeleteThe sulfur content of Urals has been creeping up lately, from 1.3% towards high 1s or even 2%. But that's really still comparable to Mars grade or ANS and still less than classic medium grades like Basra. And it's not like the 4% in Canadian, VZ, or California heavy crudes.
Also, note that the world is NOT short of medium, heavy, or light grades. This is all silliness from reporters and analysts that have never really worked in refineries or traded oil globally. Mixing, moving crudes is very normal and has been something the industry has done for last 100 years as new fields of different grades came on line.
Also, FWIW, medium sour grades like Mars, Urals, ANS, Basra still trade at LOWER prices than WTI/Brent (classic light sweet). And heavy grades have even lower prices than medium. Yes, the world got a lot of light sweet from West Texas and the Bakken, but it just (slightly) shrunk the advantage of light sweet. It has not reversed the advantage.
Also, Bakken oil is near perfect, like WTI, in terms of API and sulfur content. Gets premium pricing AFTER reaching its destination. So, if you're trading in Houston or Rotterdam or Singapore, WTI/Brent/Bakken (all very similar) get the premium price. Only reason you see lower sometimes is because of transport (pricing them in the field, versus at the customer).
Thank you, much appreciated.
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