Finally, Traders Are Reading The Headlines -- May 16, 2022

The headlines:

• no spare capacity;
• Permian operators holding "the line";
• Bakken's DAPL at risk (yawn);
  
• demand coming out of the global pandemic;
• Shanghai, China, "might" be "opening";
• Russian production / exports at risk;

WTI: already high is higher. Up 2% by midday; up $2.20; trading at $112.70. 

• Fortunately the SPR release will keep oil prices from getting too high. And banning new leases in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico will help. And talk about excessive profits --- all this will help. 
• What would really help: changes in attitude, changes in latitude.

Natural gas:

• back to $8 as additional European exports secured;
• this blows me away: Sempra Energy is poised to supply LNG to Poland's PGNiG, Poland's largest gas company;
• PGNiG's liquefied natural gas supply portfolio with U.S. partners currently stands at 7M tons, or 9B cm; the Sempra contract would raise that amount by more than 40%.
• SRE: off to a slow start earlier this morning, is up slightly in mid-day trading.

US crude oil exports, link here:

• 4-handle: October, 2013
• 5-handle: December, 2015
• 6-handle: February, 2017
• 7-handle: October, 2017
• 8-handle: October, 2018
• 9-handle: October, 2019
• the pandemic: 2020
• 9.6-handle: December, 2022