WTI Continues To Trend Down -- August 23, 2023

Locator: 45456B.

TMX pipeline: likely to start "later" in 1Q24. Link to Argus.

• this is that Canadian pipeline that has discombobulated the indigenous folks up there, eh?
• 590,000 -- let's just call it, 600,000 b/d pipeline -- same size as the Biden-killed Keystone XL
• $23 billion
• federally-owned
• tolls have increased significantly due to cost overruns due to indiginous folks and others delahying the project
• TransMountain says it will be responsible for 69 percent of the cost overruns since 2017, while the remaining 31% will be passed on to shippers in the form of higher tolls.
  
• my hunch: won't be "full" until 2Q24 at the earlier 
  

Dot's Pretzels: to exit Velva, ND. Link here.

Lake Mead: follow-up in ten days. Link here.

***********************
Back to the Bakken

WTI: oh, boy! $78.51. Do folks remember how "oil bulls" told us during the entire first half off 2023, WTI was going to trend much higher in the second half, some saying as high as $100? Well, so far, we're trending lower. That's why I quit following "Josh" over at twitter. He became more and more irrelevant if not completely wrong. I can only take so much. Sort of like Jim Cramer over at CNBC. Yes, I know it's the summer doldrums and we just have to wait for October. [Later: Bloomberg is saying the very same thing. I'll post that later.]

Thursday, August 24, 2023: 44 for the month; 246 for the quarter, 491 for the year
38993, conf, Hess, TI-Stenbak-158-95-2526H-8,
37932, conf, BR, Parrish 3C TFH,

Wednesday, August 23, 2023: 42 for the month; 244 for the quarter, 489 for the year
39448, conf, CLR, Edward 8-23H1,

RBN Energy: understanding North American crude oil markets in the export era. Archived.

There’s a lot going on in North American crude oil markets these days. Exports are running strong. Midland WTI is now deliverable into Brent (but only if it meets specs). Pipelines from the Permian to Corpus Christi are maxed out, pushing incremental production to Houston. The price differential between WTI at Midland and Houston is nearing zero. And the value of heavy Western Canadian Select (WCS) delivered to the U.S. continues to bounce all over the place. Are these unrelated, random events in the quirky U.S. physical crude market, or are they logical developments linked by the economics of refinery preferences, quality shifts, export demand, and logistics? As you might expect, we think it’s the latter. Believe it or not, crude markets sometimes do behave rationally — and, from time to time, even predictably. That’s what we explore in today’s RBN blog.