WTI Continues To Drop And The Driving Season Has Peaked -- July 26, 2024

Locator: 48239WTI.

PCE: in line.

• some will say, inflation remains sticky, stagnant;
• others will say, great progress has been made;
• both are correct, as long as folks feel 2.5% annual inflation is too high when the target is 2%;
• consumer sentiment: 66.4 vs 66.0 estimate,
• but much, much lower than where we were a year ago
• 79.4 in March, 2023

US markets: surge.

Most not-unexpected news: Mexico's new "mega" refinery delayed; way over budget; link here. Shocked! I’m shocked!

• article by Charles Kennedy, so you know it's good, and it's an incredibly important story;
• RBN Energy, earlier this year

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $77.29.

Sunday, July 28, 2024: 47 for the month; 47 for the quarter, 373 for the year
40301, conf, Whiting, Sanish Bay E Federal 5292 22-7 6B,
40174, conf, Slawson, Cyclone 3-21-16H,

Saturday, July 27, 2024: 45 for the month; 45 for the quarter, 371 for the year
40300, conf, Whiting, Sanish Bay E Federal 5292 22-7 7B,

Friday, July 26, 2024: 44 for the month; 44 for the quarter, 370 for the year
40415, conf, CLR, Chase 6-19HSL,
40321, conf, Whiting, Sanish Bay E Federal 5292 22-7 8B,

RBN Energy: in catalyst recycling, refiners weigh environmental, profit incentives against risk of change.

In a refinery, crude oil is first distilled, which separates it into light, medium and heavy fractions. After that, refiners start performing chemical reactions to change the oil’s molecules from their natural form into those needed in modern fuels. But the catalysts used in that process aren’t only expensive, they essentially end up as hazardous waste at the end of their productive life. That helps to explain why there’s been a lot of interest in catalyst recycling, which advocates see as a way for refiners to improve both their profitability and their environmental performance. In today’s RBN blog, we continue our look into catalyst recycling — the technology, economics and trade-offs — and detail some of the pushback against it.

As we noted in Part 1, catalysts are materials that accelerate chemical reactions during the refining process. This includes catalytic cracking, which “cracks” heavier molecules into lighter gasoline molecules, thereby increasing the volume of gasoline produced from a barrel of crude, and catalytic hydrogenation, which removes sulfur atoms embedded in the molecules, reducing air pollution from vehicle exhaust.