Random Update -- Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Aramco -- August 10, 2020

US crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia.  Link here.

• first, the graph:

• now, the spreadsheet: 

Saudi Arabia: 

• in deep trouble; Saudi Arabia sticks to dividend pledge despite plunge in earnings; paywall, Financial Times, CEO/Board of Directors have no say; the King of Saudi Arabia "directs" tht the dividend will continue to be paid; see this note (a must-read);
  
• Saudi Aramco's earning show why Apple is now the world's most valuable company; paywall, Barron's; 
• Saudi Aramco's first-half profits plummet 50%; CEO calls results "solid"; MarketWatch,  
• Saudi Arabia turns off America's oil taps again; Bloomberg;  
• quick: what US state depends most on Saudi Arabian oil?
• US oil imports from Saudi Arabia, tracked here, EIA;
• Saudi foreign exchange reserves drop again;

Total US oil imports: down 18% year-over-year (from all sources, not just Saudi Arabia), link here.

US Crude Oil Imports -- February, 2020, Data

Saudi: data just released / posted today, April 30, 2020 -- link here. In thousands of bbls per day, Saudi Arabian crude oil imports, US.

All: data just released / posted today, April 30, 2020 -- link here. In thousands of bbls per day, all crude oil imports, US.

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Getting Ready For Summer

How to grill a steak by master chef Robert Del Grande:

Notes From All Over -- Part 2 -- June 28, 2019

US crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia (link here):

US Imported Oil From Saudi Arabia -- Latest Data Just Posted -- January, 2019, Data

We keep hearing that Saudi Arabia continues to ship less oil to the US, resulting in higher gasoline prices (since oil itself hasn't inflated a whole lot), and irritating President Trump.

The most recent figures have just been released. The data lags by two months. So, as of the first of April we have the January, 2019, data.

The US actually imported slightly more oil from Saudi Arabia in January, 2019, compared to one year earlier, January, 2018: 711,000 bopd vs 710,000 bod.

It's hard to believe that "we" will see numbers too much lower. And to think, at around 500,000 bopd had President Obama not killed the Keystone XL the "Saudi Arabia shortfall" would have easily been made up by Canada.

From the EIA, most recent data, US imported crude oil from Saudi Arabia, in thousands of bbls daily:

US Saudi Crude Oil Imports Hit 32-Year Low For Month Of January -- Have To Go All The Way Back To 1986 -- March 30, 2018

Link here. And the difference between January, 2017, and January, 2018, is not subtle. Ouch.

Meanwhile, US crude oil exports hit an all-time high for the month of January, going back to when records were first kept. Link here.

"Drill, baby, drill." Making American great again.

Spot price of WTI (at Cushing), rounded, link here:

• end of March, 2018: a "solid" $65
• end of March, 2017 (one year ago): a "less than solid" $50; closer to $47 - $49 

That's really quite remarkable. 15/50 = a 30% jump. And many operators have been able to cut costs over the past year. If oil companies were "evaluated" like analysts "evaluate" Tesla, we would all be gazillionaires.

EIA Report -- December 29, 2017 -- US Crude Oil Import Data For October, 2017, Has Just Been Posted

Great read over at SeekingAlpha. I don't have time to comment but important enough to get it posted. The comments at the article are just as important. Will archive.

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US Crude Oil Imports From Saudi Arabia 

This is simply extraordinary. Unless Saudi Arabia oil is "special" (and, of course, it is not), US refiners have found alternate sources for Saudi oil that used to be imported. Saudi does have its own refinery in the US and will want to keep supplying that refinery with their oil, but unless there's something special about Saudi oil ... oh, I guess I already said that. Link here.

One needs to go all the way back to the 1980's to see such little Saudi Arabian oil being imported into the US.

By the way, making this data even more interesting, OPEC imports actually increased month-over-month, suggesting that even as Saudi Arabia is cutting exports to the US, OPEC, overall, has a more spotty record.

Saudi Arabia is losing market share to other OPEC nations. My hunch is that at $60 WTI/ $66 Brent, Saudi Arabia is ready to open their spigots.

So, quick: who exports more crude oil (and petroleum products) to the US: Russia or Saudi Arabia. One may be surprised at the answer. Obviously, it is Saudi Arabia, but the amount if not particularly different: 18 million bbls/month (Saudi) vs 11 million bbls/month (Russia), assuming I'm reading the tables correctly.

Justin Trudeau's Goal To Keep-Fossil-Fuel-In-The-Ground Seems To Be Working -- December 16, 2017

Updates

December 17, 2017: a reader sent the original post to a friend in Canada. The Canadian reader disagreed with me, saying that Justin Trudeau was in favor of "the Canadian oil sands pipeline." The reader had not heard of George Butts, but this would be like Hillary, had she been elected president, making Tom Steyer her "principal advisor." And this is the problem with folks who are unaware of the persistence of socialists: they are "taken in" by smooth talkers but are unaware of the inner circle advising their elected leaders.

Justin Trudeau can be "for anything he wants to be," depending upon which audience he is addressing, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know where his allegiances lie, see clip below.

Unfortunately this is a long clip but skip ahead to 2:05 to hear George Butts in his own words:


Confused About Canada's Energy Policy?
It will be interesting to see how "Canada" and Justin Trudeau respond to $30-oil.

Original Post

 

A reader sent me a note regarding Canada's Justin Trudeau's principal advisor: George Butts. This is what would have happened to us had Hillary been elected. George Butts is Tom Steyer on steroids. George Butts doesn't have the money but he has the power. He is Trudeau's principal advisor on energy (and I assume most everything else). Prior to his current "job," he was president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund Canada, a global conservation organization. In 2014, Maclean's magazine declared Butts to be the fourteenth most powerful Canadian.

I didn't think that article was of particular interest -- to me it was just another political debacle for the Canadians. So I did not post it and had no plans to post it. Then something else just popped up -- again, another article from a reader, which we will look at farther below, but first:

This is not a rhetorical question. I am truly curious. US refineries are optimized for heavy oil; that's what the Keystone XL pipeline was all about -- bringing heavy oil from western Canada to US refineries along the Gulf coast. Of course that has not panned out.

Meanwhile, imports from Saudi Arabia have dropped significantly and heavy oil imports from Venezuela, I assume, are also dropping. So, where is heavy oil for US refineries coming from? Certainly not from Canada. (Most recent data is from September; it will be quite some time to see data for November/December, 2018.)

The article that caught my attention and changed my mind about posting that bit about George Butts follows.

This article from oilprice.com was sent by another reader: Canadian oil prices plunge to $30/bbl. Data points:

• oil from Canada's oil sands is now selling at $27/bbl discount relative to WTI -- the sharpest difference in more than four years
• Western Canada Select (WCS): benchmark for oil from Alberta's oil sands, has plunged in December, falling to just $30 per barrel at the end of this past week
• reflects: 
• different quality from lighter forms of oil
• extra transportation costs to move oil hundreds of miles out of Alberta
• but a discount is usually something like $10/bbl; not more than $25
• a price deterioration of this magnitude has not been seen in years
• reasons for increased transportation costs: CBR is imploding; perfect storm
• TransCanada's Keystone pipeline capacity was slowed in November while the company made repairs
• led to a glut of WCS; WCS was diverted into storage as the pipeline underwent repairs
• second, railroad companies were unable to accommodate the oil industry on short notice; equipment constraints and crew constraints (one wonders if such constraints are worse in a liberal-leaning/regulation-heavy country like Canada vis-a-vis the US)
• Canadian oil companies have been tied up trying to ship delayed oil cargoes; have not been able to accept oil shipments

Much more at the linked article.

My hunch: Justin Trudeau is receiving a lot of angry phone calls from Alberta but George Butts is more than happy with how things are turning out. Butts leads the "keep-fossil-fuel-in-the-ground" parade.

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Saudi Arabia Crude Oil

US Imports 

Link:

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Venezuela Crude Oil

US Imports

Link:

Thursday -- November 2, 2017 -- Confusion Reigns On The Blog -- You May Want To Skip The Blog Today And Come Back Tomorrow

TSLA: Wow, wow, wow -- in pre-market trading, TSLA just dropped below $300/share -- recovered a bit. Waiting for the opening bid: $301.55, down $19.53 from yesterday's close, down 6.08% from yesterday's close. "Tesla watch" at this post: link here. One can never predict these things, but if a year from now TSLA is trading at $50, we might look back on November 2, 2017, as the day everything came to an end. They are piling on at CNBC and this is the headline story above the fold on the second page of The WSJ today: "Tesla rolls back goal on sedan amid loss." I haven't read the story yet but it will be interesting if they even mention the huge cost of the new gigafactory planned for China. And then this: Elon Musk clearly stated that profits and profit margins on the S and X were keeping Tesla afloat. Yesterday we learn that the lowly Chevrolet Bolt, this past month (October, 2017) outsold both S and X combined. On initial reports (when Elon Musk did report S and X deliveries) Tesla did not even report Model 3 deliveries for the month of October. Update: Model 3 deliveries for October just reported: 145. Holy guacamole, Batman. What next?]

We lost internet service last night -- still down this morning -- blogging from McDonald's -- will be awhile before I get caught up -- November 2, 2017 -- 7:06 a.m.

Because the internet was down all night (and still it at home), my blogs today will be more difficult to follow -- I will be updating each page throughout the next few hours. 

Lots of energy and economic news on the first Thursday of the month. It will take time to wade through it.

Big stories I'm looking for today:

• Tesla: I think the information we are getting is much worse than some expected -- updated; but still more to follow when the market opens
• Saudi import data has been posted
• Saudi foreign reserves has been posted
• unemployment data has been posted
• gasoline demand graph posted
• RDS earnings
• Venezuela to sell refinery assets to China, Russia to cover bonds 

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Most Important Graph So Far Today -- Gasoline Demand

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Jobs Report

Amazing how hard it is to find this data on the net immediately after the report. Under the Obama administration, it came out immediately. But under Trump, it seems it takes forever to get the headlines on the internet. Whatever. Data points:

• first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, numbers better than expected
• 229,000 for week ended October 28, 2017, below the 235,000 expected
• this is almost 2% below the previous week 
• previous week: revised to 234,000 

From the WSJ today: huge jump in jobs --- according to ADP, US private sector added 235,000 jobs in October. Huge beat. Economists had expected the addition of 190,000 jobs. Truly amazing.

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Saudi Arabia in Deep Doo-Doo

Saudi import data: I believe Saudi import data is second lowest in history -- at least since 1989 -- one has to go all the way back to August, 2009, to see a lower import number.

Asian market: On top of this, OPEC/Saudi Arabia will lose battle in trying to corner Asian market.

Early in October, OPEC’s chief, Mohammed Barkindo, appeared to be unfazed by growing U.S. crude oil shipments to OPEC’s key market, Asia. The official said he expected OPEC exports bound for the East will continue to expand in the coming years, eventually hitting 22 million bpd in 2040, up from 14.5 million bpd in 2016.

Yet underneath the confidence, there seems to be growing worry about these U.S. shipments because they’re growing too, and nobody is tying U.S. shale producers’ hands with any production-cutting arrangements aimed to stimulate prices.

In fact, the threat to OPEC from U.S. shale oil just got more serious as it became clear that the cartel and its partners are planning to extend their own agreement until the end of 2018. This means that until the end of next year, OPEC, Russia, and their partners will continue to supply 1.8 million fewer barrels of oil per day to global markets—or at least a figure in that vicinity, as compliance is still far from 100 percent across the group.

Saudi cash, first, from last month, at that time, the most recent data was from July, 2017, tradingeconomics:

Saudi cash, now, today, the data from August, 2017, a further drop, again from tradingeconomics:

Bottom line: Saudi Arabia is in deep, deep trouble.

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Tesla

"Tesla watch" at this post: link here.

Headlines at CNBC crawler earlier this morning:

• largest quarterly loss reported yesterday
• will cut back production of Model 3
• Other headlines elsewhere

Chevrolet Bolt outsold Tesla's Model S and Model X.

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Papa John Is Mad As Hell --

-- And Red As A Beet

Loses $70 million in hours -- blames NFL.

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Royal Dutch Shell -- 3Q17 Earnings Beat

Zacks.

EPS: $1.00 -- breezing past the consensus estimate of 83 cents, and the year-ago adjusted profit of 70 cents

• revenues: almost 25% higher than same quarter one year ago
• revenues: almost $78 billion vs $63 billion a year ago -- just imagine -- almost $100 billion revenue in one quarter -- staggering

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Venezuela - Tick, Tick, Tick

Keeps its head above water ... for now:

Venezuelan state-owned oil company PdV looks to have stepped back from the brink yet again on its latest debt payment, after an $842mn principal payment on a 2020 bond due on 27 October finally started reaching bondholders overnight.

The stakes were especially high this time, because the 2020 bond is backed by a 50.1pc stake in PdV's US downstream subsidiary Citgo.

The nail-biting delay, financial executives say, probably had less to do with PdV´s dwindling cash position and novice financial team than with nervous calls by US intermediary banks to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control to make sure they were not running afoul of US financial sanctions on the Opec country.

Now the clock is ticking for PdV to pay $1.1bn in principal due today on a PdV 2017 bond.

Graphics Worth A Thousand Words; About That OPEC Cut (Wink, Wink) -- October 2, 2017

Pardon The Interruption 

By the way, pardon the interruption, before you do anything else, look at the amount of crude oil the us imported from OPEC from February, 2017, to the most recent reporting period, July, 2017, on a monthly basis (and then get back to me regarding the OPEC cuts [wink, wink]).

Now, back to the original post.

For the archives: WTI is down over 2% today; trading at about $50.57.

I posted these two links over the weekend. I never got around to reading them; something tells me they are incredibly timely articles in light of all the data on this page.

• Saudis pay the price for OPEC leadership, Bloomberg. 
• Saudi Arabia is ceding oil market share to support prices and that's good for US oil plays, Forbes. 

And one more thing, CNBC is reporting that OPEC production for the month of September, 2017, increased by 50,000 bopd:

• trivial in the big scheme of things;
• but, going in the wrong direction; and,
• mostly due to continued increase in Iraqi production

The tea leaves are not hard to read.  

Original Post

This is simply remarkable.

It took a year but Saudi Arabian crude oil imports into the US have finally ... fallen off the chart. This is amazing -- there were reports in the mainstream media that this had occurred but I do not recall any stories suggesting it was this "bad" for the kingdom. I do not recall CNBC talking about this. With Saudi Arabian crude oil imports falling off the chart, the price of oil should be surging, shouldn't it? It's not. In early trading oil was down over 1.2% and WTI was trending toward $50 again.

So, the graphics, from this source, in thousands of bbls / DAY:

The graph:

Look at Saudi cash reserves as of July, 2017.

Now, look at the most recent data, just released:

Meanwhile, crude oil imported to the US from Iraq is surging. The graph below is in thousand bbs/month (the Saudi graph above is thousand bbls/day):

How do the various OPEC countries compare? This is bbls/month for the OPEC countries over the past few months:

Look at US monthly import, comparing Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Venezuela. Over the six-month period shown:

• Venezuela: volatile, but basically the same
• Saudi Arabia: significant decrease
• Iraq: has more than doubled in the past six months

For Saudi Arabia vs Iraq: this is not trivial. 

Total OPEC Imports UP; Saudi Imports DOWN -- July 31, 2017

The most recent import; just posted. May, 2017, data.

Saudi Arabia crude oil imports into the US are down slightly:


















But, overall OPEC crude oil imports into the US are up:

Machts nicht.

See if you can spot the problem?

As long as we're doing graphs, let's look at one more. US crude oil exports:

Third Verse, Same As The First -- Rigzone -- May 29, 2017

Updates

July 20, 2017: three years into cheap oil, OPEC is still hoping for a rebound.

The six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council have curtailed subsidies and introduced new taxes to bolster non-oil revenue and reduce ballooning budget deficits.

Much of the savings, however, have been due to spending cuts and the pace of reforms has slowed across the region, said Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank. Overall progress in economic diversification has been limited, she said.

Absent a rebound in oil prices, analysts say it’s unlikely that these nations can repair their finances without deeper spending cuts that could further hurt growth. The standoff between a Saudi-led bloc and Qatar is also undermining investor confidence at a time when the GCC is seeking foreign funds.

Original Post  

Refresh your memory with this post. And this post, it's just a matter of time before it's every Arab for himself.

Now for the third verse, same as the first, from the Rigzone staff:

Although crude exports figure heavily in its namesake, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries may be oblivious to their relevance now that the United States is back in the market.

After a 40-year absence, the United States began shipping its crude around the world in January 2016, but the importance of the occasion is something OPEC hasn’t quite grappled with, experts say. Rather, OPEC’s focus remains on revenue, if not market share, to keep the world’s crude supply and demand in balance.

And once the nine-month extension of production cuts expires next March – and if global oil benchmarks still haven’t busted through to remain above $50 for a significant period of time – the club may see that it was simply not enough.

More than 1 million barrels of oil are leaving U.S. ports each day, noted Jamie Webster, senior director at the BCG Center for Energy Impact. Petroleum product exports are north of 3 million barrels of oil per day.

“Right now, it’s not something they want to bring into their general discussions, even if it is the reality,” he said. “One thing about OPEC you have to always understand is that they are a low consensus organization – they are just like the U.S. Congress in that – and they are reactive versus proactive. They don’t generally start making moves seeing that something is going to be changing X or Y; they make a move after something pushes them.”

And more:

And for its own exports, OPEC loads only started to slow in May, said Antoine Halff, senior research scholar at the Center of Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, in his commentary, ‘OPEC’s Catch 22?’

“April loadings were at a peak, and overall shipments since January have failed to indicate any significant drop compared to October levels,” he noted, reflecting on figures from ClipperData. 

Happy Memorial Day to one and all from Sophia and from me (it might be hard to see, but Sophia has a little Texas cowboy hat on also):

Saudi Arabia's 2nd Trillion-Dollar Mistake -- Playing a Shell Game -- May 5, 2017

The stories now coming out: OPEC likely to extend production cuts but won't make the cuts deeper.

The initial cuts were minimal in the big scheme of things, and as we've seen, were easily made up by US shale and US Gulf of Mexico.

But now we learn that Saudi Arabia, and probably some/many/most of the others, have been playing a shell game. Saudi Arabia cut production (wink, wink) but more than made up for those cuts (wink, wink) by taking oil out of storage. In the process they actually increased exports to the US by 32% in February, 2017.

A 32% increase in Saudi imports for the US in one month is incredible (February, 2017, compared to February, 2016).

Saudi Cutting Production? What A Bunch Of Crap -- April 28, 2017

Updates

May 29, 2017: see update here. Peak Saudi exports in April, 2017.

Original Post 

The most recent numbers have just been posted for Saudi Arabia US crude oil imports:

Look at the amount imported in February, 2017: 1.338 million bbls. That is the second highest amount since April, 2014. The only higher amount was last month by 6,000 bbls.

Most recent February: imports exceeded the average for February for the past 17 years: 1.282 million bbls.

Since production cuts were announced in Oct/Nov, 2016, Saudi Arabian crude oil has increased 33%, from 1,000,000 bbls in November to 1,338,000 bbls in February, 2017.

If you look across the chart in general, the amount imported in February, 2017, was at the high end of all the monthly import data .

And then folks wonder why WTI is trending below $50.

What A Bunch of Bulls.....April 5, 2017

From Saudi Arabia, US crude oil imports:

Source: here.

From OPEC, US crude oil imports:

Source: here. 

Don't even get me started.

US' Saudi Arabia Crude Oil Imports -- Not Down All That Much -- March 2, 2017

The numbers have just been posted for December, 2016. For all that talk about less Saudi Arabia oil coming into the US, the numbers don't back up the talk. I believe Saudi has refinery operations along the US gulf coast that would "absorb" most of the oil Saudi Arabia ships to the US. The link to the spreadsheet below is here.

For the month of December, 2016, US imports from following countries, month-over-month,

• Iraq was the big winner, going from 13 million bbls to 18 million bbls (month)
• imports from Saudi Arabia, flat
• imports from Venezuela, flat
• imports from Canada went from 122 million bbls to 127 million bbls
• imports from Mexico went from 21 million bbls to 18 million bbls
• imports from Russia went from 13 million bbls to 10 million bbls

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Hysterical Headlines

It's no problem finding hysterical headlines. The challenge is picking out the best hysterical headline to post. The Los Angeles Times is a buffet-ful of hysterical headlines, day in and day out. Today's:

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Reminiscing

One of the highlights of my US Air Force career was practicing medicine alongside a Scottish physician in northern England, in the county of Yorkshire. I worked with him off and on over the course of four years.

Today of all things, there was a wonderful essay in the current issue of London Review of Book, in the "Diary" section. The essay was written by a general practice physician in the NHS system, working in Scotland, near Edinburgh.

The essay brought back wonderful memories of my time working alongside Derrick.

The link to this essay is https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n05/gavin-francis/diary.

Colombian Crude Oil Imports Into The US Surge Almost One-Half Million BOPD To Over 600,000 BOPD -- And That's Just The Beginning Folks -- An Incredible Report -- A "Saturday Night Live" Sketch? -- February 8, 2017

At 7:00 a.m. this morning, the "talking head" casually mentioned a "14-million-bbl-crude-oil" build this past week. I about fell off my chair. Fourteen-million-bbl-crude-oil" build. Nothing else was said, which suggests to me the producer at Fox Business News "Mornings With Maria" has any clue -- or maybe I heard it on CNBC "Squawk Box." Probably the latter. Whatever.

The data below -- in a long note like this, there are bound to be typographical and factual errors. If this is important to you, go to the source. I'll proofread it later. Maybe.

From Platts / EIA:

• US crude oil inventories soared last week
• inventories at fourth-highest level on record
• gasoline stocks saw a surprise drawdown (we'll see the graphs and data tomorrow)
• as reported earlier, US crude oil inventories jumped almost 14 million bbsl to over 500 million bbls last week
• analysts forecast a build of only 2.5 million bbls

Okay, in case you missed that:

• analysts forecast a build of only 2.5 million bbls
• actual build: almost 14 million bbls
• how can analysts be off that much
• can hardly wait for the monthly NDIC Director's Cut due out next week
• inventories are now just 3.5 million bbls below the all-time high of 512 million bbls (April 2016)
• the biggest driver behind last week's build: IMPORTS

Okay, in case you missed that:

• the US is near the all-time record high of crude oil inventories, BECAUSE OF ...
• IMPORTS

Is this a "Saturday Night Live" sketch?

In all the years I've been doing this, I don't recall a build of 14 million bbls -- due to imports when the US has its own glut. 

OPEC says they are cutting back, we all buy into that, and so far, imports this year have averaged 8.6 million bopd, compared with 8 million bopd before the cut (for the most part)

One analyst, on hearing this, used the word, "ironic."

And where are those imports of crude oil coming from? Take a seat:

• Saudi Arabia -- home of Al Qaeda, 9/11 terrorist
• Venezuela -- "Death to America"
• Iraq -- okay, maybe a friend, who knows?

Those three countries accounted for US imports of 677,000 bopd.

Colombian imports surged 448,000 bopd to 637,000 bopd (that almost looks like a typo, doesn't it). The Colombian graph is here. And yes, most recently, around 350,000 bopd -- and now last week, up to 637,000 bopd.

Much more at the link.  

Can hardly wait to see the weekly graphs and data that should be released today.

Trump Excitement! January Payrolls Crush Estimates -- ADP -- February 1, 2017

ADP: up 246,000! Forecast: private sector to add 160,000 jobs.

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Saudi Oil Imports

Previous posted data here.

For November, 2016:

Observations:

• second lowest November in history (November, 2009, global recession)
• almost 20% lower year-over-year
• cut in OPEC production not yet in place; to begin late December, 2016 -- official start January, 2017; to last six months
• compare November, 2016, Saudi imports with March, 2016 -- a 25% drop
• look at November in years 2008, 2009, and 2016

Saudi Arabia Tells Refineries To Expect Fewer Deliveries Beginning in January -- December 10, 2016

A big "thank you" to a reader for sending me the link.

Link here. Data points:

• Saudi Arabia to reduce deliveries of crude oil to Europe and North America
• Asian refineries: so far largely spared
• Asia: in fact, three of the region's refiners said they were told they would receive the extra volumes they requested
• Saudi Arabia recently increased oil production to an all-time high of nearly 10.7 million bopd
• has since reduced production to 10.5 million bopd
• one year ago: 1.3 million bopd

Two comments:

• in the early days of the blog, analysts often stated that Saudi Arabia could/would produce 12 million bopd; I never accepted that; we now see that the all-time high was "nearly" 10.7 million bopd, not significantly different than 1.3 million bopd one year ago (remember previous postings that suggest hundreds of thousands of bopd "unaccounted" for)
• best way to track Saudi's comment regarding North American imports: US Saudi crude oil imports; has hardly changed

An old graphic, frequently posted:

Crude Oil Import Data For May, 2016, Has Been Posted -- August 3, 2016

Most recent data for Saudi crude oil imports into US have been posted. May, 2016, data now available.

Likewise, data for US crude oil imports from all sources for May, 2016, have also been posted. It looks like OPEC imports increased about 11% month-over-month, May-over-April, 2016. But look at the huge increase year-over-year, same month, for OPEC:

• May, 2015: 96,867,000 bbls/month (96.9 million bbls / month = about 3 million bbls/day)
• May, 2016: 112,899,000 bbls/month (112.9 million bbls/month = about 3.6 million bbls/day)

From all countries, the US imported:

• May, 2015: 293,569,000 = about 9.5 million bbls/day
• May, 2016: 315,660,000 = about 10 million bbls/day

By far, Iraq showed the largest percentage increase month-over month, going from around 10 million to 17 million bbls per month.

Is anyone curious about Canada, following the wildfires? Canada has bounced back nicely, increasing significantly month-over-month. Year-over-year (May, 2015, vs May, 2016)? Almost identical and both years about 10% greater than in 2014.

Friday's Energy News And Tweets -- January 8, 2016

Locator: 10010SAUDIMISTAKE.

 

Updates

December 2, 2023: some suggest Saudi might try it again.

July 3, 2016: Kuwait to raise $15 billion in cash to cover deficits.

January 12, 2016: Harold Hamm says the same thing -- Saudi Arabia made a trillion-dollar mistake. 

There's growing evidence that Saudi Arabia's attempt to flood the crude market at a time of oversupply and concerns about weakening demand is not working, American oil billionaire Harold Hamm said Tuesday.

"We're in a predatory pricing environment. That's what's happened. The Saudis turned 1.8 million barrels on, and basically their intent was to drown us. But they've not got that done. It's been a monumental mistake for them, I might add, a trillion- dollar mistake."

Hamm cited speculation that Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant, may sell at least part of its operations in an initial public offering.

"They're having to sell part of their business to keep doing what they are doing," he said, referring to the refusal by the Saudis to cut production. "They're having to sustain a country. We're sustaining companies here. We cut capex and quit spending money. And ride it out."

Pressure may be mounting on Saudi Arabia from fellow OPEC members, as crude prices continued to trade around 12-year lows Tuesday morning. Nigeria's oil minister said a couple members of OPEC have requested an emergency meeting. But other members said the group won't be gathering to talk about oil prices before their next scheduled meeting in June.

Also this January 8, 2016, article at Forbes.

Original Post

 

OPEC's trillion-dollar miscalculation, reported in Forbes. After reviewing the past year's events, and looking at an alternate strategy, the writer concludes:

Would that strategy have cost them market share? Sure, a small amount. But assume they then pumped 34.5 million bpd at $80/bbl. That’s just over a trillion dollars in annual revenue. If instead they pump 36.5 million bpd at $35/bbl — which is actually more than they are getting as I write this — that’s $466 billion in annual revenues.

The annual difference in those scenarios is $541 billion. OPEC already lost out on that much in 2015 from the sharp drop in prices. If prices remain at these levels for most of this year, the foregone revenue for OPEC in 2015 and 2016 will easily top $1 trillion since that November 2014 meeting.

Was this a miscalculation on the Saudis’ part, or is there a deeper strategy at play? I firmly believe they failed to anticipate how sharply oil prices would drop. I think they believed that oil prices could fall somewhat below $75/bbl for a short period of time, and that would be enough to bankrupt a lot of the shale oil companies and allow OPEC to recapture market share.

Instead, the shale oil producers slashed costs, and while some producers have gone bankrupt — and other bankruptcies are undoubtedly on the way — shale oil production has proven to be much more resilient than the Saudis and OPEC expected.

At that time, the Saudis argued that it didn’t make sense for them to cut production. The highest-cost producers, they argued, should be the ones to cut. It is true that defending oil prices by cutting production — the strategy favored by Iran, Nigeria, and Venezuela — would have propped up these high-cost producers. But the shale oil boom was going to run its course and probably peak in a few years. OPEC still controls 1.2 trillion barrels of proved oil reserves — 72% of the world’s total. Thus, unless they expected shale oil production to continue to expand by millions of barrels per day every year, the group could have tightened up production as needed to maintain much higher margins on a shrinking market share. They would have higher revenues today, knowing they would capture back market share as the world’s non-OPEC reserves depleted.

Their strategy may yet pay off though. If they can keep enough marginal production sidelined over time, this period of financial difficulty could enable them to recapture higher margins in the future. If they are able to realize $10/bbl more for their remaining reserves as a result of the current strategy, then their pain will be worth it (for them) in the long run.

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Saudi Crude Oil Surge! Not So Fast!

Remember all that talk about increased crude oil imports in December (John Kemp tweets -- I'll look for the posts later), we now have October EIA data.

After a couple of reports that Saudi Arabian imports surged near the end of the year, John Kemp is tweeting now that Saudi Arabia imports in late November/early December "moderated."

Saudi Arabia crude oil imports into US, October, 2015, data updated. Imports from Saudi Arabia remain near historic lows (remember, Saudi has a huge refinery along the US gulf coast they must supply (I believe that refinery has a daily capacity of 800,000 bopd); columns below are monthly, January through December; most recent data, October, 2015:

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The drop in 2008 - 2009 coincides with a deep recession and the beginning of the Bakken boom. Current Saudi imports compare with the lows in 2008 - 2009.

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Winners And Losers

Crude oil imports into the US from various sources, May, 2015 vs October, 2015 (numbers rounded monthly):

• All countries: a decrease from 294 million bbls to 273 million (delta, 22 million bbls) 
• OPEC: a decrease from 97 million bbls to 90 million bbls (delta, 7 million bbls)
• Saudi Arabia, a loser: from 38 million bbls to 30 million bbls (delta, 8 million bbls)
• Iraq, a winner: from 9 million bbls to 12 million bbls, a 30% increase from May to October
• Venezuela, fairly stable, from 28 million bbls to 25 million bbls, but fairly wide monthly variation
• Canada: monthly variability; but 110 million bbls in May; 105 million bbls in October
• Colombia, a huge loser: from 17 million bbls in May, down to 7 million bbls in October
• Mexico: monthly variability, but 21 million bbls in May, up a bit to 23 million bbls in October

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For The Archives

Forbes.

With the extension of the tax benefits, wind and solar projects started before year’s end will qualify for a 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour production tax credit. It will gradually diminish through 2019. Wind and solar projects could opt instead to take a 30 percent investment tax credit that reduces their federal taxes dollar-for-dollar by what they put into the project. The main difference is that the solar production tax credit will phase out at the end of 2022.

Intermittent:

While green energy has a lot of public appeal, it is still intermittent in nature. And that has put the grid’s traffic cops in an untenable position. They are the ones whose job it is to schedule the flow of electricity on the lines. Their task is to maintain that reliability with the lowest-priced fuels.

Because neither the wind nor sun blows or shines on demand, they need to be firmed up with other easily “dispatchable” forms of generation. That creates two distinct issues:

The first is that the back-up power is not free and the second is that if coal plants are “cycled” up and down, they release more pollutants per unit of output than if they ran full steam ahead.