Jet Fuel Delivered -- Weekly EIA Petroleum Report -- March 17, 2021

Updates

March 19, 2021: mystery solved. 

Original Post

Weekly EIA petroleum report: link here. 

• weekly US crude oil in storage increased by 2.4 million bbls;
  
• US crude oil in storage goes over 500.8 million bbls, 6% above the five-year average;
  
• refiners operating at 76.1% operable capacity;
  
• distillate fuel inventories increased by  0.3 million; distillate inventories at 2% below five-year average
  
• jet fuel supplied was down 36.2% compared with same four-week period last year;

Most concerning data point from today's report: jet fuel delivered. The number had been improving since the beginning of the year, but dropped precipitously in the most recent report. One wonders if this is still a bit of a hangover from the Texas Deep Freeze even as other fossil fuel product sectors improve following that unfavorable event. 

Those $7,000 Utility Bills? Happy St Patrick's Day -- March 17, 2021

Link here to The Dallas Morning News.

Notes From All Over -- Mid-Morning Edition -- March 17, 2021

CORN! China books 1.16 million metric tons of US corn, first big flash sale in weeks. Link here. 

Natural gas pipelines: four new US natural gas pipelines come on line. Link to Charles Kennedy.

India: will cut Saudi Arabian oil imports, and buy more from US. Link here. Sulfur content? ULSD ultra light sulfur diesel? Also here at Bloomberg.

Indian crude purchases from Saudi Arabia dropped 36% in January from the previous month, while U.S. imports more than doubled, government data show.

Reuters reported earlier that Indian state-run refiners planned to cut purchases from the kingdom by a quarter to about 10.8 million barrels in May.

Around 86% of Indian oil imports last year were from OPEC+ members, with 19% coming from Saudi Arabia, according to government data. New Delhi has repeatedly called for OPEC+ to pump more crude to stop prices from rising too high, but its pleas have fallen on deaf ears with Riyadh extending its supply cuts and raising premiums for its crude.

Canadian housing! Link here. Prices surging. 

US Retail Sales Surged In January, 2021 -- The Initial 5.3% Estimate Was Revised Upward To 7.6% -- March 17, 2021

Weekly EIA petroleum report: link here. 

• weekly US crude oil in storage increased by 2.4 million bbls;
  
• US crude oil in storage goes over 500.8 million bbls, 6% above the five-year average;
  
• refiners operating at 76.1% operable capacity;
  
• distillate fuel inventories increased by  0.3 million; distillate inventories at 2% below five-year average
  
• jet fuel supplied was down 36.2% compared with same four-week period last year;
  

Shale conundrum: from Rigzone. 

Shale’s newfound prudence after last year’s crash is putting producers in the unusual situation of reducing oil output just as prices surge.

More focused than ever on keeping spending in check, shale drillers haven’t been boring new wells fast enough to keep up with output declines in older ones. So, next month, their combined production will edge lower by 47,000 barrels a day to about 7.46 million, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s despite an oil price jump of more than 30% this year.

The impact of the coronavirus on energy consumption was so bad last year that several heavily indebted shale producers went under after years of being bankrolled by Wall Street. Now, producers don’t seem to be in a rush to start another boom, and their backers aren’t either. That’s good news for Saudi Arabia, which has sought to bring prices up without unleashing a new supply glut.

“We are still observing only about 50% of last year’s rig count activity,” EIA analyst Jozef Lieskovsky said by email. “With such a low rig count, even with the increased productivity, production declines in all regions are possible.”

Retail sales: another non-story. Link here. Did anyone even see this? 

Revisions published Tuesday now show retail sales in January increased 7.6% over the prior month compared to initial estimates of a 5.3% increase, ... so this 2.3% upward revision to January's data would've challenged just about any month's report to look good on a headline basis. 

Let alone a report hurt by historically disruptive weather and fading fiscal stimulus. 

"When you have trillions in stimulus going out the door and into consumer pockets at various points, sales will tend to be lumpy." And so strange comps are worth keeping in mind if we start to see retail sales figures go haywire in March or April.

CLR Reporting Another Nice Gordon Federal Well -- March 17, 2021

Active rigs:

$64.51	3/17/2021	03/17/2020	03/17/2019	03/17/2018	03/17/2017
Active Rigs	17	56	65	58	47

One well coming off confidential list today -- Wednesday, March 17, 2021: 18 for the month, 74 for the quarter, 74 for the year.

• 36096, F/A, CLR, Gordon Federal 12-5H1, Haystack Butte, first production, 11/20; t--; cum 76K 1/21;

RBN Energy: inbound pipelines tothe Patoka crude oi hub, part 2.  

The crude oil hub in Patoka, IL, is in many ways a smaller version of the hub in Cushing, OK. 

Like its larger sibling, Patoka receives a broad variety of crudes from Western Canada, the Bakken, and other production areas, stores and blends oil, and sends it out to refineries and Gulf Coast terminals tied to export docks. 

In Patoka’s case, there are only five major incoming pipelines that directly connect to the hub, but many of them receive crude from a number of upstream systems, some as far away as the Alberta oil sands. Important for Patoka’s future, a few of the pipelines feeding the hub are being expanded. Today, we continue our series on the second-largest oil hub in PADD 2 with a look at the pipelines that flow into Patoka and the sourcing of their crude.