Market Commentary
Mississippi River at Risk of Running Low for Third Straight Year
March 22, 2024
Energy markets have bounced a little after a few days of them trading lower. Prices are likely to be steady today as there is hope of a cease fire agreement between Israel and Hamas. Secretary of State Antony Blinken indicated that talks in Qatar my lead to a ceasefire. In […]
Chinese Industrial Production Up 7% for January 2024
March 19, 2024
Stockpiles of middle distillates in Singapore, the reginal hub for refined fuels, surged 8% last week to reach the highest since September 2021 as net exports of diesel dropped by 98%. Total middle distillates in Singapore were 10.97 million barrels last week, up from 9.99 million the prior week, with […]
Ukraine Continues Counterattacks on Russian Energy Infrastructure
March 18, 2024
The Baker Hughes Rig Count had oil rigs up to 6 to a total of 510 and last year there were 589 oil rigs in operation. Production was down in last Wednesday EIA weekly report, but it is still very high at near 13 million bpd. The March Empire State […]
Conflict in the Middle East Ensnares Energy Exports
March 14, 2024
The DOE inventory report had crude oil stocks down 1.54 million barrels to a total of 446.994 million and last year there were 480.063 million a 33.069 million barrels deficit year over year. Gasoline stocks were down 5.66 million barrels to a total of 234.083 million and last year there […]
Market Expects Build in US Crude Inventory
March 13, 2024
The API called crude oil inventories down 5.521 million barrels, gasoline inventories down 3.75 million barrels, and distillates down 1.16 million barrels. The average estimate for today’s DOE inventory report from the Bloomberg survey is for crude to be up 307,000 barrels, gasoline down 1.620 million barrels and distillates down […]
Citi Sets Short Term Crude Forecast at $80 Per Barrel
March 12, 2024
Crude prices were down in yesterday’s trading as oil supply disruption concerns and weak demand concerns for China ease. But product prices had a strong up move and gave technical traders some hope that prices have bounced from support and kept the bullish outlook in place. Citi Research reiterated its […]
Chinese Fuel Imports Are Down
March 11, 2024
The Baker Hughes Rig Count had oil rigs down 7 to a total of 622 oil rigs. Last year at this time there were 746 oil rigs in operation. Despite the lower number of rigs, US crude oil production is still very strong reported last Wednesday in the DOE report […]
Fed Chair Says 2024 Rate Cut Contingent on Inflation Dropping
March 7, 2024
The DOE inventory report had crude oil supplies up 1.37 million barrels, gasoline down 4.46 million and distillates down 4.13 million. Refinery utilization was up 3.40% to 84.90% of capacity. Propane supplies were down 4,000 barrels to a total of 51.177 million barrels. Midwest stocks were down 242,000 barrels putting […]
Fed “Under No Pressure to Lower Interest Rates”
March 6, 2024
The API in its weekly update estimates called crude oil supplies up 423,000 barrels with the average estimate for today’s DOE report to be up 2.116 million barrels. Gasoline from the API was down 2.77 million barrels with the estimate for today for a decline of 1.640 million. Distillates on […]
OPEC+ Extends Voluntary Cuts Through 2024
March 4, 2024
OPEC+ agreed on Sunday to extend its voluntary production cuts of roughly 2 million bpd through the second quarter of 2024. Russia has pledge to focus more on constricting production than exports. Some suggest that these actions have put a floor under crude oil prices. Russia said they will cut […]
OPEC+ Expected to Extend Supply Cuts
March 1, 2024
OPEC+ is expected to announce soon that they plan to extend their supply cuts through Q2 2024 or through the end of the year. OPEC+ continues to say what they can to support prices, but are they performing on these cuts, that is debatable. It was reported the OPEC+ produced […]
US Inflation Cools
February 29, 2024
The DOE inventory report had crude up 4.199 million barrels, Cushing, OK crude stocks were up 1.458 million barrels, gasoline stocks were down 2.832 million and distillates were down 510,000. The smaller decline in distillate stocks than expected is putting some softness in prices. Crude oil inventories built for the […]