Iran and the United States Continue to Be at Odds Over Sanctions
August 28, 2019
The inventory report put out by the private firm API showed that crude oil stocks were down a big 11.1 million barrels and crude stocks at Cushing, Ok were down by 2.4 million barrels another very healthy draw. The expectation for today’s DOE report from the Reuters estimates is for crude to be down 2.1 million barrels. Gasoline stocks were down 349,000 barrels with the outlook for stocks to be down 388,000 barrels. Distillate stocks were down 2.5 million barrels on the API and the outlook for today is for stocks to be up 918,000 barrels.
The Bloomberg survey is estimating crude stocks to be down 2.779 million barrels and gasoline stock up 490,000 barrels and distillates to be up 1.122 million barrels.
The potential for a meeting between Iran and the US has cooled off as Iran’s President, Hassan Rouhani said Iran will not talk with the US until all sanctions imposed on Iran are lifted. At this point that seems unlikely.
Iran’s oil Minister, Bijan Zanganeh, said Iran can lift its oil production back to the level is was at before US sanctions were imposed within three days.
The US Conference Board said US consumer confidence fell in August as optimism on the present situation improved to its highest level since late 2000, offsetting a weakening in the outlook on economic conditions. The group’s index on consumer confidence fell to 135.1 in August from an upwardly adjusted 135.8 in July. The survey’s expectations index fell to 107 from a revised 112.4 in July, while the present situation index increased to 177.2 from 170.9.
On the propane outlook for inventories today the estimate is the stocks will build by 2.2 million barrels.
The energy market opened higher to start overnight trading and then traded a little higher before pulling back. Now trader will just wait on today’s inventory report and react to it for some near term direction for the market. Next week is a short week with the Labor Day holiday so at some point into Friday the market is likely to see a round of short covering for the long weekend. Over the medium term the market continue to have plenty of concerns to keep an eye on and watch the headlines for any developments.