Market Commentary

Energy Markets are closed today so there are no forward contracts available today and there will be no estimated prices sent out until tomorrow. The Baker Hughes Rig Count called oil rigs down 2 to a total of 607 and last year at this time there were 520 oil rigs […]

Crude oil and refined fuel product prices rose on Friday, which was driven by news that Russia plans to cut 500,000 bpd of oil output in March. It appears Russia is willing to reduce oil and product output rather than reduce their prices. The EU has placed bans and price […]

The energy markets have not been able to find buyers just yet as prices continue to be soft and are testing lower levels. The government has said they will buy crude oil at $70 to fill the SPR so that would appear to be the bottom of the range for […]

The rebound in energy prices yesterday was driven by tight world supplies, the SPR sales of 1,000,000 million barrel per day of oil have ended, a drone missile attack on Iran this past weekend, and an EU embargo expected to start on February 5th of Russian fuel exports that could […]

On Sunday, a US official said Israel appears to have been behind an overnight drone attack on a military factory in Iran. Iran claimed to have intercepted drones that struck a military industry target near the central city of Isfahan and said there were no casualties or serious damages. This […]

Bloomberg reports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has accelerated the move away from oil and gas, prompting BP Plc to cut demand forecast in its latest annual energy outlook. The war has also weighed on the global economy, pushing gross domestic product at least 2% lower by 2025. All three of […]

The API called crude oil inventories up 3.4 million barrels. Gasoline inventories up 620,000 barrels and distillates down 1.9 million barrels. The average estimate for today’s DOE inventory update from the Bloomberg survey are for crude stocks to be up 704,000, gasoline up 1.304 million barrels and distillates down 1.232 […]

Reuters reports the European Union’s gas price cap on natural gas, which launches next month, could impact financial stability and potentially curb liquidity in Europe’s exchange-traded gas markets according to a draft statement from the bloc’s financial market regulators. The coming price cap, and others on refined fuel products, is […]

The propane inventory update had total stocks down 1.968 million barrels putting total inventories at 76.619 million. Last year at this time total inventories were at 58.686 million.  Midwest inventories were down 390,000 barrels putting total Midwest stocks at 22.291 million and last year inventories were at 19.311 million barrels. […]

The API inventory report called crude oil inventories up 7.6 million barrels, gasoline inventories up 2.8 million barrels and distillates down 1.8 million barrels. Citigroup economists said the probability of a global recession has decreased and are now predicting a less hard landing after China abandoned its zero-COVID policy and […]

An upbeat OPEC monthly report raising China oil demand by 510,000 bpd for 2023 helped to support price yesterday. Although OPEC left its oil growth forecast for 2023 at 2.22 million bpd, OPEC said a stronger economy could lead to upward oil demand revisions on the months to come. OPEC’s […]

Distillate demand over the past four weeks has been at 3.63 million bpd, off 5.5% from a year ago. The almost 19 million barrel build to crude stocks last weeks has now put them 1% above the five year average for this time of year. Gasoline inventories are now 7% […]