Market Commentary

Energy prices rose for the third straight day, which was mainly driven by a large drop in the US dollar index, less confidence in the Iran nuclear deal, the G7 countries planning to implement a price cap on Russian oil, and oil expected to tighten after the US stops 1,000,000 […]

German, France, and Britain over the weekend acknowledged that they have doubts that the Iran nuclear deal will get done. This means that all those hopes for more Iranian barrels of oil on the market have been dashed. Crude oil and refined product prices are higher this morning, but there […]

The DOE inventory report had crude stocks up 8.85 million barrels and the SPR was down 7.5 million barrels. Total stocks are now at 427.191 and last year stocks were 423.867 a 3.324 million barrel surplus. The large build was mostly the result of increased imports of 5.761 million barrels […]

The API report had crude oil stocks up 3.6 million barrels and gasoline stocks were down 836,000 barrels and distillates were up 1.8 million barrels. The average estimates for today’s DOE inventory report from the Bloomberg survey are for crude oil stocks to be down 667,000 barrels, gasoline stocks down […]

Bloomberg reported that as a result of the spike in natural gas prices European energy companies are facing margin calls of $1.5 trillion dollars. This can dry up liquidity which in turn leads to even greater volatility. It seems strange that Russia has cut supplies via the Nord Stream pipeline […]

Energy markets were higher on Friday and were supported by the US Labor Department reporting a better than expected growth in US jobs for August, and a Baker Hughes report saying 9 crude oil rigs came offline for the week, the 4th weekly drop. OPEC+ yesterday made what most are […]

Crude oil prices rallied more than 4% yesterday supported by recent civil unrest in Libya’s capital city causing concerns that crude oil output could fall significantly. Also supporting crude prices is the idea that OPEC+ will cut production if an Iran nuclear deal gets done. According to the Department of […]

OPEC plans to discuss a cut to production in their next meeting on September 5. I think the only way they scale back is if the Iran nuclear deal get done. The Baker Hughes Rig Count had oil rigs were up 4 oil rigs to a total of 605 and […]

The government’s inventory report said that crude oil stocks were down 3.28 million barrels, the estimate was for a draw of 1.961 million. This now puts total stocks at 421.672 million and last year there were 432.564 million. Gasoline stocks were down 27,000 barrels and the estimate were for stock […]

The API reported that crude stocks were down 5.6 million barrels, gasoline up 268,000 and distillates up 1.1 million barrels. The average estimates for today’s DOE inventory update are for crude stocks to be down 1.961 million barrels, gasoline stocks down 2.046 million barrels, and distillate stocks up 359,000 barrels. […]

The Baker Hughes Rig Count Report had no change for oil rigs in this reporting week. Oil rigs stayed the same at 601 rigs compared to last year when there were 405 oil rigs. The following is from Bloomberg:The buyers in South Korea, India, and China have picked up substantial […]

Consulting firm BCA said EU embargoes on Russian crude oil will tighten supplies by 1.6 million bpd this year and 2.0 million bpd net year. Due to tight oil supplies, BCA expects Brent crude oil to rise to $119 by year end. However, Russia is forecasting rising oil output and […]