Market Commentary

The API reports called crude oil inventories down 1.8 million barrels, it called gasoline inventories down 3.5 million and distillates down 4 million barrels. The average estimates for the government’s DOE report from the Bloomberg survey is calling crude up 1.577 million barrels, gasoline down 1.232 million and distillates down […]

Crude oil futures jumped up over $4 dollars per barrel yesterday as OPEC+ considers reducing output by 1 million barrels per day to support prices. Such a move would represent the biggest production cut since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. There are other reports that in addition to the […]

The DOE report had crude inventories down 215,000 barrels, gasoline inventories were down 2.4 million and distillates down 2.9 million, draws across the board offered support to the energy markets. Refinery runs were down 3% to 90.6% of capacity. The European Union is considering adding shipping restrictions to its oil […]

Javier Blas of Bloomberg wrote last week that there are strong reasons to be bullish about commodities, but the darkening macro background is starting to win out. Demand growth from rapidly slowing economies will fall faster than the supply of commodities can adjust. These comments are not a very positive […]

Energy prices fell in yesterday’s trading and US equities markets had a sharp selloff. The markets were pressured by rise in invention for August which was above expectations. The energy markets started the day higher on continue concerns about tight supplies but after the CPI report was released and the […]

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 […]