Market Commentary

The Russian Energy Minister said yesterday that crude oil markets in July could see a shortage of 3 to 5 million bpd, according to Interfax, the Russian news agency. I think that may be a bit of a stretch. Compare the Russian outlook with these comments from the shipping industry. […]

The inventory update from the private firm API was released yesterday and it called crude oil supplies down 483,000 barrels. The average estimate for today’s DOE report is for a build of 3 million barrels. The API reported that Cushing, Ok crude oil supplies were down 2.2 million barrels. Gasoline […]

OPEC is trying to move the date of the meeting up so they can decide sooner rather than later to extend production cuts and offer support to the market. It looks like the meeting will be held on the June fourth, move up from the original date of June ninth. […]

OPEC and Russia are working to extend the current production cuts for another two months. Despite production falling these countries know there is still a glut of oil that needs to be worked off and they need to continue to limit supplies all they can. But it is a very […]

Morgan Stanley raised its year-end Brent price forecast to $40 per barrel. It cited a faster-than-expected rise in global oil demand as countries ease coronavirus restrictions and oil producers cut supply. Morgan Stanley estimates as much as 6 million bpd will be undersupplied to the market by the end of […]

Bjornar Tonhaugen of Rystad Energy says supply and demand may balance sooner than expected. The market is currently oversupplied by 16 million barrels per day in crude and that could be reversed altogether by June according to Tonghaugen. A 4-million-barrel-per-day recovery in crude demand and a 12-million-barrel-per-day cut in crude […]

Rig counts continues to decline. The Baker Hughes report on showed a decline of 21 rigs from the prior week and a new total of 237 rigs. There were 797 rigs in operation at this time last year – a difference of 560 rigs. This is the lowest rig count […]

US crude oil production is expected to fall by about 1.75 million bpd from recent levels by early June. IHS Markit said operating cash losses, a lack of demand and storage capacity and no interest in giving away oil all played a role in the expected decline in oil production. […]

The basic outlook that production is lower, and demand is going up as lockdowns ease has continued to support this rally. The selloff that put in the lows in April was extreme and since those lows, ULSD has rallied $0.44 cents and RBOB has rallied $0.60 cents and technically crude […]

The API released their inventory update yesterday afternoon and it showed crude oil stocks down 4.8 million barrels and the stocks of crude oil at Cushing, Ok were done 5 million barrels. Gasoline stocks were down 651,000 barrels and distillate stocks were down 5.08 million barrels. About 108 million people […]

Crude oil and refined fuel product prices rose significantly yesterday and reached 2-month highs for most indexes. The rise in prices yesterday was mainly driven by good news about testing of a potential COVID-19 vaccine, positive comments from the Federal Reserve, rising U.S. equities, and signs of fuel demand increasing […]

As more places around the globe start to reopen after shutdowns the outlook for many investors and traders is positive and the market is up this morning on this optimism. Production cuts have happened faster than many thought and demand is slowly coming back with the reopening creating the thought […]