US and China Increase Refinery Activity
May 10, 2024
The market was very subdued in yesterday’s trading and yesterday’s trading volume was on the light side. As is normally the case there is a lot of uncertainty and a ton of questions to be answered about these markets. Energy markets just continue to consolidate buying time and looking for direction.
The US weekly initial unemployment claims rose by 231,000 claims which was much higher than the 212,000 claims expected and above the range expected (207,000 to 215,000).
The EIA reported that US crude oil imports from Mexico last week rose for the third week in a row and reached a new high for 2024 at 805,000 bpd. This was a 75% increase over the prior week’s imports.
Sources stated that OPEC will stop publishing a calculation of the world’s demand for its own crude oil in its monthly oil report, focusing instead on forecast for demand for oil from the wider OPEV+ group. OPEC will report the estimate of demand for crude from the Declaration of Cooperation countries, which is the formal name for OPEC+.
The increase in refinery activity in both the US and China has traders more hopeful about demand. This news and the decline in crude oil inventories in this week’s inventory update is offering support to crude oil prices. Crude oil is testing the $80 dollar level here this morning and this is a big resistance level. If prices bust through this level, it could attract more buying and help the bulls push prices higher. But a failure at this level would continue the test lower.