Big Swings Overnight Driven By Compromise News
It looks like a quiet morning for energy futures that are holding near break-even for the day, and still hovering close to 6 year highs. Don’t be fooled into thinking the market isn’t still volatile however, as the current values don’t show that refined products dropped 4 cents overnight (wiping out Monday’s 3-4 cent gains) only to bounce back violently to erase those losses in a span of just about 20 minutes shortly after 6 a.m. central. For now, the charts continue to favor higher prices with the 8-month-old bull trend intact, but we’ll need to see last week’s highs taken out before month end or there’s a good chance that a big correction lower will come soon.
The big swings overnight appear to be driven by news that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have reached a compromise, which should eventually bring more oil to market. The eventually piece may be what encouraged buyers to step back in so quickly as the new output – IF the deal is confirmed - isn’t likely to come online for several more months.
As has become the pattern of late, the API reported another large draw in oil inventories last week at 4 million barrels. Gasoline stocks were also estimated to be lower, by 1.5 million barrels, but distillates increased by nearly 4 million barrels, which helps explain ULSD futures seeing the most downward pressure overnight. The EIA’s weekly report is due out at its normal time this morning. Last week’s report saw an all-time record for the gasoline demand estimate, which coincided with the pre-holiday rush now that most people are back to moving about. There’s evidence on the ground of a substantial holiday hangover with retail volumes dropping last week, but it’s hard to say if that will translate to the official numbers which only measure product removed from the bulk system.
EIA prophecy? Monday the EIA highlighted its Southern California Daily Energy report, (which is ominously published at eia.gov/special/disruptions/summer/) and then Tuesday a refinery near Los Angeles was reportedly forced to shut most of its units due to a power failure. That news sparked a modest rally in LA spot diesel basis, which had been languishing in negative territory for the past 2 months. So far the moves are relatively minor, just a penny or two, nothing like the wild swings the LA Spot market has been used to in years past, but have gone dormant over the past year. (See chart below)
Caught short: A violent spike in corn prices had RINs rallying early in Tuesday’s session, but quickly gave up those gains when the grain rally proved short lived. It appears someone may have got caught short on the expiring July corn contract, which were up 80 cents (nearly 12%) at one point before giving up almost all of those gains later in the session, while the forward contracts did not move much at all. Not sure what that means? Think back to when crude went negative last April on the day before the May contract expired…it’s just like that, just less extreme and in reverse.
More big news in the Carbon markets this week. The EU is set to release 13 policies today aimed at combating climate change this decade. The centerpiece is an expansion of the Emissions Trading Scheme (their word not mine). China meanwhile is launching the world’s largest Emissions-Trading program this week, which sounds impressive but also makes sense because they’re the world’s largest carbon emitter. Not sure what these various programs mean or how they work? You’re not alone, the segmentation in this rapidly expanding and evolving space is creating plenty of confusion, and like we saw in with the Renewable Fuel Standard, will likely attract plenty of fraudsters making up fake credits.
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Energy Futures Are Drifting Quietly Higher This Morning
Refined Products Holding Close To Break Even While Oil Prices Are Losing Just Under 1%
Markets Rallying To End The Week, Diesel Prices Lead The Way For Energy
Energy Markets Rally Again Thursday After A Choppy Wednesday Session
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Energy Futures Are Drifting Quietly Higher This Morning
Energy futures are drifting quietly higher this morning as a new round of hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas seem to show relative promise. It seems the market is focusing on the prospect of cooler heads prevailing, rather than the pervasive rocket/drone exchanges, the latest of which took place over Israel’s northern border.
A warmer-than-expected winter depressed diesel demand and, likewise, distillate refinery margins, which has dropped to its lowest level since the beginning of 2022. The ULSD forward curve has shifted into contango (carry) over the past month as traders seek to store their diesel inventories and hope for a pickup in demand, domestic or otherwise.
The DOE announced it had continued rebuilding it’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve this month, noting the addition of 2.3 million barrels of crude so far in April. Depending on what the private sector reported for last week, Wednesday’s DOE report may put current national crude oil inventories (include those of the SPR) above the year’s previous levels, something we haven’t seen since April of 2022, two months after Ukraine war began.
The latest in the Dangote Refinery Saga: Credit stall-out, rising oil prices, and currency exchange.
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Refined Products Holding Close To Break Even While Oil Prices Are Losing Just Under 1%
Energy markets are vacillating this morning with refined products holding close to break even while oil prices are losing just under 1%.
Negotiators are meeting in Egypt this week to try and hammer out a truce in Gaza, even as Israeli airstrikes intensify. The Red Sea has continued to be active after a few weeks of relative calm, with multiple strikes reported over the weekend and another this morning.
Ukrainian drones targeted two more Russian oil refineries over the weekend, and at least one facility was reportedly taken offline as a result which means two things: Ukraine isn’t listening to US requests to stop targeting refineries, using nets to protect refineries isn’t working yet.
The CFTC’s weekly Commitments of Traders report gave a glimpse into the speculative liquidation (AKA clowns exiting the Volkswagen) that occurred in energy contracts after the direct conflict between Iran and Israel fizzled. Money managers saw heavy long liquidation, with both Brent and WTI dropping nearly 10% on the week. The only contract to see an increase in net length in last week’s report was ULSD, which had been the weak link in the complex for most of the year. ULSD did see a healthy amount of length liquidated, but that was offset by short covering as prices reached 5-month lows to create a very small net increase.
Baker Hughes reported a drop of 5 oil rigs and 1 natural gas rig drilling in the US last week, with Louisiana accounting for the majority of the decline. Pipeline capacity continues to be a limiting factor for many producers, and an RBN energy blog this morning suggests that things are about to get worse in the Permian when major pipeline maintenance occurs in June.
A fire was reported at CVR’s Wynnewood Oklahoma refinery over the weekend, although it’s unclear if the deadly storms that swept through the region played a role in that event.
Marathon’s Galveston Bay refinery reported an upset Friday that knocked a coking unit offline, but said operations were already resuming. That facility was the most-frequent TCEQ reporter last year but has been relatively quiet over the past couple of months.
Today’s interesting read courtesy of the Financial Times: How Europe solved its Russian gas crisis.
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Markets Rallying To End The Week, Diesel Prices Lead The Way For Energy
Energy markets are rallying to end the week, with diesel prices leading the way up 2.5 cents in the early going. Equity markets are also rallying after a big Thursday selloff as strong tech earnings seem to be outweighing the FED’s favorite inflation gauge remaining stubbornly high.
RBOB gasoline futures are trading higher for a 4th straight day, but despite bouncing nearly 14 cents from Tuesday’s low, they still need to rally another nickel to break the downward sloping pattern forming on the weekly charts. Seasonal factors could go either way for gasoline for the next few weeks as we’re in the Spring peaking window, and while the high set April 12th would fit the annual pattern nicely, a May price peak is certainly not unusual, and if $2.85 is broken it seems like RBOB will run to $3 in a hurry.
Diesel prices have bounced 7 cents after touching a 5-month low on Monday but need to climb back above $2.60 to reduce the chance of a slide to $2.20 or lower should the chart support around $2.50 break down.
Back to the shadow war: After a relatively quiet few weeks in the Red Sea, Houthi attacks on ships have started again over the past few days, although so far, no major damage has been reported.
ExxonMobil reported another strong quarter in Q1 with more than $10 billion in free cash flow generated, even though earnings in its refining segment were down 67% from the first quarter of last year. The company noted the success of its Beaumont refinery expansion that came online last year and marked the only major refinery expansion in the US in over a decade. It's worth noting that within the refining segment, international earnings suffered more than domestic facilities did, with non-US refining earnings down 77% from a year ago as crack spreads came back to reality after the record-setting quarters in 2022 and 2023.
Chevron followed a similar pattern (as expected) in its Q1 report, noting strong operating cash flows of $6.8 billion in total, despite downstream earnings falling more than 56% for the quarter.
The company also highlighted its expanding marketing network along the US West and Gulf Coast markets encompassing more than 250 retail stations and highlighted its new solar-to-hydrogen project in California.
Phillips 66 continued the trend, reporting a “strong” quarter in which earnings were 63% lower than a year ago. The company highlighted the conversion of its Rodeo refinery which is now producing roughly 30mb/day of RD and is expected to ramp up to 50mb/day in the 2nd quarter. That facility had a capacity of more than 120mb/day prior to its conversion, and it used to produce gasoline along with its diesel. The company also noted its ongoing plans to sell assets that no longer fit its strategy, highlighting retail assets in Germany and Austria as being on the chopping block, while not mentioning any of its US refining assets that have long been rumored to be for sale.
Delek reported another upset at its Alon Big Spring refinery Thursday, which has become another one of the TCEQ’s frequent fliers after suffering damage from the cold snaps in both 2021 and earlier this year.
A harsh reality sinking in: Mexico’s President has made plenty of headlines with fictitious claims of energy sovereignty in the past few years, but not only is the country’s new Dos Bocas refinery still not producing finished products on any sort of meaningful scale, two of its other facilities have suffered fires recently forcing the country to import even more product from the US. This phenomenon continues to help US Gulf and West coast refiners who would be struggling (even more) to move their excess with sluggish domestic demand.
Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.