Energy Prices Are Coming Under Heavy Selling Pressure To Start The Week As China Was Placed On Lockdown
Energy prices are coming under heavy selling pressure to start the week as the world’s 3rd largest city, home to nearly 30 million people, was placed on lockdown to try and slow the spread of the latest COVID wave. There is also an apparent shift in Russian strategy in Ukraine that some see as the first step towards the eventual de-escalation of the war which may be contributing to the selling.
Despite the pullback in futures, US product markets remain relatively tight, and periodic supply outages at terminals on the East and West coasts still ongoing as international buyers outbid each other for cargoes, throwing a wrench into the supply network.
The selling has not yet threatened the bullish trend lines on the weekly charts, and we’ll need to see another $4-5 drop in crude and 15-20 cents in refined products before getting too excited about this latest pullback.
Baker Hughes reported a net increase of 7 oil rigs actively drilling in the US last week, with Texas seeing a net increase of 6, and the Permian basin adding 3. The total rig count of 531 is a new 2 year high, as we approach the 2 year anniversary of when the first wave of COVID lockdowns had drillers laying down rigs at a record pace. While we’ve seen 359 rigs added since drilling activity bottomed out later in 2020, we’re still roughly 350 rigs shy of the 2019 peak, and more than 1,000 rigs less than what we saw before prices crashed in 2014.
High prices have brought back investor interest in oil and gas production, after years of high finance pretending to go green. That renewed interest shows up in the Dallas FED’s energy survey, with growth accelerating in Q1, even as supply and labor bottlenecks push costs to record highs. That report also notes that most energy executives in the survey believe capital discipline, not ESG has had more influence on the restrained pace of growth in the past year.
Money managers added to their net length (bets on higher prices) in WTI, Brent, RBOB and Gasoil contracts last week, jumping back on the bandwagon after it appeared safe to say prices found a short term bottom around March 15. The exception last week came in ULSD that saw a 15% decrease in length as new shorts were added and old long positions liquidated after prices had rallied more than $1/gallon from the mid-month low. Those new shorts look pretty smart today, assuming they held on to those positions since Tuesday when the report data was compiled.
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Refined Products Bounce Back And Forth Across The Break-Even Line To Start Friday’s Trading
Gasoline Futures Rally Despite Inventory Builds, Increased Throughput
Energy Prices Fluctuate: Chinese Imports Surge, Saudi Arabia Cuts Output and Buys Golf
Week 23 - US DOE Inventory Recap
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View AllRefined Products Bounce Back And Forth Across The Break-Even Line To Start Friday’s Trading
The choppy action continues for energy markets with refined products bouncing back and forth across the break-even line to start Friday’s trading after some big swings Thursday.
RBOB futures led the rollercoaster ride Thursday, trading up 4 cents in the early morning hours, only to see those gains turn into 10 cent losses mid-morning, and then erasing most of those losses in the early afternoon following an ENT report of unplanned maintenance at the largest refinery on the East Coast.
The selling portion of the ride was blamed on a combination of an increase in jobless claims, and the disruptive impacts of the Canadian wildfires on the major population centers along the East Coast. While air traffic has been disrupted, so far there are not any reports of delays in ship traffic around the New York Harbor, and the strong basis and time spreads we’ve seen in NY have been easing this week, so it appears that this event is more concerning to the demand side of the equation than supply.
From a technical perspective, it’s not surprising to see this type of back-and-forth action as most petroleum contracts look to be stuck in neutral territory on the charts, which encourages trading programs to sell as prices get towards the top end of a range, and buy when it gets to the low end.
The Atlantic Hurricane season is off to a quiet start with no tropical development expected over the next week, but NOAA did issue an El Nino advisory Thursday that suggests the warm-water pattern in the Pacific could reach “supersized” levels and create all sorts of disruptive events. Perhaps most notable in the report is that forecasters don’t believe this year’s El Nino will have the same dampening impact on Atlantic hurricanes due to record warm temperatures in the water. Here’s a brief recap in case you missed the most memorable El Nino from 25 years ago.
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Gasoline Futures Rally Despite Inventory Builds, Increased Throughput
Gasoline futures led another strong rally in the energy complex Wednesday and continued marching higher overnight before pulling back to near break-even levels around 7:45am central.
The RBOB contract has now wiped out the post-Memorial Day selloff, and erased the losses from the contract roll to July, setting up another test of the May highs at $2.73. If that resistance breaks, there’s a good chance we see another run at the $2.90 level, but if it holds we are probably still stuck in a sideways pattern as we move through the summer months. West Coast gasoline prices meanwhile have reached a 3-month high as surging basis values compound the move in futures.
The rally came despite healthy inventory builds for refined products and strong refinery runs across all 5 PADDs reported last week, with traders (or their algorithms) appearing to focus instead on healthy demand estimates in the DOE’s weekly status report. Gasoline also saw healthy exports last week, while diesel shipments overseas continued their decline which has helped keep downward pressure on diesel prices, which is essentially the polar opposite of what we were experiencing a year ago.
Lies, damned Lies and statistics: PADD 3 refinery utilization hit 98.8% of the official capacity figure last week, which would mark a 5 year high, except the numbers are wrong. The DOE still isn’t including recent capacity additions of almost 300mb/day in those stats, so the actual figure is about 3% lower. Don’t worry though, the lack of accurate data probably isn’t intentional. The DOE recently announced it was suspending data collection for some of its monthly reports as the agency is still struggling to overcome the IT Systems failure they experienced a year ago. Add this to the realization that the official crude production and petroleum demand figures have been incorrect due to a lack of clarity surrounding condensate production that comes along with oil output.
Speaking of which, the official US Oil output figure surged to the highest levels since the COVID lockdowns began more than 3 years ago last week. No word from the EIA if this means actual production increased, or if they’ve just changed the way they’re reporting the molecules coming out of the ground.
Irving Oil released a statement highlighting a strategic review of the company, that could include selling the business that’s been held by the Irving family for nearly 100 years. The Irving Refinery in New Brunswick is Canada’s largest at 300mb/day and is the largest importer of fuels into the northeastern US. Critics are arguing that the review is an attempt to politicize Canada’s Clean Fuel Regulation that could weigh on the refinery’s profitability when it goes into full effect in July or could simply incentivize the facility to send more product to the US.
RIN values saw their first bounce in a couple of weeks, with both D6 and D4 values climbing back above the $1.40 mark after their recent slide from the mid $1.50s. We’re still 6 days away from the EPA’s deadline to issue the final RFS ruling for the next couple of years.
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Energy Prices Fluctuate: Chinese Imports Surge, Saudi Arabia Cuts Output and Buys Golf
Energy prices continue their back-and-forth trading, starting Wednesday’s session with modest gains, after a round of selling Tuesday wiped out the Saudi output cut bounce.
A surge in China’s imports of crude oil and natural gas seem to be the catalyst for the early move higher, even though weak export activity from the world’s largest fuel buyer suggests the global economy is still struggling.
New tactic? Saudi Arabia’s plan to voluntarily cut oil production by another 1 million barrels/day failed to sustain a rally in oil prices to start the week, so they bought the PGA tour.
The EIA’s monthly Short Term Energy Outlook raised its price forecast for oil, citing the Saudi cuts, and OPEC’s commitment to extend current production restrictions through 2024. The increase in prices comes despite reducing the forecast for US fuel consumption, as GDP growth projections continue to decline from previous estimates.
The report included a special article on diesel consumption, and its changing relationship with economic activity that does a good job of explaining why diesel prices are $2/gallon cheaper today than they were a year ago.
The API reported healthy builds in refined product inventories last week, with distillates up 4.5 million barrels while gasoline stocks were up 2.4 million barrels in the wake of Memorial Day. Crude inventories declined by 1.7 million barrels on the week. The DOE’s weekly report is due out at its normal time this morning.
We’re still waiting on the EPA’s final ruling on the Renewable Fuel Standard for the next few years, which is due a week from today, but another Reuters article suggests that eRINs will not be included in this round of making up the rules.
Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.