It’s A Soft Start To The Week For Refined Products On This Quasi-Holiday, After A Strong Finish To June
It’s a soft start to the week for refined products on this quasi-holiday, after a strong finish to June. While refined products are seeing small losses in the early going, oil prices are seeing decent gains of around 70 cents/barrel.
The Nymex will have a normal trading schedule today before trading in an abbreviated session tomorrow with no settlements posting. OPIS is following the NYMEX lead and will be publishing spot prices, while Platts and Argus are not assessing markets either day, which will keep trading activity at a minimum until Wednesday.
If at first you don’t succeed: Saudi Arabia and Russia announced they would be extending their voluntary production cuts in August to try and boost prices at the OPEC & Friends meeting today. Earlier moves to prop up prices have had limited impact and makes this latest effort to coordinate look somewhat weak.
Money managers were acting very bearish on oil prices in the latest CFTC COT report, with large increases in new short positions and reductions in length. Of course, oil prices have rallied 4 straight days after this data was compiled so the large speculators may want a do-over on those positions. The activity was mixed for refined products with RBOB seeing a reduction in speculative length, while ULSD saw a large increase.
Baker Hughes reported more declines in drilling activity last week with crude oil rigs declining by 1, while natural gas rigs dropped by 6 on the week, marking a fresh 16 month low.
Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.
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View AllThe Energy Bulls Are On The Run This Morning, Lead By Heating And Crude Oil Futures
The energy bulls are on the run this morning, lead by heating and crude oil futures. The November HO contract is trading ~7.5 cents per gallon (2.3%) higher while WTI is bumped $1.24 per barrel (1.3%) so far in pre-market trading. Their gasoline counterpart is rallying in sympathy with .3% gains to start the day.
The October contracts for both RBOB and HO expire today, and while trading action looks to be pretty tame so far, it isn’t a rare occurrence to see some big price swings on expiring contracts as traders look to close their positions. It should be noted that the only physical market pricing still pricing their product off of October futures, while the rest of the nation already switched to the November contract over the last week or so.
We’ve now got two named storms in the Atlantic, Philippe and Rina, but both aren’t expected to develop into major storms. While most models show both storms staying out to sea, the European model for weather forecasting shows there is a possibility that Philippe gets close enough to the Northeast to bring rain to the area, but not much else.
The term “$100 oil” is starting to pop up in headlines more and more mostly because WTI settled above the $90 level back on Tuesday, but partially because it’s a nice round number that’s easy to yell in debates or hear about from your father-in-law on the golf course. While the prospect of sustained high energy prices could be harmful to the economy, its important to note that the current short supply environment is voluntary. The spigot could be turned back on at any point, which could topple oil prices in short order.
Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.
Gasoline And Crude Oil Futures Are All Trading Between .5% And .8% Lower To Start The Day
The energy complex is sagging this morning with the exception of the distillate benchmark as the prompt month trading higher by about a penny. Gasoline and crude oil futures are all trading between .5% and .8% lower to start the day, pulling back after WTI traded above $95 briefly in the overnight session.
There isn’t much in the way of news this morning with most still citing the expectation for tight global supply, inflation and interest rates, and production cuts by OPEC+.
As reported by the Department of Energy yesterday, refinery runs dropped in all PADDs, except for PADD 3, as we plug along into the fall turnaround season. Crude oil inventories drew down last week, despite lower runs and exports, and increased imports, likely due to the crude oil “adjustment” the EIA uses to reconcile any missing barrels from their calculated estimates.
Diesel remains tight in the US, particularly in PADD 5 (West Coast + Nevada, Arizona) but stockpiles are climbing back towards their 5-year seasonal range. It unsurprising to see a spike in ULSD imports to the region since both Los Angeles and San Francisco spot markets are trading at 50+ cent premiums to the NYMEX. We’ve yet to see such relief on the gasoline side of the barrel, and we likely won’t until the market switches to a higher RVP.