Its A Mixed Bag With RBOB Trading Up .4%

Equity markets enjoyed some positive sentiment yesterday after it was announced that US consumer confidence increased in June to a new 18 month high. This evidence of US economic resilience had an opposite impact on energy futures, which sold off Tuesday. It’s a mixed bag this morning with RBOB trading up around .4% while the oils (crude and heating) exchange hands ~.6% lower to start the day.

The American Petroleum Institute published its weekly energy inventory report yesterday afternoon, showing a drawdown in crude and gasoline inventories of 2.4 and 2.9 million barrels, respectively. ULSD stockpiles built down marginally, adding 800k barrels. The Department of Energy’s official report will be published at its regular time this morning (9:30am Central).

Marathon’s Galveston Bay refinery experienced a sulfur recovery unit failure yesterday which resulted in a partial shelter-in-place order since the SRU facilitates the containment of noxious emissions caused by the refinery process. The issue with the unit has since been resolved and all of the plant’s personnel have been accounted for. This episode comes a month after a fire broke out at the same plant, killing one and injuring another employee.  

The remnants of Tropical Storm Cindy won’t be organizing in the next week but a sister storm has spawned just to its East with a 20% chance of development in the next 7 days. As of now the storm that would be named Don is expected to stay out to sea.

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