The Energy Complex Is Seeing A Third Straight Day Of Heavy Selling To Start Friday’s Session
The energy complex is seeing a third straight day of heavy selling to start Friday’s session, with WTI once again dropping below $80/barrel and gasoline prices across large parts of the US approaching their lowest levels of the year. ULSD has also given up its relative strength temporarily as time, crack and basis spreads have all come under heavy selling pressure this week, and outright prices dropping below $3.50, which sets up a potential test of the $3.10 range in the coming weeks.
On November 8th, prompt ULSD in New York cost $4.97/gallon, and today will go for around $3.70 as the best cure for high prices is high prices motto played out once again and resupply options from around the world are starting to reach the harbor. It’s worth noting that despite the big drop in New York values, the price to buy space on Colonial’s diesel line, or the other smaller lines moving product North and West, have continued to move higher as it looks like the Gulf Coast will be long distillates for some time as transportation options struggle to keep up with production.
The West Coast has seen a similar phenomenon with gasoline prices over the past 10 days, with LA and San Francisco CARBOB values dropping roughly $1/gallon in the past 10 days after a refinery fire turned out to be a non-event, and run rates in the region have moved to above average levels in the past few weeks.
The forward curve charts below show that the selling in refined products over the past month has been fairly steady across the next 3 years, reinforcing the idea that this pullback has to do with concerns about consumption, rather than an easing of the tight supply situation. Crude oil on the other hand has actually seen values in the outer months tick higher while more current prices have dropped, which could be a sign that refiners may be selling forward cracks (short products/long crude) to lock in values that are historically very high, even if they’re not record setting like we’ve seen this year.
The scramble continues to save an Italian oil refinery that will be forced to close once Europe’s oil embargo on Russian crude takes effect in a few weeks. That refinery has become a microcosm for global energy supplies as Europe desperately needs all the distillate output from the facility, while the plant has also become a notable “loophole” to get Russian oil to the US.
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