Markets Around The World Are Transitioning From Full Panic To Major Discomfort As The Russian War On Ukraine Continues
Markets around the world are transitioning from full panic to major discomfort as the Russian war on Ukraine continues, but the fallout has been isolated so far. This time yesterday brought with it breathless comparisons to other notorious market shocks, as Europe was not only facing its most severe military conflict since WW2, but it came with an only-slightly-veiled threat of nuclear war should other countries try to intervene.
Equity markets staged a huge recovery Thursday afternoon, and energy prices pulled back sharply, as traders digested the new reality that most have only read about in history books online, with several factors seeming to play into the calming down we witnessed throughout the day.The US President had promised sanctions would be “swift and severe” if Russia invaded Ukraine. Thursday he announced a variety of moves that may be seen as severe, but avoided cutting Russia off from the SWIFT payment system, which is seen as a way to keep a penalty in reserve if needed, allow European banks to continue receiving loan payments from Russian firms, and probably most importantly, allow for Russian energy exports to continue.
Expectations that the FED would take it easier on interest rate hikes to try and offset some of the economic impact of the war & sanctions also seemed to encourage stock markets. The CME’s FedWatch tool shows that 2 days ago, there was a 33% probability of a 50 point rate hike at the March FOMC meeting, but that likelihood dropped to 21% yesterday.
While the panic has subsided, we’re a long way away from a calm market. After refined product prices pulled back 15-18 cents from the overnight highs Thursday afternoon, energy buyers did step back in pushing prices 5-6 cents higher last night, only to see a drop to 2-3 cent losses earlier this morning. That type of volatility is to be expected as long as the fighting and constantly changing stance on sanctions continues.
Physical product trading in the US had a fairly muted reaction, with most regional cash markets seeing only small basis moves on low liquidity, which is common when the futures market goes wild. RIN values did move higher on the day as the risk of trickle down effects from Black Sea supply disruptions to grain markets took hold, but like the rest of the energy contracts those prices pulled back sharply from the initial round of panic buying.
The lack of reaction in USGC products was particularly noteworthy given the ongoing shutdown of the products pipeline FKA Plantation as the company investigates a leak in Georgia. Values for shipping space on Colonial had already jumped last week as the annual RVP transition opened up the Gulf-East Coast arbitrage window, and those values held steady Thursday, suggesting the big physical traders aren’t yet too concerned that the pipeline will be down for long. There are already reports that some retail stations in the US are seeing long lines as consumers fill their various forms of fuel tanks due to the Russian invasion, and if the Plantation line stays down for another couple of days, that phenomenon could get much worse.
Some notes from the DOE report Thursday (that no one seemed to pay attention to for more than a minute or two):
US diesel inventories declined for a 6th consecutive week, and are holding 30 million barrels (nearly 1.3 billion gallons) below their average for this time of year. Demand both domestically and abroad remains strong, which helps explain why the coasts (PADDs 1, 3 and 5) are all tight, while the landlocked locations (PADDs 2 & 4) are relatively well supplied. There’s a similar but less severe phenomenon with US Gasoline inventories which are slightly below average in total, with coastal markets seeing tighter supplies than normal. Another theme is that while supplies are well below year-ago levels this week, that’s about to change for many markets as refiners continue to operate relatively well through a parade of winter storms, and while there have been a handful of upsets, there is nothing even remotely resembling the disruption we were facing a year ago.
Latest Posts
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
Social Media
News & Views
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.
Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.
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.
Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.
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.