Profit-Taking Tuesday: Refined Products Back Away From Two-Month Highs
Refined products are seeing a modest pullback to start Tuesday’s trading, after setting fresh 2 month highs overnight. The move so far looks like a round of profit taking after a strong 3 week rally, and perhaps some unwinding of long spread positions now that the French protests don’t appear to be having a sustained impact on refinery operations.
Refining margins have seen big gains ever since prices bottomed out in early December, and Gulf Coast 5/3/2 crack spreads (which imply a ratio of 3 gallons of gasoline and 2 gallons of diesel produced for each 5 gallons of crude processed) once again approaching $1/gallon. The other piece of good news for refiners is that these margins are happening while natural gas prices are trading at their lowest levels in 2 years, so their input costs are substantially lower, and should help drive another bumper quarter for those who are operating.
Of course, it’s those refineries that aren’t operating that are a big contributor to the increase in margins, with numerous facilities still struggling to resume full operations since the Christmas Blizzard impacted almost every plant east of the Rockies. The Suncor facility outside Denver remains the largest casualty of that storm and continues to have ripple effects for at least 8 surrounding states. That plant is by no means the only one still struggling with the fallout of unplanned shutdowns, which is why US refinery throughput went from above average to below in the past month.
In addition to the weather-related issues, the normal day to day risks of operating refineries are still apparent as at least three facilities have been forced to shut units in the past few days due to operational upsets and fires. The PBF refinery near New Orleans that caught fire this weekend is reported by ENT to need at least a month to repair the affected units, while the Marathon facility near LA also has multiple units offline following a fire Monday. The P66 refinery in San Francisco, which is scheduled to convert to controversial RD production next year, was also said to have units knocked offline which helped bay area basis values jump on Monday.
Natural gas prices are seeing a rebound off of their multi-year lows this week as colder weather is forecast for much of the country over the coming 2 weeks, and the Freeport LNG export facility is reporting it’s ready to resume shipments once it receives regulatory approval.
The much warmer-than-expected winter weather through most of December and January has been a literal life saver for European nations that didn’t have an answer for how they’d heat their homes this winter and has alleviated much of the concerns about yet another distillate supply crunch along the East Coast. The next two weeks will be particularly critical if a cold snap does hit, just in time for the Russian embargo on distillates to begin.
Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.
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View AllEnergy Markets Are Ticking Modestly Higher This Morning But Remain Well Off The Highs Set Early Thursday
Energy markets are ticking modestly higher this morning but remain well off the highs set early Thursday following the reports that Russia was temporarily banning most refined product exports.
The law of government intervention and unintended consequences: Russian officials claim the export ban is an effort to promote market stability, and right on cue, its gasoline prices plummeted a not-so-stable 10% following the news.
There’s a saying that bull markets don’t end due to bad news, they end when the market stops rallying on good news. It’s possible that if ULSD futures continue lower after failing to sustain yesterday’s rally, or this morning’s, we could be seeing the end of the most recent bull run. That said, it’s still much too soon to call the top here, particularly with a steepening forward curve leaving prices susceptible to a squeeze, and the winter-demand months still ahead of us. Short term we need to see ULSD hold above $3.30 next week to avoid breaking its weekly trend line.
The sell-off in RIN values picked up steam Thursday, with 2023 D4 and D6 values dropping to the $1.02 range before finally finding a bid later in the session and ending the day around $1.07.
Tropical Storm Ophelia is expected to be named today, before making landfall on the North Carolina coast tomorrow. This isn’t a major storm, and there aren’t any refineries in its path, so it’s unlikely to do much to disrupt supply, but it will dump heavy rain several of the major East Coast markets so it will likely hamper demand through the weekend. The other storm system being tracked by the NHC is now given 90% odds of being named next week, but its predicted path has shifted north as it moves across the Atlantic, which suggests it is more likely to stay out to sea like Nigel did than threaten either the Gulf or East Coasts.
Exxon reported an upset at its Baytown refinery that’s been ongoing for the past 24 hours. It’s still unclear which units are impacted by this event, and whether or not it will have meaningful impacts on output. Total’s Pt Arthur facility also reported an upset yesterday, but that event lasted less than 90 minutes. Like most upsets in the region recently, traders seem to be shrugging off the news with gulf coast basis values not moving much.
Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.
The Yo-Yo Action In Diesel Continues With Each Day Alternating Between Big Gains And Big Losses So Far This Week
The yo-yo action in diesel continues with each day alternating between big gains and big losses so far this week. Today’s 11-cent rally is being blamed on reports that Russia is cutting exports of refined products effective immediately. It’s been a while since Russian sabre rattling has driven a noticeable price move in energy futures, after being a common occurrence at the start of the war. Just like tweets from our prior President however, these types of announcements seem to have a diminishing shelf-life, particularly given how the industry has adapted to the change in Russian export flows, so don’t be surprised if the early rally loses steam later today.
The announcement also helped gasoline prices rally 5-cents off of their overnight lows, and cling to modest gains just above a penny in the early going. Before the announcement, RBOB futures were poised for a 5th straight day of losses.
IF the export ban lasts, that would be good news for US refiners that have seen their buyers in south American countries – most notably Brazil – reduce their purchases in favor of discounted barrels from Russia this year.
US refinery runs dropped below year-ago levels for the first time in 6 weeks, with PADDS 1, 2 and 3 all seeing large declines at the start of a busy fall maintenance schedule. Oil inventories continued to decline, despite the drop-in run rates and a big increase in the adjustment factor as oil exports surged back north of 5 million barrels/day. Keep in mind that as recently as 2011 the US only produced 5 million barrels of oil every day, and exports were mostly banned until 2016, so to be sending this many barrels overseas is truly a game changer for the global market.
Chicken or the egg? Cushing OK oil stocks dropped below year-ago levels for the first time since January last week, which may be caused by the return of backwardation incenting shippers to lower inventory levels, the shift to new WTI Midland and Houston contracts as the export market expands. Of course, the low inventory levels are also blamed for causing the backwardation in crude oil prices, and the shift to an export market may keep inventories at the NYMEX hub lower for longer as fewer shippers want to go inland with their barrels.
Refined product inventories remain near the bottom end of their seasonal ranges, with a healthy recovery in demand after last week’s holiday hangover helping keep stocks in check. The biggest mover was a large jump in PADD 5 distillates, which was foreshadowed by the 30 cent drop in basis values the day prior. The big story for gasoline on the week was a surge in exports to the highest level of the year, which is helping keep inventories relatively tight despite the driving season having ended 2 weeks ago.
As expected, the FED held rates yesterday, but the open market committee also included a note that they expected to raise rates one more time this year, which sparked a selloff in equity markets that trickled over into energy prices Wednesday afternoon. The correlation between energy and equities has been non-existent of late, and already this morning we’re seeing products up despite equities pointing lower, so it doesn’t look like the FOMC announcement will have a lasting impact on fuel prices this time around.