With The DOE And FOMC Both On Tap, More Big Swings Appear Likely To Come

Market TalkWednesday, Sep 21 2022
Pivotal Week For Price Action

It’s already been a volatile day for energy prices, and with the DOE and FOMC both on tap, more big swings appear likely to come. 

The big news overnight was Russia announcing it would draft 300,000 reservists to aid its [failing] war in Ukraine. That move seemed to add to bullish sentiment in oil and refined product prices with ULSD up 12 cents not long after that news broke, only to see prices pull back and trade down 4 cents as of 7:30 central. Crude oil and gasoline prices have seen less dramatic versions of those price swings, and are still holding on to modest gains in the early going.

The API reported inventory builds across the board last week, with crude stocks up 1 million barrels (thanks again to large releases from the SPR) while gasoline stocks increased by 3.2 million barrels and distillates increased by 1.5 million. The DOE’s weekly report is due out at its normal time of 9:30 am central.

The FOMC announcement is due out at 1pm central, just 30 minutes ahead of the settlement for NYMEX contracts, which often makes for some wild trading to end the session. Just about everyone expects the FED will raise interest rates by at least 75 points today, with a large focus on what the chairman will say in the news conference following that announcement, which is likely to add to the volatility late in the day. 

Gasoline prices on the East and West coast continue heading in opposite directions. NYH gasoline prices have dropped to just even with RBOB futures, and hold just a 3 cent premium vs their USGC counterparts, which marks the lowest spread since the RVP transition in April. Colonial line 1 space was reported to trade at a negative 2 cent value yesterday, which marks the lowest value in 2 years, just a few short weeks after reaching an 8 year high.

While the East Coast is seeing gasoline values crumble, West Coast markets continue to hold premiums of $1/gallon or more as refinery issues and the end of the summer gasoline spec keep inventories at extremely low levels.     

Another refinery fire in the Midwest injured 2 employees, and has completely shut operations at the Toledo facility and will keep surrounding markets which have been unusually tight further on edge.  That fire is yet another black eye for Husky which is still rebuilding the refinery it blew up in Superior WI a few years ago.

There are 5 potential storm systems being tracked in the Atlantic basin today, which will probably mark the unofficial peak of activity for the 2022 season. Tropical storm Gaston

The most troubling at this point for energy supplies is the system known as 98L that is given 90% odds of being named (Hermine) in the next 5 days. Odds are good that this system will make it through the Caribbean and it could blow up to a major Hurricane once it reaches the extremely warm water East of the Yucatan, but are unclear where it will head once it reaches the Gulf of Mexico. The early favorite looks to be a Florida landfall, which would keep it east of the oil production and refining centers, but will not help the state’s fuel supplies that have been running low for the past 6 months.

Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.

Market Talk Update 09.21.22

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Pivotal Week For Price Action
Market TalkFriday, Mar 24 2023

Correlation Confusion Between Oil, Stock, And Currency Markets; US Drops Plan to Replenish SPR

Oil prices are leading a slide lower to end the week after the US government walked back plans to buy oil since it’s dropped below $70, and the latest ripples in the banking crisis push stocks lower and the dollar sharply higher after it touched a 2-month low Thursday. 

Even though the correlation between energy prices and stocks or currencies has been weak lately, or even opposite of normal in the case of the dollar, there still seems to be more influence lately as the fear trade has funds flowing back and forth between markets depending on whether or not risk-taking is in style that day. 

The US Energy Secretary told congress that the agency won’t be refilling the SPR this year, despite previous pledges by the White House to buy oil when it dropped to $70, since the agency is still working through congressionally mandates sales of oil from the reserve.  That news seems to be contributing to the downside in WTI and Brent prices as traders hoping to front run the DOE are now going to have to wait a while longer to do so.

Even though ULSD prices are up 17 cents from the lows set last week, they’re still on the verge of their lowest weekly settlement since January of 2022 should prices end the day near current levels. Given that this week’s recovery rally failed to take out the highs seen in previous weeks, charts continue to look bearish for distillates. Another run at $2.50 looks more likely and a break below that level, when the May contract takes the prompt position in another week, may be a foregone conclusion.

As has been the case for most of March, RBOB look as bad as ULSD on the charts, although that certainly isn’t helping so far today with gasoline futures outpacing the losses in diesel.  Unless we see RBOB end the day down a dime or more (it’s down a nickel currently) the weekly trend will still be higher, and the charts will still be giving favor to another push towards $2.80-$3 this spring.

The LA spot market saw a healthy bounce in gasoline basis values Thursday following multiple refinery upsets in the area reported to local regulators. Meanwhile, the California Governors new plan to create an oversight committee to prevent price gouging – a major change from earlier proposals to levy a new tax on oil producers and refiners – passed through the Senate on Thursday. If this new bill is fully passed, it will allow the Governor to appoint that committee himself. A 1,000-page prediction of how that plan will work is available for less than $10 on Amazon.

Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.

Pivotal Week For Price Action
Market TalkThursday, Mar 23 2023

FOMC Rate Increase Rocks Equity Markets, Energy Futures Unshaken

Stocks didn’t like the FOMC’s move to increase the fed funds rate by 25 points even as it acknowledged that recent banking developments will weigh on economic activity, or the economic projections that showed inflation expectations moving higher than previously forecast and had their worst day in 2 weeks following those announcements. 

Even though energy and equity markets have seen their correlation strengthen in March following the banking crisis, the drop in equities did little to slow the recovery rally in energy that stretched to a third day Wednesday. We are seeing a more cautious start this morning with both WTI and ULSD seeing modest losses early, while RBOB continues to push higher for a 4th day. 

Gasoline futures are seeming to get a small boost from reports that Monroe was forced to shut an FCC unit at its Trainer PA refinery following a fire Monday. As the charts below show, PADD 1 refinery runs are already at the low end of their seasonal range due to turnaround work at the P66 Bayway facility. Prices to ship products on Colonial have been trading in negative territory lately, and gasoline traders will not want to buy Gulf Coast barrels that have already transitioned to summer grades and bring them to the East Coast that still has a few weeks left to sell winter-grade product, but if this outage is extended, we could see that change next week.

Reports suggest 13% of French fueling stations are tight on supply due to the continuing refinery strikes, with some regions seeing as many as half of their stations out of fuel. The supply disruptions continue to get minimal reaction from global markets with only modest strengthening in time and crack spreads observed so far.  A glut of distillates in Asia, as the Eastern hemisphere deals with an influx of Russian exports (aka the opposite problem the Western hemisphere had last year) is contributing to the lack of reaction to the latest supply disruption.

The EIA reported another 2 million barrels/day of crude oil inventory adjustments last week, while strong exports held domestic inventories steady despite another 14 million barrels being found.  The agency also released its report on its findings for the rapidly growing adjustment, and its plan to update its weekly survey to help the data make more sense. The report admits that the agency has been inadvertently overstating domestic petroleum consumption, by counting light hydrocarbons and unfinished oils blended into crude as if they’ve been used by consumers, which explains the “record high” total demand even while refined products have seen declines in their figures.

Both gasoline and diesel demand did see healthy increases last week, marking a 2nd straight week of improving numbers for both. Diesel consumption is still at the low end of its seasonal range despite two weeks of growth in the EIA’s estimates, while gasoline is just below its 5-year average for this time of year. Retail prices for both are now approaching $1/gallon less than they were a year ago, which should help give a boost to consumption as we move further into spring.

PADD 5 refinery runs saw another healthy increase last week, and a tick up in imports, both of which might help explain the big declines in gasoline and diesel basis values we’ve seen in the past two weeks.  In addition, Wednesday saw a pipeline deal for RD99 executed in the LA market, which will certainly be the first of many as that rapidly increasing supply comes to market. ULSD values did recover from Tuesday’s attempt to liquidate with no liquidity that briefly pushed values down a theoretical 45 cents for the day, although prompt values are still going for 20+ cent discounts to April futures.


The EIA did not yet report Exxon’s 250,000 barrel/day expansion at its Beaumont facility, even though those units have been running for several weeks now. The facility did report an upset in a hydrocracker unit Wednesday, although the impact of that event is still unclear.

Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk, including all charts from the Weekly DOE Report.

Pivotal Week For Price Action
Market TalkWednesday, Mar 22 2023

Energy Futures Mixed Ahead Of DOE Report And Fed Announcement

Energy futures were calmly waiting on the FED’s 1pm announcement, like many markets around the world, with small and mixed results overnight. Diesel started to make a more meaningful rally attempt as we approach 8am central, moving higher for a 5th straight session, with stronger spreads signaling that refinery disruptions in Europe may finally be having some impact on prices now that most of the banking fears seem to have subsided.   

The CME’s Fedwatch tool shows that expectations for a rate increase have risen in the past week, with just 10% betting the FED will hold rates steady today compared to 45% a week ago when the banking crisis was stirring all sorts of fears.  It’s worth noting that there’s a 60% probability that the FED will raise rates by 50 points over the next 3 meetings, then 50% odds that rates will end up lower than they are now by the end of the year. 

The API estimated gasoline stocks dropped by 1 million barrels last week, while diesel declined by 1.8 million. Crude oil inventories increased by 3.2 million barrels on the week as production held steady near 12.2 million barrels/day. The EIA’s weekly report is due out at its normal time this morning. The agency is still struggling to get a consistent and accurate tally on crude oil inventories due to the growing impact of condensate production on both inventory and export readings. We should also see the largest increase in refinery capacity reported today after Exxon officially brought its new 250mb/day units online at Beaumont TX last week.

France is attempting to requisition refinery workers to get them back on the job and get energy supplies flowing again. After 2 weeks of strikes, the impacts on diesel and crude prices are starting to appear, albeit in much less dramatic fashion than we saw last fall. Both time spreads and crack spreads for diesel have been marching higher over the past week but remain just a fraction of what we saw last year.

The last day of March pipeline trading brought fireworks in the LA spot market Wednesday with a seller of EPA ULSD #2 trapped without any buyers and offering prices all the way down to a 50 cent/gallon discount to futures without a trade ever getting done. Meanwhile multiple bidders for CARB ULSD #2 appeared but no offers at the suddenly huge discounts appeared, leaving the market dislocated, and those making price assessments grasping for straws.   

April cycles should bring more liquidity, and many traders will be returning to the office following the annual AFPM (RIP NPRA) conference, so we should get a better feel for reality today. That said, more big swings are possible however as pipeline space to bring barrels east from LA is maxed out and a scramble for CBG gasoline to supply Phoenix taking up much more capacity than normal due to refinery downtime in other markets may leave diesel stuck at its origin points and put downward pressure on spot prices for the next month or so. The good news for consumers on the West Coast is that wholesale diesel prices are now down more than $2/gallon from where they were 6 months ago, which should help alleviate some of the pain they were feeling last year when retail values surged north of $6.

Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.