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After starting the morning up on the EIA inventory reports of large crude draws (-6.9 mmb), the NYMEX dropped later through today's trading, as more information about the firing of US National Security Advisor John Bolton came to light, and as global demand growth estimates were revised downward yet again.
This past Friday, ahead of the scheduled OPEC meeting this week, Saudi Arabia abruptly announced a new Energy Minister, Prince Adbulaziz. The move sparked momentary concern that this was a signal the Saudi's would be reversing course on the OPEC+ production cut agreement, but it appears they are actually doubling down.
The NYMEX tumbled back down today, erasing Friday's rally. At the close, ULSD shed .0546 to $1.8356, and RBOB dropped .0635 to $1.7180, with Crude closing at $54.69, which puts us back in the territory we saw on Thursday, essentially. (We were $1.8529, $1.7499 and $53.95 at the close Thursday after record slides).
The NYMEX is up big this afternoon in the wake of surprise draws in inventories, ongoing international issues, and the potential closure of the largest gasoline refinery on the East Coast.
Gasoline spiked this morning, after a refinery explosion shook Southern Philadelphia. At around 4am, a butane vat exploded at the East Coast's largest refinery, causing large fires and prompting an shelter in place order for the surrounding areas. There are no injuries reported, and CNBC is reporting the flames were relatively controlled with the SIP order lifted around 7am. You can follow this story here: Massive explosion at biggest gas refinery in East Coast
In a suprise move today, the oil minister of Iran stated that Iran would support the effort by OPEC and non-OPEC countries to stabilize the oil market and oil prices. The now-confirmed rumor that the Saudis and Russians were amenable to agreeing on a production ceiling has been circulating for a while, and served to briefly prop prices Tuesday - but the lack of a solid agreement, and the assumption that Iran would not cooperate had backed prices off their intraday highs.
Overnight and early trading on Crude was up - bolstered by the performance of the Chinese Markets (they went up instead of crashing hard enough to trigger the circuit breaker this time). US Stocks, bonds and equities all climbed along, and it looked like today was poised for a rally, or at least the proverbial "dead cat bounce"
The last day of trading in 2014 saw Crude close out at $53.27/bbl, which was down 45% from the prior year. 2015 continued the trend with WTI dropping another 30% over the year - with December 31, 2015 settling out at $37.04.
Crude came back in a big way in trading today – with intraday highs briefly breaking $50 before settling out at $49.43/bbl. (Fun fact – we haven’t seen WTI break $50 since July)