Energy Market Updates

Coming off the Monday Holiday, prices surged higher Tuesday as OPEC+ heavyweights Russia and Saudi Arabia confirmed they would extend voluntary production cuts through the end of the year.  Fueling the rise from the Cpt. Obvious department, big banks publish reports to expect $107 Crude if cuts maintain.  Buy the rumor, sell the fact.  Diesel had a nice sell off going, but remember, one day doesn’t reverse the trend.  Wednesdays intraday action erased almost all of the gains only to settle down slightly.  While we still sit almost $1 higher in pricing than the beginning of the Summer, you would have to think better days are to come.  Current JUNE 24 Diesel future pricing is $.45 less than front month October 23. 

For the here and now, we all know $1 a gallon increase cuts into your bottom line significantly, many large airlines have started to float it out there not to expect good earnings due to higher fuel costs.  We can assist you in leveling out those spikes based on your specific needs.  Inventory numbers due out later today, delayed from the holiday, should give short term direction of pricing.  Even if modest drops are reported, I would expect to see the downward trend continue for diesel.  Gasoline is still disjointed from Diesel as it is starting to go into it’s seasonal specification switch which tends to push pricing down.  Timing is important in the fuel world, having an open line of communication with your supplier is vital. If you want to schedule a meeting to discuss your specific needs or questions, you can do so here: Schedule a Meeting

There is no sauce that can make crow taste good.  I’ve been holding to the mindset that Diesel futures market should correct to the mid $2.30s for about a month now.  We have risen over $.50 in that time with every day for the last two weeks being up.  Well, I am going on “the bound to win” theory and sticking with it! 

Strong economic data has pushed commodities as US GDP grew 2.4% last quarter, thus continued higher demand equals higher prices.  On the other hand, the FED hiked rates another ¼ percent this week which should be bearish for the products.  It appears to be overshadowed by the view of many that this is the end of the hikes as the Fed Chairman noting that “Fed staff no longer were forecasting a recession later this year, as it had in prior months.” 

Throw in the inventory report that showed stocks fall across the board and demand surprisingly resilient, the $.20 jump the last few days is easily explainable.  Gasoline is in the same boat, rising almost $.50 is the last month.  It is important to acknowledge how long, or how well, will OPEC+ countries be able to maintain their self-imposed production cuts as many Nations economies are negatively affected by them.  Saudi Arabia only is down over 8%, and the fact that all these countries are continually wrestling for market share, this could bring on a huge correction in prices.   

High prices are fun for nobody, we at DKB understand that, and work hard to provide outstanding service at a fair price.  I am always willing to discuss how we can assist your specific needs, please do not hesitate to reach out. If you would like to schedule a time to talk about your specific needs, you can pick a time that works for you best using this link: Market Talk - Set a Meeting

It appears that the Canadian Wildfires have spread a cloudy haze not just over the Northeast but also over the collective minds in the Fuel Markets.  The last few days produced data that simply put, has baffled market sentiment.  First to note, Diesel prices are roughly $2 LESS per gallon today versus a year ago.  Thus, one would assume production and inventories to fall.  This week’s Inventory report showed production is UP 2% and Inventories are UP 2.5%, yet future pricing is about $.20 HIGHER than a week ago.  Again, usually higher stocks trigger lower production and falling prices. 

Throw in that Saudi Arabia announced it was going alone and instituting an additional 1mbpd cut and domestic diesel demand is UP 4.5% over last year, this appears to have many bewildered as to market direction.  The other head scratcher is the US freight Index, which measures all shipping/freight volumes and is looked at as a barometer for the economy showed that we are DOWN 2.5% over last year.  How can demand be up, but freight be down?  Granted there are other avenues of usage, but shipping is typically the brunt of it. 

As we have been saying, we will likely be within this $.20 range from high to low for the next few weeks until some sort of clarity prevails.  We are keeping an eye on the developing backwardation again in both gas and diesel pricing. (outer months less then front months)  While we thought we were past this, it may start to limit what some bring into storage.  It is crucial to have a Supplier on your side rather than a Marketer.

WTI jumped over 5% late this morning, as news broke that OPEC+ members would be agreeing not to raise production levels in April. According to reports, the current established levels for each of the member countries will be continuing as is through April and May, and the Saudi's are planning to forge ahead with continuing to keep the additional 1 million barrels per day offline as agreed to for February and March.

The news of continued cuts leaking from the (currently still happening) meeting surprised the markets, which is part of why we are seeing such a jump - often the predicted outcomes are "priced in" but today analysts fully expected that the ruling would be to let production cuts expire at the end of March as scheduled, and assumed Saudi Arabia would be ramping up production. We have started to see signals of demand levels returning, which, along with the ongoing price rally, had made analysts comfortable that OPEC would begin to ramp production levels back up. Reports indicate that Saudi Arabia urged caution and pushed for today's cut extensions, with Energy Minister Prince Abduliziz bin Salaman saying "Let us be certain the glimmer we see ahead is not the headlight of an oncoming express train"

Yesterday, prices jumped as well as the weekly EIA data for the US showed that the snowstorms and widespread freezing that impacted states in the Gulf Coast region continued to wreak havoc on refinery utilization. Crude stockpiles ramped up by 21.5 million barrels for the week ending Feb 26. That build is even larger than what we saw last April when the sudden imposition of COVID lockdowns demolished demand across essentially all sectors immediately. Crude built as a result of the lack of refinery capacity still in effect, and the opposite was seen (of course) on refined products. Although draws on refined products were clearly predicted, the EIA report still shocked as it showed draws on gasoline of 13.6 million barrels (about 5 times the anticipated draw) and distillates drew down 9.7 million barrels, versus the 3 million predicted.

In other news today, Houthi rebels in Yemen are claiming responsibility for a missile strike on a Saudi oil facility in Jiddah, in a continuation of infrastructure strikes in the ongoing proxy war. The conflict is definitely something to keep an eye on - as we saw in September 2019, attacks on Aramco infrastructure can rock the markets pretty severely. 

At today's close, WTI settled at $63.83. ULSD +.0603 to $1.8960, Gasoline up .0461 to $1.9979

Despite today's across the board drops on refined prices, (-.0262 UL & -.0255 RBOB) this week saw oil prices overall continue to tick upward. 

What's pushing prices up? A weaker dollar, and stronger confidence in economic rebound as the vaccine rollouts continue. At play as well is new agreement on supply curbs by Saudi Arabia in tandem with larger than expected draws in US inventory levels. 

Wednesday prices came close to hitting 1-year highs at the close, briefly going over in intraday trading for Brent Crude. So far, halfway through January, Crude prices are up ~9% or so as confidence builds in eventual recovery from the COVID induced shut downs and resulting dips in demand that we saw push WTI into negative territory about 10 months ago. 

In terms of the supply side, EIA reports indicated that US Crude inventories dropped a little over half a million barrels for the prior week, with gasoline dropping 1.1mmb & distillates dropping 2.3mmb - double what some analysts had projected. More broadly, Saudi Arabia has pledged to cut its output by 1mmb/day which will drop overall production levels, even though Russia will actually have allowance to produce slightly higher levels than before. Sort of an odd twist to the usual OPEC+ setup - you can read more about the specifics on the deal here in the New York Times: Saudi Arabia Will Cut Its Own Production, Allowing Russia's to Grow 

On the demand side of the equation, talks regarding further stimulus under the Biden Administration, as well as continued vaccine rollout seems to have traders (and everyone else) hopeful about eventual demand recovery as the economy hopefully strengthens and rebounds once immunity levels hit threshold. 

We did however see drops today to close the week out across the board. Front month ULSD & RBOB settled at 1.5929 & 1.5284 respectively, with Crude at 52.36/bbl. March numbers closed out with ULSD off .0263 to 1.5942, and gasoline dropped .0261 to 1.577. 

Who knows what happens next. Enjoy your weekend & stay tuned! 

Oil markets were tumbling well before the open today, and unfortunately we didn't see that turn around at all through the course of the official trading day.

At the open, we were down -.2076 on ULSD, and -.2362 on gas and it only went downhill from there.

At the close, Crude settled at an incredible $31.13/bbl (down 24%!!), ULSD dropped -.2223 to $1.1629 & RBOB dropped .2521 to $1.1369.

Stock markets took a pounding today as well, dropping precipitously enough for trading to be temporarily halted when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 2,000 points after the open this morning. (Both the S&P and DJIA are down over 6% as of writing)

So what's going on?

In response to Russian refusal on the proposed OPEC production cuts, Saudi Arabia has completely changed course on cuts and announced they will not only be pumping at capacity starting April 1 (upon the expiration of the current cuts) but they are also additionally discounting by a reported 4-8 $ per barrel, with preferential pricing going to the US & Europe.

The move is meant to undercut other producers across the board  - somewhat reminiscent of the strategy employed to attempt to push out U.S. Shale production back in 2014-2016(ish) and retain market share at the expense of other producer nations (refresher/throwback on that here: 2015 - backstory on that strategy impact on Russia back then here as well: 2016 ) 

The thing is though, the math has changed substantially on both the Russian & US fronts in terms of capital on hand to withstand the drop in the case of Russia, and production cost and infrastructure in the case of the United States, so it will be interesting to see who blinks first. It's unlikely to be Russia, they announced they can withstand $25 oil for 2 years. (whether that is true or not remains to be seen)  

The second half of the equation today is that the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak is seriously dampening both global economic expectations, and oil demand. In particular, as US cases rise, concerns rise as well on economic impacts. Fear of the virus becoming a full on global pandemic are also in play now as Italy made the move to quarantine an entire region this weekend in an attempt to contain the spread. 

Basically, falling oil prices and falling demand paired with virus induced low global economic growth is igniting fears of a recession. In particular, the US, who has recently become a major producer and net exporter, could feel major impacts that we are not used to. 

Again, it's anyone's guess if we are seeing the bottom or not yet or how long it will take for the factors involved to reverse course. In the mean time, stay tuned (and wash your hands!)

The NYMEX was up today across the board, with Crude closing out at $63.08/bbl, comfortably above that $60 benchmark, and refined products both edged up almost 3 cents, with ULSD closing at 2.0424 (+.0290) and RBOB settling at 1.9687 (+.0288).

So what's going on?

March Oil production from OPEC on preliminary reporting is down 570k barrels per day, primarily driven by drops from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

Domestically, rig counts are up, suggesting some level of confidence in prices stabilizing or continuing to increase on the part of producers. Crude production levels are still up overall as well.

Another factor coming back into play this week was the so called “NOPEC” (“No Oil Producing Cartels”) bill in the US that aims to hold OPEC nations potentially liable for what are considered “cartel-like” practices. Currently (and historically) there is no real legal recourse against things like so-called market fixing and this bill aims to change that in terms of establishing liability.

The reason we care about this bill popping up again is that rumor has it the Saudis are responding to the prospect of the bill being pushed through by threatening to drop the dollar as the currency basis for their oil trading.

This might sound familiar because the same thing happened a few years ago. Threats over currency changes and essentially market flooding by the kingdom led to prices crashing (back when we ended out at $30/bbl, from the $100 ish its hard to remember being used to), which drove a substantial number of US based producers out of business (particularly those highly leveraged on shale plays). At the time, the Saudis essentially had enough cash in hand to allow the prices to bottom in order to retain market share and production dominance, where anything under $50-60 a barrel was unsustainable for US companies. 

 So long story short, the threat to replace the dollar is the threat to wreak havoc on the US economy via crashing the market. (One would hope the irony of that being your response to being called a cartel would register)

A point to remember is that at the end of the day, despite production level increases, the US is still a marginal producer, not a swing producer like OPEC, so production is almost fully determined by market price levels. And the dollar being removed as the basis for trading could seriously impact those price levels.

 So at least for today, we closed up on all the drama, but also the fundamentals.

 Time will tell if we hang around the $60 benchmark, or continue to move upward and a substantial portion of which way we go will depend on continuing production cuts globally, and what happens on currency basis changes.

 Stay tuned!

August has been all over the place. Crude futures this month were up 23% in less than 3 weeks as of the 28^th. We've bounced from an August 10^th low of $41.71 to an August 19^th a high of $48.52 -  and today we’re in the middle at $46.35.

So what’s going on?

Last week, optimism reigned. Longs were up and shorts were way down across the board on WTI, RBOB and U.S. ULSD. Citigroup and BOA/ML were saying the global glut is diminishing based on the narrowing Brent discount we were seeing. That was reflected in last week’s rally but we saw that rally reverse yesterday as hopes backed off on just how quickly we might see that supply glut fade.

So what caused the overabundance of hope in just how quickly the supply glut could fade?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: OPEC countries are set to meet September 26-28^th in Algiers for “informal talks” in which the Saudis are reportedly “prepared to listen” to the input of the other OPEC nations in regards to agreeing on output caps to curb global oversupply. This drove the market higher on hopes of an agreement propping up pricing longer term, but hopes on any such agreement coming to fruition have begun to drop off.

Déjà vu all over again.

If you recall, the last OPEC meeting had a similarly framed narrative and a similarly bullish impact on the markets a few weeks out from the meeting before falling off, as it became clear that the conference would fail to produce a deal. There was no agreement on output cuts last go around largely because of Saudi insistence that Iran be a full participant in agreeing to output limits, which the newly un-sanctioned Iran obviously refused to agree to.  Given the dynamic there has not changed substantially it’s hard to imagine that a meaningful deal is reached this time either.  

That seems to be the conclusion that traders reached as well just like leading up to the prior meeting. Today saw Crude close out at $46.35, down marginally from Monday’s close but over a dollar down from Friday’s $47.64. (ULSD and RBOB followed suit, dropping -.0151 and -.0186 respectively for August trading)

What’s becoming interesting about the other dynamics involved in the OPEC meetings is Russia realistically needs an agreement sooner rather than later. While they are not in Venezuela style meltdown yet, a huge portion of their revenue depends on oil and the ongoing standoff with the Saudis on over production for market share retention will presumably hit breaking point at some time, as both Russia and Saudi Arabia hemorrhage money.

Meanwhile, it looks like long term the supply situation may correct itself, and largely courtesy of the Russia/Saudi standoff, somewhat ironically. Bloomberg is reporting that oil discoveries have plummeted to lows not seen in over half a century as a result of ongoing price depression that has halted new discoveries by severely curbing investment in drilling and exploration. This is especially notable in the U.S. where exploration is at multi year lows after the crash in prices from 2014 highs.

So although this OPEC meeting is unlikely to produce an agreement to cut supply and stabilize pricing this time, in an odd twist of fate, ultimately the ongoing standoff may push long term pricing up over time regardless of OPEC input.

Stay tuned!

Today once again started in positive territory, with Crude up almost 2% and refined products creeping higher, but we saw a quick reversal mid-morning when products dropped into the negative, where they would end up settling at the close. (Crude ended up settling down to $47.81, ULSD was down -.0319 to $1.5796 and Gas dropped -.0462 to $1.390)

What happened?

Early in the day products were up on the EIA announcement that they are projecting demand for Crude would hit its fastest pace in 6 years in 2016, even as US production is expected to decline.  This implied further easing of the so called oil glut, which could keep a stable pressure on prices going up, in theory.  

Additionally, API projected yesterday that Crude stockpiles would show a draw of 1.2mmb.

Consequently, WTI hit a brief intraday high of 49.71, just under the $50 psychological benchmark.

However, gains were pared quickly when the EIA Inventory Report showed a build in Crude stockpiles of 3.1mmb to 461mmb, higher than any analysts had predicted. That puts Crude and petroleum product stockpiles at a high of 1.3 billion barrels. So much for a slow-down of the oil glut, eh?

Another bearish signal is that thus far into hurricane season, we have not seen any major supply delays, or refinery damage/shut downs, which are usually cause for temporary price jumps this time of year.  There is also still the looming question about what happens to global pricing when Iranian exports come back online at full capacity.

Some analysts are cautioning that traders and speculators are taking the proposed Russia/Saudi Arabia meeting too seriously, in that they don’t see them coming together on any type of agreement on raising prices by cutting supply. That would seem to be supported by the recent Saudi price drop for exports. It’s also worth remembering that Russia and Saudi Arabia are diametrically opposed in terms of the war in Syria, which may not bode well for any sort of collaborative action.

Stay Tuned!

Brent Crude jumped over a dollar at opening this morning, while on the NYMEX, gas and diesel were both up over 4 before 10am. By noon both products surged up well over 5 cents, and products across the board continued to surge upward throughout the day.

 At the close, ULSD settled out at 1.9239 (+.0531) and RBOB closed at 1.9956 (+.0711). WTI closed up 1.53 to 57.69.

So what's going on? 

The Saudi's resumed airstrikes on target cities in Yemen yesterday, one day after supposed peace talks. Saudi Arabia is again calling on the White House to propose a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

Long story short, the deal in Yemen is that Shiite Houthi rebels have overtaken the Presidential palace, and if they can successfully pull off a coup, there is a very real danger of serious supply disruptions.

About 4% of global oil supply passes through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, which is controlled by the central government in Yemen, according to the EIA.

Traders are closely watching the situation for any indication of a resolution or escalation because of the potential supply implications involved. 

Yemen also relies on exporting it's own oil resources, which have declined in volume significantly since 2001 as a result of internal fighting. Their economy relies on oil exports to the tune of 60% of their revenue give or take.

Essentially, not only would a rebel coup in Yemen spike oil prices on transport concerns, but would collapse the Yemeni economy and likely lead to repurcussions and fighting throughout the region. 

Stay tuned, and don't forget to fill your car up before the increase hits the pumps!