Month: December 2013

WTI crude oil prices climbed above $100 late last week, as geopolitical concerns and global production issues against the backdrop of strong domestic demand got the bull case reinvigorated. The weekly inventory report on Friday showed another high refinery rate, which is helping to drawdown on crude oil inventories.… Read more

Crude oil prices surged on Friday, as the year-end destocking and strong refining demand bubbled over. Louisiana Light Sweet crude prices lead the way higher, dragging up WTI. The various pipeline machinations have been a big part of the calculus, as their full effect will be felt over the next month or two.… Read more

It was a fairly quiet trading session, yesterday, and the tepid conditions look to persist today. The API’s version of the weekly inventory report came in mostly as expected with a further drop in crude oil inventories, along with small declines in refined product inventories.… Read more

Crude oil prices rebounded, yesterday, as hopes over a return of Libya’s oil to the market were mostly dashed, yet again. We had warned that the consensus view over the situation was overly optimistic, but Brent prices got hit last week, on spurious claims that the some of the protesting local operators would begin oil exports “on their own.”… Read more

The featured action of the crude oil complex continues to be the Brent-WTI spread, which has narrowed by over $8.00 in the past week. The high refinery run rate and the expected impact of various pipeline rationalizations is helping WTI’s relative to a large degree.… Read more

The weekly inventory report lit up the board, yesterday, with several outlier data points: Crude oil inventories fell a remarkable 10.6 million barrels; imports of crude oil fell to 6.8 million bpd, the lowest since 2000; production of distillate fuels rose to 5.3 million bpd; and refiners processed 16.1 million bpd, running at 92.7% of capacity, which was the highest since the EIA began tracking data in 1982.… Read more

WTI oil prices are slightly lower this morning, despite another sizeable decline in US crude oil inventories reported by the API last night. The decline was driven by a rise in refining activity to 92.7% and the annual year-end destocking phenomenon, which is an ad valorem tax avoidance regime.… Read more

TI oil prices have been surging, especially relative to Brent. WTI prices have tacked on another dollar in overnight trading, spiking above $98 to as high as $98.74. The Keystone pipeline situation continues to play a role with its daily announcements.… Read more

Oil prices continue to be supported, holding on to gains from the past week. The economic data have certainly been supportive, whether it has been from the surge in global manufacturing services readings, the improved Q3 GDP reading, or Friday’s employment report.… Read more

Overall, WTI oil prices are holding to their gains from the week. Part of the rally was due to the TransCanada’s announcement that the southern leg of the Keystone pipeline would begin operations on January 3rd. That news has changed, however, with the company now saying operations will not begin until mid-January, and expectations have been further tempered by the revelation that its capacity will not ramp up to even 500k bpd until mid-year 2014.… Read more