The International Energy Agency (IEA) has released their May 2017 (PDF) report to the general public. It seems to be particularly optimistic about consumption growth in the 4th quarter of this year and even forecasts a level above the 100Mbpd day for part of 2018. Those levels would outstrip current supply estimates, which would lead to higher prices. Of course higher prices would accelerate supply, especially in U.S. Shale and likely OPEC nations wishing to address budget revenue issues. Likely to provide limited impact to the overall picture, imo. The other major factor is China. China has recently announced some deceleration of growth via reduction of refining capacity of nearly 200Kbpd. Then there is the 800lb. gorilla sometimes referred to as China's SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) which may now be larger than the U.S. SPR. No one outside of China's officialdom knows for sure its size, nor do we know how soon China will top out its SPR. It does seem likely China will use its SPR to increase political influence among OPEC members. The Weekly U.S. report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) starts to roll out at 10AM EDT.
The EIA weekly report came out yesterday and here is the link... https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/weekly/ Oddly the small drop in gasoline inventories is blamed for gasoline prices rising yesterday. Considering that those inventories did slip and refinery output slipped as well... that would seem reasonable. Yet demand slipped a bit more than supply as seen in the day's supply numbers which increased overall. The gasoline prices seem to be moving in lock step with Crude prices, as both have risen 5.6% over the past week. So the issue would be why are crude prices rising. One factor would be the almight dollar, but that can only account for 1.7% increase. The other 3.9% increase is hard to fathom unless too much weight is being given to drop in U.S. Crude Production of 100Kbpd since previous weekly report. Or possibly excessive enthusiasm regarding OPEC's latest "agreement", or even unease of Qatar.
A nice summary with visuals of April's Electricity demand...EIA’s Electric Power Monthly – June 2017 Edition with data for April
Now on to Mexico's petroleum products. We have something in the neighborhood of a -$100B trade deficit overall, yet petroleum products are about +$5B trade surplus. 2015 U.S. exports to Mexico. 2015 U.S. imports from Mexico.
An article on the Natural Gas glut in the U.S. This is the real reason that Coal is being used less in the U.S. In China and India NG is much more expensive and competitive with Coal. That may change in a few years as more LNG carriers are built.
Ethanol and regulations has again cropped up in the news. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biofuels-idUSKBN19Q27M It does make for some strange bedfellows, with environmentalists and big oil on one side and the corn belt on the other. Even the auto industry leans towards the environmentalists and big oil. For the auto industry and big oil, it is about the so called blend wall. In any case it adds about 8¢ to the price of a gallon of gasoline for e10 due to the RINs price and the penalty price can be reflected in the difference between e10 and conventional.
Having worked in Ethanol production for 15 years, I try to follow the ins and outs of the fuel battle. Just wanted to throw out that the corn used in Ethanol production is what they call 'field corn'. It's not the sweet corn used for canned/frozen eating corn. Also, after the process is completed, the left over 'Distillers Grain' is high in protein and is used as a 'finish' feed for livestock. Nothing goes to waste. Just a FYI for those who might be wondering.
The weekly EIA report... https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/weekly/ My summary chart... Nothing really to see, as demand is still weaker than last year. There is a nervousness across a lot of commodities and stocks, with its roots stemming from the Bond Market. That is a subject for a different place and time.
Almost forgot I created this thread, so here is the latest chart (my creation), from this week's EIA report (their creation). The total U.S. Crude (including SPR) and Petroleum products inventory has now below the 2 Billion barrel mark for the first time in 18 months. That is still about 200 Million barrels above what was once considered normal.
For anyone interested, this is the latest EIA data I have compiled from the report released 8-23-2017. It continues to show a drop in gasoline inventories, but the where is quite noticable, imo. P.A.D.D. (Petroleum Administration of Defense District) #2 and #3 have shown an increase in inventories over last year's higher than normal levels. With Harvey projected to be a major hurricane by tomorrow evening, I thought it of interest to provide possible impact areas, related to refining. I added Baytown and Deer Park as they have been having an impact on gasoline prices in some parts (12¢) of the country prior to Tuesday. Deer Park shut down due to a fire and has to restart and Baytown was supposed to start up last week from scheduled maintenance, but has "struggled" to do just that. As Harvey appears set to wander around the Corpus Christi area into next week, it would be hard to project the ultimate impact on that area's refineries. That area is not a major seaborne petroleum shipping point. Which brings me to this final thought. With the Baytown/Deer Park troubles, gasoline shot up 6¢ and then started to calm back down by 4¢ before starting up by 6¢. How much of that is due to Harvey and how much is due to a nervousness about some spaghetti models indicating something brewing off the Carolinas by early next week? Those few models are not projecting landfall, but could be disruptive to shipping lanes into the New York Harbor region.
Thank you. I would point out that my postings should in no way be considered investment advice, but rather the ramblings of an old fool (me).
There are hundreds of patents world wide for free energy devices so if the governments quit backing the money people we have free energy , electric cars that can go with out needing charges ,cutting pollutions maybe even making anti gravity devices possible ?