Weekly US Petroleum and NG Supply Reports (Current)

Ryno

pup55, you've been pretty close on most of your forecasts. I'm impressed with your model. I think you are right to correct your demand forecast inputs as US product demand declines.

I'll be watching at 10:35.

Waterthrush

Heh. Bush is "speaking out about energy" [or, more accurately, about the wish to drill in the arctic wildlife preserve] around 10:30 am. I take it he has the numbers and is either trying to overshadow them or use them as a lever to crack open that preserve.

With the obligatory half sentence about conservation.

Rant mode: I wish he would just shut up for the rest of his term. This year, I hope he does take 6 - or more- weeks of vacation at the ranch and spends all of the time clearing brush and exercising. He's done enough damage. Rant mode off.

emersonbiggins · around 10:30 am

PeakingAroundtheCorner

There's a monkey on my teevee with a fist full of drilling pipe for ANWR and OCS.
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Bas

Bush just dropped the shale word... highly promising too Rolling Eyes

Waterthrush

It's Clinton's fault. It's remote. It will supply two decades of Saudi oil ...

It's too late, baby.

PeakingAroundtheCorner · around 10:30 am

Dan1195 · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 19, 2005 Posts: 260

Crude imports were up, hence the lesser decline in crude stocks. This might have something to do with the European situation. However, gasoline inports are still only 1.0 mpd, so gasoline stockpiles fell despite 1.8% decline in demand.

pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3693

Homesteader

DantesPeak

Crude imports came in much stronger than I originally expected a few weeks back. I suspect that the oil tanker jam-ups in French ports, that I have frequently reported lately, may have contributed to some tankers coming to the US instead of France. It’s likely that trend may continue for a few more weeks. In addition, late June and early July is usually a seasonal high point for crude imports, so I would not be surprised if we see four weeks averaging 9.75 mbpd of crude imports before falling back some in mid-July.

Because of higher imports, refineries had more oil to step up production. So utilization also picked up more than I expected – up 0.7% as compared to my forecast of up 0.4%. Refineries this week are now reported to be in very good shape based upon historical norms and recent experience, so this is their chance to turn out more oil products if they so desire.

As you can see from the graph below, refiners have increased distillate output by about 5% to take advantage of much higher profit margins on distillates (such as diesel). The flip side of stepping up diesel production is lower gasoline output, a decision which may come back to bite us. Worldwide demand for diesel is still very strong, and Australia has even taken control of oil and diesel supplies today. They plan on increasing diesel imports temporarily.

Strong foreign demand has reduced diesel imports and increased diesel exports (this week’s distillate import increase may be just a short lived exception to the trend). At the same time China has stepped up imports of gasoline. It should be noted in the last two weeks that virtually zero gasoline imports or gasoline blending components have been imported into the West Coast. The usual supplier there, South Korea, has been reported to have cut back refinery output due to lack of sufficient Nigerian oil, and in addition, may be sending what it has to China.

So basically, we’ve had some good news this week but the weak underpinnings remain. There’s a clear trend that will result some day in critically low supplies for diesel and/or gasoline, but that day probably won’t be coming in the next 4 to 6 weeks if nature cooperates (and doesn’t spin a hurricane into the Gulf of Mexico).

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Ming · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 26, 2005 Posts: 271

Yes, I was also somewhat surprised by the very high crude imports.
However, we all know that the imports for individual weeks are basically impossible to predict.

For the next few weeks I am still betting on values close to 9.8, although the strike in France and the increased May production in Saudi Arabia may improve the imports to around 10, or something close to that level.
Also, I believe Nigeria is recovering a little bit, and the production problems in Norway should not impact too much on US imports.
However, it is important to check the next Mexico production values, to see if they continue to fall at the same rate.

Apart from the imports, in the next few weeks the GOM production should start to increase due to initial Thunder Horse output…

Anyway, pup's prediction was still quite good, and some comments I heard lead me to believe that some of the analysts are now improving their “own” predictions simply by following what pup writes in this site… Smile