Tag: U.S Crude Oil Stockpiles

OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, blundered when it decided to engage in a battle for market share in November 2014. It assumed it could drive American shale oil companies bankrupt and then pick up their market share.

But this strategy was destined to fail. For one thing, they didn’t take into account that American shale oil companies had hedged their future production. That protected the companies from experiencing the impact of lower prices to the extent that they had hedged.

Second, they didn’t take into account the American bankruptcy system. Companies can continue as “zombies” surviving by cutting costs to the bone, and selling assets to other companies at a discount to keep afloat. The buyers then have a lower “cost basis.”

Third, they didn’t take into account their own vulnerabilities. Sure, their national oil companies have low production costs but their oil revenues largely support the national budgets. They need high oil prices to balance their budgets, effectively making them high-cost producers (e.g., KSA about $65/b in 2017). Continue reading "Why OPEC's Cut-Extension Is Another Blunder" →

The historical stock build from December 2014 through July 2016, and subsequent decline from August through December has led some to conclude that global stocks had started to rebalance. Instead, the normal seasonality in stocks had been masked by the high overproduction of OPEC, but then normal seasonality kicked-in.

Global OECD inventories from past years demonstrate the normal seasonal patterns, with some variability. As shown in the graph below, stocks normal build early in the year and peak around August. Stocks normally drop from September through December.

But in 2015, the oversupply was so excessive that stock just kept building through the year. They finally peaked in July 2016, then dropped off due to normal seasonal demand. This normal pattern led to a false conclusion that the rebalancing of stocks had begun. Continue reading "Crude Oil Seasonality, Inventory Rebalancing and Production Cuts" →

Crude oil was the worst-performing asset in the first quarter of 2017, losing 5.9 percent. That period coincided with the first three months of the OPEC-non-OPEC production cutbacks, which were intended to reduce global inventories and support oil prices.

Instead, global stocks increased from end-December through February. And U.S. crude stocks built by a staggering 57 million barrels through March. In addition, based on the Energy Department’s weekly data, U.S. crude production rose by 429,000 b/d from end-December through end-March. The Saudi Energy Minister, Khalid Al-Falih, had said during the OPEC press conference on December 10th that he did not expect any increase in U.S. production for all of 2017.

Source: OPEC

Saudi Arabia claimed to cut its production effective January 1st, but crude imports from KSA to the U.S. soared until the final week of March. In the YTD through March 24th, imports were up by 17% from the same period in 2016, and by 30% from December. Continue reading "OPEC's Rollover Of Deal May Be Full Of Holes" →