by MrBill » Fri 06 Apr 2007, 08:29:39
Dantespeak wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')owever even as US demand is rising, crude imporst into the US during 2007 have been falling. So US inventories are running down, and the US will have to bid more agressively to rebuild inventories. But at this time, with refinery problems, the US is not bidding agressively, and marginal available supplies are going to Europe, at least for now. I am not as familiar with Eurpoean markets as you are, but they appear to have been impacted by the recent French port strike.
Actually, total demand in the USA has been surprisingly high for the past quarter. Disconcertingly strong. Last week's +1.4% yoy total demand increase was almost mild by comparison.
As I understand the situation in France that was actually also impacting gasoline exports to the USA as from each barrel of crude you get diesel and gasoline, and as Europe uses more diesel than gasoline they export quite a lot of surplus unleaded gasoline to the USA. That is just one reason that unleaded gasoline inventories have been falling 8-weeks in a row. Domestic refining problems are another.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')Brent oil, the European benchmark crude
oil, traded at a record high premium to the U.S. benchmark, West
Texas Intermediate, as refinery problems in the U.S. cut demand for
its crude, helping to lower the price.
Seasonal maintenance and shutdowns at some refineries, such as Valero Energy Corp.'s fire-damaged McKee plant near Sunray, Texas, have built up a surplus of oil, some industry analysts said. Valero expects to partly resume operations at its McKee refinery in early to mid April, Bill Day, a company spokesman, said this week.
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The Brent premium to West Texas, which is priced in Cushing,
Oklahoma, rose as high as $4.48 a barrel today and was at $3.81 at 1:34 p.m. London time. West Texas traded at an average discount of 14.5 cents a barrel to Brent in the past 12 months.
Increased Canadian crude supplies to the U.S. have been putting
pressure on West Texas prices, according to Ehsan Ul-Haq, the head of research at PVM Oil Associates GmbH in Vienna. At the same time, militant attacks in have disrupted the supply of Nigerian oil, which is priced relative to Brent, forcing Asian refiners to search
for more crude from Europe and propping up the price of Brent.