Watching the crude oil market over the past few months has been a study in winding a rubber band, or a game of chicken. Each week it has been largely the same thing repeated: oil prices gently rise, backwardation in the futures curve keeps deepening, Money Managers in the futures market bet on higher oil, Dealers bet even more against [...]
US domestic stocks of crude oil continue to be quite high and now the futures curve is only a few pennies in the front month contract from being fully backwardated again. Contango is gone, which suggests that oil market is in sight of achieving some measure of balance. That anticipated equilibrium, however, is registering at less than $57 rather than [...]
There is a titanic struggle going on right now in the oil market. On the one side of the futures market are the usual pace setters, the money managers. Last week, the latest COT data available, they went the most net long since March. If it continues, it will close in on the most positive futures position since the record [...]
Oil prices have had a very good run for several months now. Dating back to the recent low reached June 21, WTI is up an impressive 35% to a new two-year high. Crude hasn’t traded at $57 since June 2015. During this latest increase, the oil futures curve has finally achieved backwardation (which isn’t necessarily permanent). The long-awaited normalization is [...]
The impact of Hurricane Harvey on the Gulf energy region is becoming clear. There have been no surprises to date, even though the storm did considerable damage and shuttered or disrupted significant capacity. Most of that related to gasoline, which Americans have been feeling in pump prices. According to the US Department of Energy, as of August 31, 10 refineries [...]
Despite Mario Draghi’s supposedly misinterpreted comments earlier this week, there are global indications that the best of this round has already been reached. Policymakers are always going to claim things are improving, that much is given. But there is tremendous difference between that and what has occurred, especially if it is indeed rolling over worldwide. The earliest indicators for China’s [...]
Drillers are going to drill. What else can they do? OPEC can discuss cuts and maybe even stick to them for a while, but the rest of the world isn’t bound by those tactics. That is what they are, PR aimed at firming up prices. In the end, this story, as it has been from the beginning in late June [...]
Andy Hall has been called the God of Oil. As chief of Astenbeck Capital, he has proven at times that even gods can be mortal. In the “rising dollar” period, for example, after making money on the way down Mr. Hall went bullish. That was March 2015: We suspect their projection of current prices into the future will again be [...]
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