America Is Producing the Wrong Kind of Oil https://www.bloomberg.com//news/art...od-crudes-not-enough-bad-ones?srnd=markets-vp
As for the Sour Crude - refiners will typically blend it with light sweet crude in order to allow for their catalytic cracking units to be able to digest it. There's also a price advantage in being able to do that. Refining straight Sour Crude dramatically decreases refinery throughput and puts a significant burden on the catalytic elements and maintenance crews. Very few refiners in the world have the plants to refine straight 100% Sour Crude. Would appear that the big swinging dicks are quite actively trading the spread between Sour and Sweet Crude varietals.
Despite some bullish technicals, a modestly firmer stock market, and the continuing saga from Venezuela - WTI is off today. So at least for today, the abundant North American supply narrative and warmer US temperatures has overpowered the demand side of the equation.
Yup, my analysis indicates today is a minor blip, still bullish. A narrow range having a breather day, tis all it is.
Another day with equity indices up moderately and WTI off slightly. Warm weather taking the bid out of heating oil.
Firmness in Natural Gas is helping prop up WTI for the time being in the face of a down day for equities.
Hello Bone, what do you think about the RB/HO spread right now? Refineries have been maximizing their distillates output vs gasoline for quite some time now...
That's true - but the dynamics are different than you suggest. The firmness in Natural Gas has rubbed off on the Heating Oil contract. At this moment Gasoline is off twice the range of Heating Oil. Look at last week - the Gasoline/WTI Crack was much firmer than the Gasoline/Heating Oil Crack. Personally I would be much more amenable to looking for a place to buy the Gasoline/WTI Crack. I'm not there yet, as the Gasoline Crack has been trending down since last fall, but last week it showed some signs of resurrection.