Energy prices were mixed on Wednesday… the liquids fell off intra-day highs after the bulls failed to excite post DOE bullish momentum. The gas market collapsed following Monday/Tuesday’s dead-cat-bounce. As far as today’s EIA report goes, the crowd is looking for a rare mid-November injection of around 20 Bcf.
’s key takeaways from yesterday’s DOE report:
- She might have been a relative dud, but Hurricane Ida, which skirted the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (aka the LOOP), made her presence known last week in the oil markets. According to the Minerals Management Service (MMS), shut-ins to PADD III oil production peaked on Tuesday, November 10th at 43% or 560.2 Mbbl/d.
- As a result, oil production, which hit a four-and-half year high the week before, dropped 3.4% last week to 5.32 MMbbl/d.
- Ida’s path also disrupted vessel traffic in PADD III shipping lanes. In this vein, crude oil imports into this market area dropped to a 59-week (i.e. a post Hurricane Gustav/Ike) low of 4.28 MMbbl/d.
Bottom line, the race is on; between falling demand and falling production. Regardless of the outcome, one result is almost guaranteed… the consumer will lose. And, given that consumer spending is responsible for more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy that does not bode well for the strength of the incipient recovery in the U.S.
_________________________
Stephen Schork is the Editor of, and has more than 17 years experience in physical commodity and derivatives trading, risk systems modeling and structured commodity finance.