RE:RE:RE:RE:US.It was interesting to see such a difference between the API and EIA oil numbers this week - mainly in the change to gasoline and diesel. The former had large draws and the latter had no change in diesel and a smaller reduction in gasoline.
It was also interesting to see this have minimal impact on the WTI price. That is further confirmation that the WTI price is being driven by other factors.
The question of oil fundamentals is an important one. Its like trying to figure out which animal is behind a screen, by looking at little parts of it.
On the one hand we have the misallocation of captial into windmills/solar etc. Misallocation becuase the invested capital results in far less energy than would be the case if it were allocated to oil/gas development. That reduces supply
On the other hand we have demand. Here's an interesting factoid I just noticed yesterday - did you know that bitcoin mining now uses more energy than the entire Country of Argentina or Ukraine or Sweden for example! Here is the quote
"According to The University of Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, Bitcoin has an electricity consumption of 129.24 TWh per year – that's more than entire countries such as Argentina and Ukraine, which consume 125.03 and 128.81 TWh each year, respectively."
This bitcoin energy consuption appears to have doubled since the start of 2020 - and will continue to increase.
That is an example of how energy demand is growing. At the same time the carbon foot print strategy is being used to reduce energy production from the main producers of that energy - coal, natural gas, oil. ie making it harder or more costly to get those products. This makes the existing stocks more valuable.
Its hard to quantify any of this. But it seems that supply is being reduced, and demand is increasing. It also seems those demand/supply changes apply to all carbon based fuels - ie its not just one, that can be replaced by the others. Its all of them. It may even affect coal more than others, which then forces up natural gas, which pushes up oil.