RE:What to make Lol, I think the data is really messing with coming up with an easy answer .
API is industry data, so a bit narrow. EIA has had bad data for a few years and has more political commentary than ever.
EIA said that the large data revisions they kept making were because NGLs stripped out of shale gas were miscalculated between production, inventory and exports. That makes sense as there is not a lot of growth out of the oily shale regions while shale gas is still rocking around 100 bcf/ day. So more butane, propane and maybe some condy is impacting inventories. Barnett, Eagleford and Bakken have roled over or are in terminal decline. Permian looks close. Some more production came out of Gulf of Mexico this year but not back to peak levels. Mexico does not intend to export oil in future.
HFI forecast an inventory build for this week last Thursday so there must be some easier data on the shipping side they are measuring. Product use is better than expected in the US.
either way inventory has been dropping steadily, even thru the 20 million barrel SPR release in Q2 and opec/russia cuts are only now showing up in data.
re PRC, not sure there. They seem to take advantage of price drops to ramp up imports and then soften imports when prices are higher. So again who knows what they do in the short term and what is the true trend? Diesel demand is up 15% since 2019 so there are green shoots. I think the genie is uncorked there - consumers will consume now.
I think inventories are on a one way trip globally. With big, usually surprising, gyrations. 5 steps forward, three steps back.
I think $100 oil is short term awesome and medium/long term awful for everyone. 80-90 is ideal. Saudi Arabia is firmly managing for the moment. A big spike is not in their long term interest so they WANT to prevent it. Can they?
Buybacks are accelerating, balance sheets are (still) improving, capex is constrained, development discouraged politically and we don't even have a good gas market.
imagine 6 dollar aeco with 85 dollar oil in two years...or 100 dollar oil?
LNG Canada, TMX line fill....