Helping you navigate the new normal
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it“. George Santayana 9 months ago, it must have seemed such a good idea. Ed Morse of Citi and other oil market analysts were calling the hedge funds with a sure-fire winning strategy, as the Wall Street Journal reported in May: “Dozens of hedge-fund managers […]
Oil markets are the proverbial “canary in the coalmine”. They are showing us what happens when the rose-tinted glasses provided by stimulus policy are removed. Now markets have to return to their true role of price discovery, based on the fundamentals of supply and demand. This makes them very dangerous indeed. Some large players in […]
OECD oil inventories have never been higher. They were 2.9mb at the end of July, and are expected to have risen further since then, according to energy watchdog the International Energy Agency: In terms of days of forward cover, they are now at 63 days in the OECD overall They are at 68 days in […]
The latest EU olefin operating rates (OR%) were very disappointing, even though they were not a surprise. As the chart shows, ethylene rates were just 81% (based on APPE data). They were far below the 90%+ rates that were normal before the crisis beg…
Over the past 18 months, the main investment analysts have argued that high oil prices would have no impact on the global economy. Now, new forecasts suggest their optimism has been misplaced.
The chart above gives the International Energy Agency’s…
The blog’s argument that there is no shortage of crude oil seems finally to be going mainstream.
Equally, its concern over the impact of today’s high prices, especially by comparison with natural gas, is also now starting to be highlighted.
Thus th…
The International Energy Agency (IEA) confirmed the blog’s worst fears this week, with its announcement that crude oil demand actually fell by 300kbd in Q4. Not only is this “quite rare” as the IEA noted, but they went on to warn:
“We’re flagging tha…