Sep WTI crude oil (CLU24) today is up +0.80 (+1.04%), and Sep RBOB gasoline (RBU24) is up +0.0384 (+1.62%).
Crude oil and gasoline prices today are higher on a bullish weekly EIA report. The energy markets have been to shake off today's sharp sell-off in US stocks and weak US manufacturing PMI and new home sales reports.
US crude oil inventories in the week ended July 19 fell by -3.74 million bbls, a larger drop than expectations of -3.5 million bbls. Gasoline inventories fell by -5.572 million bbls, the largest drop since March.
Oil prices are also being supported by Russia's statement that it plans to make additional crude production cuts in October and November 2024, and March-Sep 2025, to offset its above-quota production seen since April. Russia said its recent over-production has ceased and that its production in July will have been reduced to its OPEC+ quota.
Gasoline prices have underlying support as Exxon's Chicago-area refinery is still closed after a tornado last week cut electricity and forced a shutdown of the refinery on July 15. The refinery has capacity of 252,000 barrels/day. An Exxon spokesperson said on Wednesday the plant now has sufficient power to asset damage and begin the work to restart operations.
Crude has support from wildfires in Canada that threaten to curb Canadian crude production. Rystad Energy said last Friday that 52 out-of-control wildfires in Alberta, Canada, threaten nearly 500,000 bpd of crude oil sands output and pipeline shipments to the US.
OPEC+ rolled out a plan to restore some crude production in Q4, which sparked worries about a glut in global oil supplies. On June 2, OPEC+ extended the 2 million bpd of voluntary crude production cuts into Q3 but said they would gradually phase out the cuts over the following 12 months, beginning in October. OPEC pledged to extend its crude production cap at about 39 million bpd to the end of 2025. Also, the UAE was given a 300,000 bpd boost to its production target for 2025. In June, OPEC crude production fell -80,000 bpd to 26.98 million bpd.
Crude oil prices have underlying support from the Hamas-Israel conflict. Israel's military continues to conduct operations in Gaza, and there is the continued risk that the war might spread to Hezbollah in Lebanon or even to a direct conflict with Iran. Meanwhile, ongoing attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea by Iran-backed Houthi rebels have forced shippers to divert shipments around the southern tip of Africa instead of going through the Red Sea, disrupting global crude oil supplies.
Wednesday's EIA report showed that (1) US crude oil inventories as of July 19 were -5.1% below the seasonal 5-year average, (2) gasoline inventories were -1.8% below the seasonal 5-year average, and (3) distillate inventories were -8.6% below the 5-year seasonal average. US crude oil production in the week ending July 19 was unchanged w/w and matched a record high of 13.3 million bpd.
Baker Hughes reported last Friday that active US oil rigs in the week ending July 19 fell -1 rig to a 2-1/2 year low of 477 rigs. The number of US oil rigs has fallen over the past year from the 4-year high of 627 rigs posted in December 2022.
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