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The stats were bullish for crude and bearish for products across the board. US crude imports dropped by nearly 1 Mb/d, as fog on the US Gulf Coast restricted tanker arrivals; this drove the large and temporarily bullish crude stockdraw. Crude imports should rebound in next week's report, as shipping conditions return to normal.
On refined products, the common factor driving stockbuilds was very weak demand. Product consumption is measured by products delivered from refineries, and these supplies into the distribution system were strong the previous week; however, during the holiday week itself, deliveries fell, as is usually the case. The result was that gasoline, distillate, and jet kero stocks built by a combined 19.4 Mb last week.
Crude stocks drew by 7.1 Mb (vs. -2.0 Mb expected). The total draw was driven by a USGC decline of the same amount; Cushing saw a 1.1 Mb build (vs. +0.2 Mb expected).
The key reason for the total draw was that imports dropped by 984 kb/d to 7.18 Mb/d; fog conditions restricted arrivals on the USGC last week.
Production was flat at 8.77 Mb/d, with supply in Alaska edging up by 4 kb/d and lower 48 output unchanged. Refinery runs rose by 132 kb/d to 16.69 Mb/d, while 4w av. runs were flat at 16.60 Mb/d. Stocks remained above 5y highs.
Hence, we don’t encourage long-term short build ups hereafter; instead, we’ve already advocated hedging strategies so as to mitigate potential upside risks towards $60 a barel. We encourage longs in WTI crude of near-month expiries for targets of $60 levels with strict stop loss of 52.27 levels, thereby, the trade carries attractive risk reward ratio.
