Mid-Day Oil Summary: Crude Trades Flat

Crude is stabilizing today as ongoing demand concerns and an expected build in US oil inventories are weighed against a weaker US dollar and ongoing Red Sea attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

• Brent APR 24 down 0% at 82.99$/bbl
• WTI APR 24 down -0.1% at 77.85$/bbl
• API weekly oil stock data: Crude +7.17mbbl, Cushing +0.668mbbl, Gasoline +0.415mbbl, Distillate -2.908mbbl
• The day delayed EIA weekly petroleum inventory data for the week ending Feb 16 is due for release this afternoon at 11:00 ET (16:00GMT). Crude inventories are expected to build by 4mbbl according to a Bloomberg survey.
• UKMTO Confirms Fire Onboard Vessel Under Houthi Attack: Following on from our 0814GMT bullet, the UKMTO has issued an updated incident alert regarding the presumed Houthi attack on a ship in the Gulf of Aden.
• India’s state-run refiners are facing headwinds as Russian oil becomes more expensive and less accessible, according to Bloomberg.
• Consistently high clean product exports from PADD 3 has been good news for European countries who imported a five year high of diesel from PADD 3 in 2023 according to Vortexa as they adjusted to life without Russian supply.
• China’s gasoline demand is slowing down after the Lunar New Year travel rush, resulting in independent refineries in the eastern Shandong province to reduce crude throughput, sources told S&P Commodity Insights.
• China’s refined oil exports profits have been rising during 2024, according to OilChem, driven by sluggish domestic demand.
• Planned fuel exports from China’s state-owned refiners are expected to increase about 10% month on month to 4m tons in March according to OilChem.
• Diesel cracks yesterday continued their pull back amid demand concerns, expectation of easing US refining outages, and rising Middle East refining capacity this year. US refinery utilisation was last week at the lowest since Dec2022.
• TotalEnergies’ 238kbpd Port Arthur refinery is operating at minimal production amid multiple upsets in units on Wednesday, after the refinery has been delaying to complete a restart following a wider power outage at the facility on 16 January, sources told Reuters.
• BP is planning to restart its 435kbpd Whiting, Indiana, refinery at full production in March, with restarting to start in the last week of February, sources told Reuters.
  • US gasoline crack down -0.4$/bbl at 27.92$/bbl
  • US ULSD crack down -0.5$/bbl at 33.79$/bbl