US Weekly Oil Summary: North Dakota Output Returning

As of Jan. 26, North Dakota oil production is estimated to be down ~30-80 MBOPD due to the recent extreme cold and related operations challenges. Impacted production was 130-180kbpd Thursday.

• Crude inventories fell more than expected last week, down 9.23m bbl, driven by large drop in production and refinery utilisation due to the severe cold weather across the US last week. The draw was assisted by a drop in imports and despite a small dip in exports.
• Refinery operator Delek expects upcoming US refinery maintenance season to be among the highest ever, with 1.5m bd of capacity offline between Feb-mid March.
• Citgo’s 455kb/d Lake Charles refinery in southwest Louisiana is to start a multiunit turnaround beginning in late February according to Bloomberg sources.
• USD: Mixed data in the US this week gave markets little further clarity on the potential path for Fed policy and as such the USD index stands very modestly higher on the week. Early gains however, did see the DXY print a fresh six-week high, keeping short-term momentum bullish at this juncture.
• Real GDP was clearly stronger than expected with 3.28% in Q4 (cons 2.0, AF GDPNow 2.4, highest analyst estimate 2.5) after 4.9%.
• MNI: US JAN FLASH SERVICES PMI 52.9 (FCST 51.0); DEC 51.4. MNI: US JAN FLASH SERVICES PMI 52.9 (FCST 51.0); DEC 51.4. MNI: US JAN FLASH MANUFACTURING PMI 50.3 (FCST 47.7); DEC 47.9.