It's all about Mother Nature. |
Mother Nature has been an incredible bull. It's hard to imagine a scenario more bullish than we've had. |
Mother Nature is going to be huge in the next several weeks. Long term I think we're headed to $30 to $35, but I don't think we're doing that yet. We have a lot of winter left. |
My times have improved by about a minute and a half (since last season), ... I trained pretty hard over the summer. Coach (Adam Kedge) gave us a training plan. I tried to run every day. I guess it paid off. |
Natural gas is taking its cue from crude and is being dragged along for the ride. |
Offshore production is coming back very slowly. Problems with power have left a number of refineries shut since Rita. This reinforces the very bullish mentality of the market. |
People have been more concerned about products than crude. |
Pipeline pressure swings and other timing issues can easily result in deviations from what is expected. |
Prices are much higher on fear of possible further supply disruptions. Continued concern about the Iranian situation and new threats in Nigeria and primary drivers. There were no new reported attacks in Nigeria, just more threats. |
Quite simply, the strong Pacific flow is continuing to inhibit any major intrusions of Arctic air into the lower 48. The winter is rapidly coming to an end for all practical purposes. |
Refiners don't buy crude oil to look at it. Once units are back on line we are going to see them produce a huge amount of petroleum products. |
Rising inventories are keeping a lid on prices. Inventories are back at levels we last saw in 1999, but the price is still a couple times higher. The market has been remarkably resilient because there are fears of supply disruptions. |
Supplies are ample across the board. We were able to increase product supplies even with refineries running at around 86 percent, which isn't a good sign for the bulls. |
Temperatures need to fall to alleviate what will be very large inventories by the end of January based on current forecasts. |
That really has the market on edge that if indeed the UN can get sanctions passed, that Iran will retaliate in some way, that most likely being a cutoff of oil exports. |