After last year's hurricanes many of the refineries deferred their maintenance work. |
Crude oil inventories increased once more, improving oil availability further. Another important factor is that above-normal temperatures in the U.S. seem to curb heating oil consumption. |
Iran is still the main driver. |
It would be an inappropriate signal to cut, because they are keen on pointing out they'll do everything to keep markets well supplied, especially after such an incident. |
Larger imports apparently more than compensate for production losses in the Gulf. |
Should Hurricane Wilma's path indeed go over Florida and spare the oil infrastructure at the Gulf Coast, as the National Hurricane Center predicts, oil should drop further. |
Since many refineries deferred their maintenance work after the hurricanes, we expect this year's turnaround season to be particularly heavy. As a result, crude oil consumption by refiners should decrease, which could over the next weeks lead to falling oil prices. |
The refinery outages should lead to weak demand for crude oil from the refining sector. It's not crude oil that is in short supply, but gasoline and distillates. |
There is still the risk to production outages as long as hurricane season is not over. |
We expected prices to come down to around $60 a barrel and that exactly where they are. There is still the minor risk that the hurricane could change course, but this is very minor. |
With the ongoing political tensions in Iran and with Nigerian militants threatening more attacks on oil companies, short covering should push prices higher next week. Speculators still hold a considerable amount of short positions. With the current news flow, those investors should feel increasingly uncomfortable with their positions. |