Things are just not that demanding. A lot of times in recent months we can get carried away in a sea of macro economic mania and lose focus on good old fashion supply and demand. And if you believe the report put out by the Energy Information Agency, demand just isn’t that good. Oh sure there is always a macro economic back drop when you price a barrel. Yet for oil, for years it was noise in the background as opposed to the mellow drama up front. When the economy was rocking and supplies were squeezed any headline or rumor or OPEC comment could lift the oil market in the blink of an eye. Or back in the nineties when supplies were plentiful, we would live and die by any slight change in inventory to try to catch whatever small move might be made in a world of maddening stability. Yesterday oil seemed to try to go back to its roots of reacting to supply of course the slightest strength in the US dollar probably helped to add some pressure.
The builds across to board seem to suggest demand is bad and taking a turn for the worse and while all the numbers didn’t seem to quite add up, the overall report tells a cautionary tale about the current strength of our economic recovery. Let’s start with the numbers, the EIA reported that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 2.1 million barrels from the previous week. That put supply at 339.9 million barrels which is still well above the average range for this time of year. What was more shocking to some was the 4.0 million barrels increase in gasoline supplies which shows that drivers are cutting back as economic times are tough. The EIA says demand averaged 9.0 million barrels per day while up by 0.7 percent from the same period last year, we have to remember that last year at this time the economy was really starting to unravel.....Read the entire article.
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