Thursday, February 14, 2013

Refiner Oil is Cracked Up!

Mid week update from new COT contributor Chris Damas.....

Oil refining is getting more lucrative in the USA..... good for stocks, bad for consumers. Alternatively, most Canadian oil stocks were down today, with below expectations results from Encana and Cenovus.

The theoretical April oil refining crack spreads (assuming all one product produced) right now (WTI over NY Harbor) are:

$37.18 for RBOB
$41.54 for Heating Oil

All the regional cracks we cover are up too –

WTI Cushing over Gulf Coast 211 is $33.40 up $2.05
WTI Midland over 532 ULSD Mid-Con is $36.74 up $2.00
Brent over 321 NYH at $20.10 up $1.49 versus single digits a month ago
ANS (Alaskan North Slope) 321 over West Coast at $25.68 up $1.59

This is a seasonal strengthening with cracks rebounding due to maintenance at several refineries and strong distillate export demand. Closing prices for our stock universe are all up after being up 35% or so since recommending them Jan 10.

MPC $83.30 up $1.63 goes ex 35 cents tomorrow)
VLO $47.29 up $1.05
HFC $56.53 up 40 cents
NTI $30.40 up $1.36 (goes ex Tuesday)
PSX $64.81 up $0.70
TSO $55.37 up $1.30

The P/E multiples on these stocks remain low in the 8-9 range.

Note: US Holiday (Presidents Day) will close markets on Monday. You might want to lighten up on these names tomorrow towards the close. We will have a lot of media attention regarding the anti KXL/climate change rally Sunday in front of the White House.

Check out Chris Damas at BCMI Research


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