Daily Energy Report
Crude Oil Futures for March 2020 settled unchanged $0.00 @ $52.05/bbl trading in a $1.53 range including the overnight-RBOB settled up 3.15/cpg and Heating Oil settled down 2.58/cpg.
According to weekly EIA data, domestic crude oil imports averaged 7.0 million barrels for the week ended February 7th, up by +363,000 barrels per day from the previous week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.7 million barrels per day, -6.8% less than the same four week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports-including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components-last week averaged 406,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 102,000 barrels per day. U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (minus SPR) currently stand at 442.5 mil/bbl. which is almost -2.0% below the five average for the time of year.
Natural Gas Futures for March 2020 settled up $0.144 @ $1.981/mmbtu trading in a .109 cent range including the overnight session.
In addition to warmer weather, natural gas withdrawals have also been limited as a result of high levels of electric power generation from nuclear power plants. Although nuclear power plant outages tend to be relatively low in January, January 2020 outages have been at multi-year lows for the calendar month, moderating the demand for natural gas-fired generation so far this winter. If working natural gas stocks follow the five-year average withdrawal rate for the remainder of the heating season, we will end the heating season at almost 2,000 Bcf in storage for the first time since 2017.
