09.07.2020 Oil News Daily Analysis

09.07.2020 Oil News Daily Analysis

Weak U.S. Gasoline Consumption In the United States, the world’s largest oil consumer, gasoline demand initially showed strong signs of recovery as states started to rollback lockdown measures. Stocks of gasoline fell after economies started reopening. However, those gains appear to be tapering off. Seasonal gasoline consumption in the U.S. is currently at a twenty-year low and the preliminary data from GasBuddy for July 4th weekend—a time generally marked by high gasoline consumption—is not promising. U.S. Refineries Aren't Operating At Capacity Refineries in the U.S. continue to operate at only about 77% of their full capacity. While this is a boost from last month, it’s still less than what is typical at this point in the summer. In July, most refineries run at their maximum capacity to meet gasoline demand. As the season turns towards the autumn, refineries cut their runs or temporarily shut down for maintenance. However, this process is likely to be interrupted or delayed as well, as Marathon Petroleum (NYSE:MPC) already announced that it is delaying scheduled maintenance at its St. Paul, Minnesota refinery—a refinery which has the capacity to process 102,000 bpd, but is currently running at reduced rates due to lower demand for petroleum products. If refineries don’t do maintenance, they will produce too much product, which the market isn’t prepared to use. This would lead to further expansion in stores of diesel, gasoline, etc. U.S. Crude Production Rebound Yet To Start Over the past several months, oil production in the United States declined significantly in response to lower oil prices as well as the five in consumption triggered by the global pandemic. The EIA expects U.S. oil production to reach a low of 10.907 million bpd in July, after which production should start to increase. This could pose a problem if U.S. crude oil exports don’t rise. Storage capacity is already close to the highest levels ever recorded, and, with refinery utilization lower than normal for this time of year, there is nowhere for that crude oil to go other than exports.