Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the week ending March 13, 2020 .................................................................
U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 15.8 million barrels per day during the week ending March 13, 2020 which was 119,000 barrels per day more than the previous week’s average. Refineries operated at 86.4% of their operable capacity last week. Gasoline production increased last week, averaging 10.0 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production decreased last week, averaging 4.7 million barrels per day.
U.S. crude oil imports averaged 6.5 million barrels per day last week, up by 127,000 barrels per day from the previous week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 6.4 million barrels per day, 4.5% less than the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 688,000 barrels per day, and distillate fuel imports averaged 263,000 barrels per day.
U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 2.0 million barrels from the previous week. At 453.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 3% below the five year average for this time of year. Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 6.2 million barrels last week and are near the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline and blending components inventories both decreased last week. Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 2.9 million barrels last week and are about 11% below the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 300,000 barrels last week and are near the five year average for this time of year. Total commercial petroleum inventories decreased last week by 7.7 million barrels last week.
Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 21.1 million barrels a day, up by 0.3% from the same period last year. Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 9.3 million barrels a day, up by 2.1% from the same period last year. Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 4.1 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 2.6% from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied was down 12.6% compared with the same four-week period last year.
Black Blade (a.k.a. Dennis Erectus):
This week's EIA Petroleum Inventory Status Report is SLIGHTLY BEARISH as Crude inventories increased 2 million bbls, but Total Commercial Petroleum Inventories declined nearly 8 million bbls. Refining utilization moved lower to just under 86.4% unchanged from the prior week. The Oil War between Russia and OPEC has only accelerated the drop in crude prices as this may have been expected as the corona virus ravages the globe. Apparently the bullshit happy talk about this virus being no more significant than a common cold may be wrong. I warned against taking the word of the Chinese government about stats concerning the dead and infected. Now we see how bad it really is when hundreds are dropping dead in Italy and the country is under quarantine. Now even the whole continent of Europe is closing their borders (too little too late of course). Here in the US we have cities closing schools, stores, restaurants, bars, businesses, shutting down professional and collegiate sports, and ordering people to stay home and "shelter in place". Some drastic measures for a "mild cold" eh? The effects of course are to slam energy demand and that is rippling through the global economy. Watch rig counts this Friday as many will be laid down as we are very likely to see sub $20/bbl WTI oil by the end of the week. One good thing coming out of this is that the Jihadis are ordering their terrorists not to go to Europe and America because .... you guessed it .... the corona virus. As I posted last night we are and have been going full on defensive into critical sectors like telecoms and utilities as well as precious metas and a few REITs. And even then we still see some losses.
As for the "Blade Portfolio" this week we added more Silver and Gold miners to the portfolio. Mostly we added EXK, GPL, ASM, FSM, AG, AUY, BTG, GORO, CMCL, GFI, GOLD, DRD, HMY, AEM,WPM and SBSW. We have stopped adding physical Silver (American Silver Eagles) as our suppliers are completely out amid the rush of panic buyers and the US Mint stopping making more (for now) claiming they don't want their people grouping together (yep ... because of the virus). So we just added more miners for now but no problem as we have plenty of physical metals stockpiled now. We warned that everyone should have been buying physical and so we are all set and we can continue to inventory and make sure out other preps are topped off. We did add more shares of critical companies like T, VZ, D, SO, and now NGG. We also took some spec shares in BP and RDS.B ... never ever thought I would call British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell "speculative" but there you go. We put a freeze on adding any more cryptos for the time being as we are going to cash. We also looked at more ammo but the prices of the popular calibers are way off the charts now as panic buyers are flooding the gun shops and online vendors scooping up everything in sight ... but alas we are very well positioned there as well. Ditto for firearms.
In short ... the world has gone insane and we now grab popcorn and some cold ones, sit back and watch the show. Hell, that's why we prepped eh? We don't worry. Let the "other guy"" do the worrying. Besides, after watching the freaks battle at Costco, Wally World and Sam's Club over rolls of toilet paper I am just glad that we here did our part for our selves and our families. We tried to warn others and they scoffed, pointed and made fun. Now they are scared shitless wondering what they will do when they are laid off, how they will feed and clothe their spawn all while they watch their hopes and dreams slip away and that retirement turning to wisps of smoke.
As always, get out of debt and stay out of debt, accumulate physical Silver and Gold bullion as "portfolio insurance", and stockpile supplies of long term nonperishable foods and basic necessities into storage. After all we do "live in interesting times". |
