- Gasoline prices have gained around 20% year-to-date.
- This week gasoline approached per gallon $3.00 a gallon.
- In the United States, gasoline inventories are below the five-year average.
- Crude Oil bases Brent topped $84.00 a barrel a 7 month high.
- In July the world consumed the most energy ever
Russian Minister of Energy Nikolay Shulginov said on Friday that Russia will meet its target for oil export cuts in August. The country decided to impose a voluntary output cut of 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) in March and again in August in line with similar measures taken by other OPEC+ nations. Shulginov said Russia already started cutting exports in July in order to reach its goal. In its latest oil demand outlook, OPEC projected that 2023 world oil demand growth will reach 2.4 million bpd, 100,000 bpd higher compared to its previous monthly report. Gasoline, one of the six most traded petroleum contracts on the global futures market, has gained over 20% in the year to date, according to a recent Bloomberg report. According to the EIA, gasoline stocks are some 7% below the five-year average for this time of the year. And oil drillers are not drilling more. They are drilling less. At the start of this year, Brent crude was trading around $78 per barrel. This week the spot contract closed over $84 per barre on Fridayl. Gasoline, meanwhile, started the year at less than $2.50 per gallon. This week gasoline approached $3.00. . This is fueling concern about more inflation pain despite the efforts of central banks in Europe and North America to tame it with a series of rate hikes. NN: Their are profound changes taking place… Many we predicted and some we did not. Key is the binary trade that China is reopening. Chinese refiners are producing millions of barrels of gasoline and diesel. They are, in fact, producing so much that there were recently pressuring refining margins for the whole region. But most of the gasoline and diesel that Chinese refiners produce gets consumed locally. Because although it’s the world’s biggest EV market, China is also a giant non-EV market. And fuel demand is on the rise. It was obvious that OPEC+ including Russia at war would cut oil production. The liberal shift to anti oil policies was sure to drive oil prices higher. I am all for a zero carbon footprint. But the technology is not their yet. Nor is the proliferation of existing technologies. And the big Bugaboo is the fact that we just do not have the necessary alternatives to fossil fuels. Because they have not been invented yet. The is the record breaking heat wave sucking up fossil fuel inventories necessary for winter. So today we have unprecedented global warming. This winter we may have record breaking global cooling.