The Energy Report - Supply Surge

Oil prices fall as US oil supply rises to a record for as long as the Energy Information Administration has been keeping records. You have to go back almost 70 years to find a time when energy supplies were this high at this time of year. The reason is because of the continuing surge in US and Canadian oil production and low crude runs as refiners are in maintenance. 

The Energy Information Agency reported that U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged slightly over 14.0 million barrels per day during the week ending March 1 2013,480  barrels per day below the previous week's average. Refineries operated at 82.2 percent of their operable capacity last week. Gasoline production decreased last week, averaging just over 8.6 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production decreased last week, averaging less than 4.3 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged over 7.3 million barrels per day last week; down by 650 thousand barrels per day from the previous week. Over the last four weeks, crude oil imports have averaged over 7.6 million barrels per day, 1.3 million barrels per day below the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 605 thousand barrels per day. Distillate fuel imports averaged 112 thousand barrels per day last week.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 3.8 million barrels from the previous week. At 381.4 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are well above the upper limit of the average range. Finished gasoline inventories decreased while blending components inventories increased last week. Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 3.8 million barrels last week and are near the lower limit of the average range for this time of year.

The bottom line is that the bottom for oil is not in yet. We should get a rebound though as traders look ahead to the summer driving turnaround. Yet the short term will be choppy. Try to take advantage of the ranges and do not marry a position just yet. Play the field.

Cushing, OK supply with the reversal of the Seaway has been all the rage yet one reason we saw drawdowns in supply in recent weeks may be because of rail. Reuters News reports, "Oil traders have been perplexed by the changes in inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma. Simply put, the numbers do not add up. Fancy models of pipelines are not getting the figures right. But it seems there may be another factor: trains.

And behind them, energy trading giant Mercuria. Mercuria is among the companies quietly shipping some 40,000 barrels per day of crude oil sourced out of Oklahoma to destinations on the U.S. Gulf Coast, according to oil trading and rail industry sources. The oil, equivalent to about 15 percent of state output, may also include out-of-state crude delivered to Oklahoma tank farms, including those at Cushing, the delivery point for NYMEX West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures, trade sources said. Using short-line railway Farmrail, oil traders are sending 60 or more tank cars of crude a day to connections with other railroads, allowing Oklahoma crude to reach destinations such as Lake Charles and St James in Louisiana, a source familiar with the Oklahoma rail industry said.

A standard oil tank car holds about 720 barrels of crude. Activity is so busy on the Farmrail line that new business is being turned away, the rail industry source added. Oklahoma crude has traditionally been piped to the tank farms at Cushing for onward sale to refineries throughout the U.S. Midwest."

Rail shipments out of Oklahoma may go some way toward explaining why many analyst models of flows into the giant tank farms of Cushing have been yielding errors. Simply put, inventories have not risen as much as the models predicted.  As I have been writing, that the best play in energy right now is the long end of natural gas. Out target of $700 minimum by 2015 is now being shared by many other outlets. Welcome to the club! More and more people are starting to catch on to the historic nature of what is happening and the potential economic opportunities. A fantastic piece by Reuter's columnist John Kemp is a must read. As follows, "Unless prices for natural gas and crude start to converge soon in the United States, the overwhelming incentive to switch to dual fuel engines which use a mix of diesel and natural gas will be overwhelming. It will oust oil-based fuels from a huge range of applications, ranging from trains, ships and trucks to industrial engines. If all railroad, marine and industrial engines were switched to dual fuel and ran on maximum natural gas the potential reduction in diesel demand would be enormous. U.S. homes and businesses consumed 3.7 million barrels per day of distillate fuel oil for heating and running engines in 2011, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Railroads accounted for 204,000 barrels per day, with marine bunkers adding another 139,000.

The big prize is the market for highway vehicles, which consumed 2.4 million barrels a day. Some of that is used in cars and light trucks, which are not suitable for conversion. But a big chunk was used in heavy trucks, as well as refuse collection, municipal buses, and mail delivery services, all of which rely on central refuelling facilities and could be retrofitted to use dual fuel without much difficulty.

The diesel market is fast approaching a tipping point. So far the hassle of retrofitting engines and installing all the infrastructure needed to distribute liquefied natural gas (LNG) and compressed natural gas (CNG) has encouraged most businesses to stick with diesel even though gas has been cheaper. But if enough businesses convert, and enough distribution infrastructure is built, conversion costs will likely fall, and competitive pressure will force others to follow suit.

MAJOR CONVERSION PLANS!  It is easy to dismiss this scenario as far-fetched, but it is already starting to happen. According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Burlington Northern-Santa Fe (BNSF) railroad, the second-largest diesel consumer in the United States after the navy, plans to test using liquefied natural gas (LNG) to power some trains this year, and could eventually retrofit its entire fleet of 6,900 locomotives to run on a mix of gas and diesel ("Berkshire's BNSF railway to test switch to natural gas" March 6). Reuters reported on Tuesday that ports in northern Europe are installing refuelling infrastructure to enable vessels to run on LNG. Twenty vessels are already running on natural gas, mostly in Scandinavia, but many more are already on order. An international working group is already developing guidelines for safe procedures for LNG bunkering and includes some of the world's largest container ports and bulk terminals: Antwerp, Amsterdam, Bremerhaven, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Long Beach and Rotterdam.   Halliburton, one of the world's largest oilfield service companies, has started to convert some of its hydraulic pressure pumping units, used to fracture shale, to run on a gas/diesel mix, as part of its "frac of the future" cost reduction program. And dual fuel engines are also being deployed widely in offshore oil and gas production. Shell announced on Tuesday it would build two small-scale liquefaction plants in Louisiana and Ontario to "form the basis of two new LNG transport corridors in the Great Lakes and Gulf Coast regions." The company is also working to use more natural gas to fuel its own operations.

ESTABLISHED TECHNOLOGY!  The technology to modify a conventional diesel engine to run on a mix of diesel and natural gas has been around for decades. BNSF considered using gas-powered locomotives in the late 1980s, according to the WSJ. Leading engine makers General Electric, Caterpillar and Wartsila all offer a variety of dual-fuel models that can run on an mix of up to 90 percent natural gas and 10 percent diesel.

In 1998, the California Energy Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy and the Southern California Gas Company helped the City of Lompoc retrofit four municipal buses with dual fuel gas engines from Caterpillar, using compressed natural gas (CNG), and studied their performance over a 12 month period. Most dual fuel engines rely on diesel to start up and continue to use a small amount to provide ignition (the ignition temperature of natural gas is too high to be used on its own). But once the engine is running, natural gas can provide as much as 50-90 percent of the fuel used with no loss of performance. The engine can also revert to using 100 percent diesel if gas is not available.

RUNNING VERSUS CAPITAL COSTS! Retrofitting diesel engines so they can run on dual fuel is expensive but not prohibitively so. In the City of Lompoc case study, it cost $45,000 to retrofit each municipal bus. The WSJ reports that retrofitting a diesel locomotive and adding a tanker carry to carry the LNG could add up to $1 million to the normal $2 million price tag of a locomotive for BNSF. 

For retrofitting to make sense, the difference between gas and diesel prices must be large enough to allow the operator to recover the upfront capital costs of retrofitting quickly to make it worthwhile and minimize the financial risk. For most of the last four decades, there has been a small price advantage for running on gas, but not big enough to justify the upfront costs of retrofitting, and the need to invest in all the associated infrastructure for liquefying the natural gas and deliver it to refuelling stations. But the shale revolution has resulted in a big and persistent disconnect between gas and diesel prices. Since the wedge is expected to last, the financial incentives for retrofitting are enormous.

Gas is currently priced at around $3.60 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) in the futures markets. By contrast, a gallon of diesel costs almost as much ($3.00) for just one-seventh of the same energy (137,190 Btu). If natural gas and diesel were priced at energy parity, gas should be trading at $21 per mmBtu, or diesel should cost just 49 cents per gallon.

These are wholesale prices and do not include the cost of distribution. Nor do they include the cost of chilling, pressurizing and liquefying the natural gas so it can be used in CNG and LNG engines. Even so they provide an indication of the huge price advantage. The savings on operating costs are so large that the payback period for most retrofitting projects is just 1-2 years, which substantially reduces the risk of making the capital investment. Moreover, once dual fuel engines have been installed, the owner has complete flexibility over how to operate them. If gas prices rise again, or the cost of diesel falls, engines can revert to running on diesel.

SCOPE FOR SUBSTITUTION! Potential for substitution is greatest in North America, where oil and gas prices have diverged most sharply following the shale revolution. In regions like Asia where gas prices are partially or wholly linked to oil, the price advantage is smaller. But Japan has already begun to push for revisions in its LNG contracts to reflect cheaper prices in the United States and elsewhere. And China also appears to be eyeing the potential for rising domestic natural gas production to replace diesel in some transport and industrial engines. The fuel industry displays enormous amounts of institutional inertia. But for the same reason, it can display abrupt discontinuities when the pressure for change passes as critical threshold. 

In the 1860s, British economist William Stanley Jevons was confident oil could never replace coal as a transport fuel. Winston Churchill's decision to shift the Royal Navy's battleships to oil on the eve of World War I was seen by contemporaries as either daring or foolish. Within just over two generations, however, coal's place as a transport fuel had disappeared. If gas and oil prices remain disconnected, straight diesel engines without dual fuel capability might one day seem as antiquated as coal-powered warships. The more likely outcome is that the growing threat to diesel's market share will force re-convergence between oil and gas prices, as soaring demand for gas pushes prices higher, and falling demand for crude pulls prices back.

Today - the natural gas report! Make sure you call me to see how to play this historic time in the market! Just call me - Phil Flynn - at 888.264.5665 or email me at pflynn@pricegroup.com to open your account and get a free trial to my Daily Trade Levels.

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Thanks,
Phil Flynn