Latest News

Hedge fund optimism about diesel lessens away: Kemp

Portfolio financiers took a. breather last week after the earlier rush to repurchase short. positions raised oil and gas costs substantially since the. start of the year.

Hedge funds and other money managers offered the equivalent of. 14 million barrels in the 6 major petroleum futures and. choices contracts over the seven days ending on March 12.

Fund managers had actually sold an overall of 32 million barrels in the. 2 latest weeks after acquiring 325 million over the. previous 11 weeks, according to exchange regulatory records.

The combined position was simply 501 million barrels on March. 12, which remained in just the 35th percentile for all weeks considering that. 2013, but that conceals some essential distinctions:

* Funds were still essentially bearish about crude, with a. position. of 379 million barrels (27th percentile) though far less bearish. When the position was 128 million barrels, than in mid-December. ( a record low).

* There was a lot more bullishness about U.S. gasoline, with. a. position 67 million barrels (73rd percentile) up from 59 million. ( 59th percentile) on Dec. 12.

* Previous bullishness about distillates has actually dropped, with the. combined position in U.S. diesel and European gas oil to 55. million barrels (46th percentile) from 87 million (72nd. percentile) five weeks earlier.

Prolonged output cuts by Saudi Arabia and its OPEC? allies. have kept petroleum inventories near the long-lasting average. and supported rates around the inflation-adjusted average considering that. the start of the century.

Efforts to drive costs higher have actually been annoyed by. ongoing output boosts from non-OPEC producers in the. western hemisphere (United States, Canada, Brazil and Guyana).

Distillate costs have actually been underpinned by inventories below. the long-term average as well as the disruption of trade through. the Red Sea and attacks on Russia's oil refineries.

However manufacturing and freight activity is taking longer to. recover in The United States and Canada, Europe and Asia than seemed likely a. couple of months ago, delaying the expected depletion of extract. stocks.

U.S. GAS

Fund positions in U.S. gas were generally the same. after 2 weeks of heavy purchasing driven mainly by repurchases of. previous bearish brief positions.

Hedge funds and other cash managers bought the. equivalent of just 33 billion cubic feet (bcf) in the 2 significant. futures and alternatives contracts linked to prices at Henry Hub in. Louisiana over the 7 days ending on March 12.

It came after they had purchased an overall of 1,079 bcf over the. 2 previous weeks, according to records submitted with the U.S. Product Futures Trading Commission.

Since the middle of February, future production cuts. revealed by a variety of major domestic producers have helped. lift prices from their least expensive level in genuine terms for over 30. years.

But the marketplace will exit the winter heating season with a. near-record quantity of gas in storage which will take time to. normalise.

Chartbook: Oil and gas positions

Working gas stocks amounted to 2,325 bcf on March 8,. the greatest for the time of year considering that 2016 and before that. 2012.

Stocks were 606 bcf (+35% or +1.35 standard deviations). above the previous 10-year seasonal average and the surplus had. swollen from 64 bcf (+2% or +0.24 basic variances) on Oct. 1.

Much warmer-than-normal temperatures across the major. population centres of the Lower 48 states have actually combined with. ongoing gas production growth to leave the market with. enormous excess inventories.

The drawdown in inventories this winter has actually been the. smallest since 2015/16 and before that 2011/2012 (permitting. the additional day in leap years).

Diminishing excess stocks will require a huge increase in. gas-fired generation this summer and/or a sharp deceleration in. production development.

Associated columns:

- Oil rates stall after funds complete brief covering. ( March 11, 2024)

- Oil rates increase as funds downsize bearish positions. ( March 4, 2024)

John Kemp is a market expert. The views expressed. are his own. Follow his commentary on X https://twitter.com/JKempEnergy.

(source: Reuters)