Oil Tanks To $51 Handle – One-Month Lows

It seems ever-exuberant energy traders are finally waking up to the reality that the global rebalance is not happening. A record glut of crude and surging production has sent WTI back to a $51 handle this morning (one-month lows) and has weighed on gasoline prices…

WTI has broken below its 100-day moving average as the machines ran overnight stops and then plunged after the DOE data…

“Inventory drawdown slower than I thought after cuts,” Saudi Arabia’s Khalid Al-Falih admits.

Bloomberg’s Vince Piazza warns U.S. inventories across the product value chain remain elevated, with crude oil 39% above the five- year average and distillates, jet fuel and gasoline between 5.5% and 22% higher. This, along with the 51% rebound in rig count since last year, and the robust level of more than 5,300 DUCs (drilled yet uncompleted wells) implies the near-term return of U.S. hydrocarbon volume with an environment of lower range-bound prices.