What Oil Bulls Are Missing: “The Oil Is Just Being Moved Elsewhere”

Dispensing his usual dose of optimistic crude oil buzzkill, Bloomberg energy strategist Julian Lee points out something troubling to both OPEC, and those who are hoping that the latest dip in oil will finally lead to a sharp rally. He writes that while at first glance, this year’s diminishing U.S. oil stockpiles appear to support the notion OPEC is finally getting the global crude glut under control. Surging exports mean that the market should treat that idea with caution.

The problem is that, as has been the case over the past year, stockpiles aren’t coming down because the oil is being used, it’s just being moved overseas. And nowhere is this more visible than in the recordamount of oil exported overseas.

First, the good news.

In the last week of June, the EIA reported the biggest drop in combined crude and refined-product stocks (including SPR stocks) in four years. In the four months through June – when OPEC crude delivery cuts to the U.S. was expected to show up in lower import numbers – the oil stockpile tumbled by almost 21 million barrels (indicatively, at that rate, it would take two-and-a-half years to get total inventories back to their five-year average level). Regardless, on the surface the drop is even more impressive when one considers that this is the first year since at least 2000 that total U.S. oil inventories have fallen between the end of February and June 30. The average increase in stockpiles over that period has been 53.9 million barrels.

But here a question emerges: what has happened to all that oil?

U.S. demand did hit a record in the last week of June, but more than half of the week-on-week increase came from the volatile “other oil products” category, not core fuels like gasoline, diesel or jet fuel. In fact, Lee writes that gasoline demand has lagged last year’s level all year and still shows little sign of exceeding it. Over the weekend, we presented BofA’s amazement at the failure of gasoline demand to rise during the peak of driving season, prompting the bank’s energy analyst to ask “Where Is Driving Season?”, more specifically, “is this year’s driving season over before it began?”