Miscellaneous
Watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WarRoomMediaListen to Inside the War Room: https://shor.by/insidethewarroomOil prices drop amid faltering demand outlook in Chinahttps://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/16/oil-markets-demand-outlook-in-china-covid.html- Is it Delta variant? Is is lockdowns? Is it crackdowns on independent refiners?- Are there larger economic forces at play in Chinese demand?- Can China put pressure on OPEC to provide what they want?OPEC+ sees no need to speed up oil cuts easing despite U.S. callshttps://www.reuters.com/business/energy/opec-sees-no-need-speed-up-oil-cuts-easing-despite-us-calls-sources-2021-08-16/- Doesn't cost Biden any political capital to call for lower oil prices- No surprise that OPEC said no- OPEC is already increasing productionChina Has Thousands of Hydropower Projects It Doesn't Wanthttps://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/china-has-thousands-of-hydropower-projects-it-doesnt-want- government planning is not as great as people make it out to be- going to have to fix these dams- China can pull off a lot of amazing projects but also does a lot of really idiotic stuffModi says India will soon unveil $1.35 trln infrastructure planhttps://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-modi-says-135-trillion-infrastructure-plan-be-unveiled-soon-2021-08-15/- infrastructure spending plan will increase oil demand- have to generate economic growth after killing medium and small businessesRosneft to chase production growthhttps://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2244244-rosneft-to-chase-production-growth- future is still oil for Russia- Rosneft is expanding its oil production capacityDr. Dean Foreman on the Monthly Statistical Report- Demand is back, and so is the economy! Summer travel and pent up demand for travel- Comparing summer demand to November 2019 demand is still a little off, but If compare July 2021 to July 2019 only off a little bit.- Gasoline demand is strong into August- Lowest crude oil inventories since December 2019. Drawn down 16% year on year. A little under 7% of lowest point of last 5 years.- Refinery utilization is very strong (91%). ONly 2019 did we average higher. Exports are down. Still a net exporter for refined products, though more crude oil imports.- Distillate economic indicator - overheating economy and facing inflationary pressures. This is correlated with Univ Michigan consumer sentiment survey,- Petrochemicals have been the strongest area of sustained growth for US oil. Continuing need for plastics. Record demand in July. 5.6 million bpd consumed.- Creeping up of oil directed rigs this year. Have generally been range bound in production in US and only just broke out of that range for June and July - 11.3 million bpd. Good sign for where crude oil production might go, but will take awhile. Natural gas is another story. 6 month future prices are $4/million btu and would indicate more natural gas drilling activity. Why aren't we seeing this? Capital constraints and people constraints. - If you are in Appalachia and want to drill you are finding yourself constrained by a variety of factors including no way to export it and pipeline constraints bringing it to domestic markets.- There is a real cost to being a net importer again.