1. Thread: the decision of Saudi Arabia to start a price was is probably the worst decision they made because they really did not understand the implications of their actions.
2. First they failed to realise that Trump and The Us had a floor to the price they were willing to accept oil. I believe Saudi thought a price war would please Trump as it brought down the price of gasoline. Huge mistake as can be seen by their back tracking.
3. It showed that Saudi maybe the biggest producer and with the most spare capacity but the swing producer is the USA not because of shale but because they can make Saudi increase and cut their production.
4. All the Saudi actions since of forcing compliance is the reaction to the bully being bullied. I am surprised countries like Nigeria have gone along with the cuts knowing the Saudis could not punish them.
5. To put this in perspective. Saudi started the Price war as way to increase market share particularly from the US. But it has backfired spectacularly. US exports have likely remained above 3mbpd around the same as before COVID-19. Saudi production has fallen more than 2mbpd
6. It means that outside the US, Saudi market share has fallen compared to the US which was really not what they were after doing when they started the price war.
7. Their actions have left the market completely unbalanced and it is hurting their customers refinery margins.They have left the market unbalanced between too much light sweet crude and too little medium/heavy sour crude.
8. This can be seen with extremely low refinery utilization while at the same time record differentials for Crudes like Urals.
9. Saudi talked this week about being the last and biggest producer. It shows they do not understand Geopolitics. They forget customers buy from producers they trust. After the last 3 months, Saudi have lost a lot of trust. Their assumptions like the price war maybe very wrong
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
1. Quick 🧵why you cannot run the same amount of light crude in a refinery that is designed to run medium or heavy crude. Why US need sCanadian and cant run US crud eoil.
The problem is the overhead system cannot take the volume of light ends that are produced.
2. It all starts in the pipework that takes the light ends from the distillation coilumn to the downstream secondary units.
The most important factor that this overhead pipework is designed to do is to minimise the pressure drop between the CDU and downstream
3. Now if you introdcue more lightends by running light sweet crude instead of heavy sour. There are more light ends than normal. To get the extra out of the column you need one of two things to happen
1. Why Trumps “drill Baby Drill” is actually not great for US crude oil producers.
I keep posting this graph and there is a reason why I do. It shows that demand for U.S. crude oil particularly light sweet crude oil is not growing. Actually in 2024 it is actually falling.
2. The reason it is all about crude oil quality and the ability of refineries to run it without compromising its throughput. It is all to do with the first important piece of equipment the crude distillation column.
3. When a refinery is designed it maximum throughput is designed using a base quality of crude oil. Much of the Med refineries are designed to run urals or Arab light crude oil or the blends that mimic them.
- Trumps “ Drill baby Drill” likely has little effect. U.S. production likely unaffected by either candidate too much. Any costs Trump saves producers will go to bottom line rather than huge increases in production
2.
- Any increase in US production would mean it has to be exported. But the market is already long light sweet crude especially in the Atlantic basin. So demand may just not be there either.
3. - Harris will look for a new JCPOA with Iran. Trump will likely increase sanctions but ask OPEC to cover.
- Harris likely to increase secondary sanctions regarding Russia. Trump likely removes them. Hates China benefitting. Would leave Atlantic Basin even longer.
If you are an equity cargo holder within Brent Complex, yoou will have one or more of the following cargoes Brent (physical), Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk, Troll or WTI MEH cargo. Known as BFOET
2. You have two options up until 32 days (taking 31 days in a month as fixed) before the first day of loading of the cargo
- You can keep it i.e. Put it in your refinery or sell it as a Dated Related Cargo later
- Or you can put it in the Chains systems.
3. What is the Chains? Well it is the basically the selling of a cargo via Forward contract at fixed price via 3 basic methods
- Brent Contract (700kb cargo)
- 7 partials contracts (100kb each) bought from or sold to same counterparty
- EFP (Exchange Futures for Physical)
1. Why an attack against Iran refineries would make more sense than against Export facilities. Putting together a number of my posts
Iran produces 3.9mbpd of crude and condenstae and refines 2.6mbpd according to the Energy Institue Statistiacal Review of World Energy (ex-BP)
2. So Iran exports 1.3mbpd of crude oil and condensate and its biggest weakness is that it has only one real buyer and that is China. Even India does not touch it.
So if Israel attacked Kharg island it would remove 1.3mbpd from the market China buys from
3. However, China has been importing 1.11mbpd that has gone directly to inventories in 2024. That is just excess buying. Losing Chinese crude oil and condensate would just mean China's inventories would be flat
1. Why global diesel demand worries me. Sorry it si a bit of a long thread
Diesel has always been the balancing barrel in a reifnery's product slate. The cut is made around diesel/gasoil to make sure the refinery maximises margin.
2. If gasoline is oversupplied, part of cut moves to kerosene pool and part of kerosene moves to diesel pool. Overall diesel pool grows. And vice versa. If Gasoline strong demand part of kerosene moves to gasoline and part of diesel moves to kerosene. diesel pool gets smaller
3. Products have strict specifications but movement of the cut point is entirley possible for balancing purposes.
Diesel became even more important with the IMO shipping reductions in sulphur levels in fuel. Diesel bottm cut was able to be added into the ULSFO and VLSFO pools