Demand

Oil Price Boom Expected Following Pandemic Crash

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By Josh Siegel – Re-Blogged From the Washington Examiner

If history is a guide, an oil price boom is coming after the pandemic-generated crash.

While the near-term demand picture is highly uncertain, as people reconsider their travel and work habits, this latest bust, the worst of them all, is unlikely to hasten the demise of oil.

“The only way to get away from the boom-bust cycle is to get off of oil,” said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group and the author of a book on the topic called Crude Volatility. “That’s really tough because there are no scalable substitutes. As a result, we expect a thirstier world will collide into insufficient supply, and crude prices will have to rise sharply to balance the market.”

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Low Electricity Demand and System Balancing Problems during The UK’s Coronavirus Lockdown

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By Dr John Constable – Re-Blogged From GWPF

The restrictions on economic and personal activity imposed to address the spread of the coronavirus are reducing electricity demand in the UK to unusually low levels, increasing the difficulties of operating the system, particularly in the presence of embedded solar and wind generation.

As a result of the restrictions on economic activity and personal movement, designed to reduce the rate of transmission of Covid-19, there are striking anomalies in the British electricity markets. The following chart, drawn by the author from BM Reports data, shows daily electrical energy (GWh) transmitted over the network, and gives evidence of a substantial fall in electricity consumption. Domestic consumption may be rising as a result of the Stay at Home policy, but it is nowhere near offsetting the fall in industrial and commercial consumption.

Figure 1: Daily electrical energy (GWh) transmitted over the British electricity network, from 1st of January to 23rd April 2020 (red line), compared to the historical norm (grey line). Source: Chart by the author, data from BM Reports.

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Oil Price Collapse –> Next Peak Oil Frenzy?

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By David Middleton – Re-Blogged From WUWT

The ChiCom-19 hostage crisis certainly makes strange bedfellows. Over the past few weeks I have been agreeing with Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price on the need to end the hostage crisis now. In the 35 years, Mr. Price has served as a county commissioner, I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with him before. Matt Egan, lead writer for CNN Business, actually wrote an article about the oil industry that made sense. His work is usually so awful, that it doesn’t even have ridicule value… But, like a “blind squirrel occasionally getting the nut”…

How negative oil prices could set the stage for the next price boom

By Matt Egan, CNN Business

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Economist Foresees “Quick Decline” in US Oil Production

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By David Middleton – Re-Blogged From WUWT

U.S. Oil Production Is Headed For A Quick Decline

By Philip Verleger – Mar 11, 2019

The most recent forecasts published by the US Energy Information Administration show US oil production increasing steadily. The February Short-Term Energy Outlook sees the output from US wells rising from 11.9 million barrels per day at the end of 2018 to 13.5 million barrels per day by the end of 2020. Most other forecasters agree.

Thus, it may come as a surprise to learn that production at the end of 2020 may have actually decreased from December’s 11.9 million barrels per day level to between 11.3 and 11.5 million barrels per day. This lower figure represents the production level that should be expected given the financial activity of the independent firms behind the shale output surge.
The coming decline will occur mostly in the areas that have produced the most growth over the last five years: the Bakken, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, Julesburg, and Permian basins. The production drop will occur because the firms operating there have been forced by monetary constraints to cut back on drilling. The recent reduction in debt and equity issuance by these firms assure the output decline.

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The Relevance Of Hayek’s Triangle Today

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By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From Gold Money

Most of us are aware of the inflationary pressures in the major economies, which so far are proving somewhat latent in the non-financial sector. But some central banks are on the alert as well, notably the Federal Reserve Board, which has taken the lead in trying to normalise interest rates. Others, such as the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England are yet to be convinced that price inflation is a potential problem.

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Caterpillar’s Dilemma

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By Thomson Reuters – Re-Blogged From Newsmax

Orders for the mining machines and construction bulldozers made at this sprawling Caterpillar Inc. factory in central Illinois have jumped, in general, three-fold over the past year.

But meeting that boom in demand at the world’s largest heavy equipment manufacturer is a challenge, in part because of Caterpillar (CAT) suppliers like Steve Kirsh.

Image: Caterpillar's Dilemma: Keeping Up With Surge in Demand During Boom

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Markets Unprepared For $80 Oil Shock

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By James Puplava – Re-Blogged From http://www.Silver-Phoenix500.com

The summer driving season is just around the corner and this year motorists are facing steeper prices for fuel, up from an average of $2.19 a gallon in 2016 to $2.87 today. By this summer, analysts are projecting gas prices to top $3 a gallon on average for the first time in 10 years.

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The Coming Silver Supply Crunch Is Worse Than You Know

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By Jeff Clark – Re-Blogged From http://www.Silver-Phoenix500.com

For data wonks like me, the annual Yearbooks from various gold and silver consultancies make for fun reading. You can always find little gems about what’s going on in the markets, and sometimes you can spot changes in trends early on. Seeing a compelling chart, especially one that’s not been widely reported, is almost as exciting as seeing my wife in a short skirt on date night.

Well, I’ve got a series of charts for you that point to a silver trend that is so entrenched in its development, so inevitable in its outcome, so inescapable in its consequences that it comes as close as one can get to a guarantee. And once fully underway, it will have major implications for the silver price, along with the availability of investment metal.

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The Only Commodity Supply-Demand Indicator That Matters

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By Steve Saville – Re-Blogged From http://www.Silver-Phoenix500.com

For an industrial commodity with a liquid futures market, the “term structure” of the futures market is the most useful — perhaps even the only useful — indicator of whether physical supply is tight, abundant or somewhere in between.

The term structure of a commodity futures market is the prices of futures contracts for the commodity over all available expiration months. It can be displayed as a chart, with price along the vertical axis and the expiration months along the horizontal axis. Here are examples for oil and copper.

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Oil Price Prospects

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cropped-bob-shapiro.jpg   By Bob Shapiro

Crude oil prices have fallen from $100+ two years ago to around $37 today, after going under $30 briefly last month. Not surprisingly, there are differing views on the direction of prices going forward.

Lets look at where we are now.

The Shale Boom has catapulted the US to the top world producer spot, surpassing Saudi Arabia. This has greatly reduced US imports of oil and is a major contributor to the price break we’ve seen. As an aside, the US Balance of Payments has been much reduced by US Shale Oil production, even though the Deficit once again is running at over $500 Billion a year.

But, there are other factors greatly affecting the supply-demand balance for oil.

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