The market has had a bearish tone lately. The real surprise is Gas. Memorial Day weekend is the typical beginning of the summer driving season and higher gas demand for the United States. There have been a few slight up days in the last 2 weeks but mostly gas has been trending down. Distillate and Crude are also making headlines. Heating oil prices fell to levels not seen since July of 2023 and crude oil gave up almost $3.00 on Monday and is down to lows we experienced in early February.
OPEC+ met on June 2nd and the announcement came that they would begin to curtail the voluntary production cuts by member nations later this year. This news coupled with the addition of production growth from the U.S. (see 1st chart below), are causing markets to react to a possibility of oversupplied conditions. The concerns of oversupply and high interest rates affecting global demand, especially for major economies like the U.S., China, and Europe, have traders worried.
At the time of this writing Crude is up $.17 cents, Distillate and Gas are even. The DOE report is the 2nd chart below. Take special note of the Demand column, for a holiday weekend historically it should be up. This could be a signal that the current summer driving season might be different, and maybe consumers are taking a wait and see approach to economic conditions.
PROPANE
Propane has opened the month of June heading down. There had been some buying interest in the Gulf Coast market but that has slowed. Propane it seems is taking a hint from Crude and following the movement to the downside currently.
The average expectation for this morning’s EIA report was a build of 2.56 million barrels in U.S. propane inventory for the week ending May 31. Over the last five years LP inventory has average a 2.22 million barrel build during week 22 of the year.
The actual came in at 2.542 million barrels, which was right in line with industry expectations. The updated inventory graph is below. The U.S. is well above the 5 Year Avg. If we continue to get builds this would put us in good shape going into the Heating/Drying season. We do still need to keep in mind exports as that can always change the dynamic for upcoming pricing.
We are offering LP contracts for Fall/Winter. If you would like to get a quote, please reach out to your Energy Account Manager.
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