The energy markets continue to be highly volatile. In today’s Energy Market update we will discuss the news that is driving these markets.
The Red Sea. There have been multiple attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea by the Houthi militia group. They have vowed to continue attacks until aid reaches Palestinians in Gaza. Shipping rates have soared on vessels carrying fuel from the Middle East to Asia. These rates have almost tripled since the US and UK launched air strikes on the Houthi’s. Chinese officials have asked their Iranian counterparts to help rein in the attacks, or risk harming business relations with Beijing.
U.S. economy. The US economy is doing well. The US Bureau of Economic Analysis has estimated a 3.3% annualized growth rate in the last quarter. This was in comparison to the consensus forecast of 2% growth. However, there is stubborn inflationary pressure from our European allies and it is dashing hopes of interest rate cuts. The European Central Bank has emphasized that it would keep rates high for a “sufficiently long duration” to bring inflation into target.
OPEC+. OPEC+ has a meeting scheduled for February 1st. Many delegates have stated they will not be planning to make any changes to the oil output policy. This is due to Saudi Arabia and its allies having just started their cutbacks this month. They will need more time to assess the impact of their production changes. They do not have full data yet from the month of January, so they are planning on reviewing last year’s production levels.
This week’s Department of Energy report from 1-24-25 is below.
Propane
There has been quite a bit of news on the propane front this last month. We had a deep freeze that swept across the US causing our biggest draws on propane in the current heating season. Production also fell due to this deep freeze as it shut down production and refining plants. Exports remained very high especially considering the tensions in the world and all the conflicts happening around ships currently.
The Department of Energy report came out on Wednesday 1-24-25 and showed a draw of 8.399 million barrels. You can see the attached chart below for the full report. Looks like now it is warming up across the US, so we will look to next Wednesday’s DOE report to give us more direction on the propane market.
We are still contracting for this heating season, and have contract numbers for next drying and heating season. Please reach out to your Energy Account Manager with any questions or needs you may have.
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