From ANZ's latest, "What we are watching" ...
Oil inventories.
- Hurricane Harvey and the subsequent flooding in Texas has the potential to hurt the rebalancing of the global oil market.
- At one point, nearly 25% of US refinery capacity was offline, representing 4.4mb/d. This could result in a large build-up of crude oil inventories.
- However complicating things is the disruption to both onshore and offshore oil production. We estimate 175kb/d has been lost in August, with about 100kb/d expected in September.
- A diesel shortage could also hamper drilling activity in the region.
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EIA data released Thursday in the US (delayed by a day this week due to the holiday Monday) showed a headline build of Weekly US oil inventories +4580K vs +4000K expected
ANZ mentioned in their report prior to the EIA release that that "anything below 2.5 million barrels should be viewed positively". So, not.
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ANZ's oil price forecasts for end of year:
- WTI NYMEX $53 and Dated Brent $55
