- WTI is up 43c to $55.73/Bbl, and Brent is up 66c to $62.59/Bbl
- Oil higher this morning after a US warship destroyed an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz
- President Trump announced on Thursday that the USS Boxer took defensive action after the drone closed to within 1,000 yards of the warship
- Iran denies it lost a drone in the strait and says the US must have downed one of its own drones
- Tensions between the US and Iran have wavered back and forth over the last month or so, but have generally escalated, buoying oil prices
- IEA director Fatih Birol said on Friday that his agency doesn’t expect oil prices to rise significantly because of lackluster demand and a glut in global crude markets (Reuters)
- In an interview with Reuters on Thursday, Birol said the IEA is revising its 2019 global oil demand growth forecast down to 1.1 MMBbl/d and may cut further if economies like China show further weakness
- AEGIS notes – for added color on PMI and economic indicators please see our July 12 Market Summary
- Natural gas is down 0.3c to $2.284/MMBtu
- Venture Global LNG received $10 billion in construction financing commitments to move forward with the construction of the Calcasieu Pass and TransCameron pipeline in southern Louisiana
- The project has an anticipated start date sometime in 2022
- The Calcasieu facility should be able to export roughly 1.7 Bcf/d
- The TransCameron Pipeline will have a capacity of 2 Bcf/d
- Gulf of Mexico production is recovering near to pre-storm levels as it reaches 1.74 Bcf/d
- Only 519 MMcf/d, or 19% of Gulf gas production, remains shut in
- Concerns were largely overblown regarding Barry’s impact on the energy supply chain around the Gulf as demand was largely untouched
- Even the shut-ins for production were relatively unnoticed due to strong production numbers from the rest of the country
- Yesterday, natural gas storage grew by 62 Bcf compared to the 65 Bcf estimates analysts were expecting
- This was one of the first bullish reports during the injection season and comes on the heels of a massive heat wave gripping the Midwest and northeastern regions
- Total inventories have reached 2.533 Tcf and are now at a surplus of 291 Bcf compared to last year, while being at a deficit of 143 BCf to the five-year average
