WTI Holds Gains Amid Surprise Crude Build, Large Gasoline Draw

Amid Hurricane Laura and Tropical Storm Beta shut-ins, and concerns over 2nd or 3rd (or whetever) waves of COVID cases, there is plenty of noise but WTI prices managed a small rebound todays after yesterday’s bloodbath in black gold.

Energy traders struggled “to assess the uncertainty with U.S. production as we approach the last two months of hurricane season [and] how bad the demand outlook will get following the winter wave of the coronavirus,” as Libyan oil production slowly bounces back, said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda.

Algos will be eyeing the inventory data but there is a lot of nuance due to the storms…

API

• Crude +691k (-4.0mm exp)

• Cushing +298k

• Gasoline -7.735mm (-1.9mm exp) – biggest draw since Sept 2017

• Distillates -2.104mm (+1.2mm exp)

Some serious errors from expectations in the API data with a surprise (but small) crude build, a huge gasoline draw and a surprise distillate draw…

Source: Bloomberg

While the bounce Tuesday was welcome for oil bulls, analysts said uncertainty around the outlook for both demand and supply was likely to keep a lid on the market in the near term.

The measures “put in place to curb the pandemic have a direct and comparatively marked impact on oil demand,” said Barbara Lambrecht, analyst at Commerzbank, in a note.

WTI hovered around $39.80 ahead of the API data and was largely unchanged after the print…