Armada Intelligence » Energy http://www.armada-intel.com Corporate Intelligence, Information Gathering, Information Analysis, Global Intelligence, Global Business Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:16:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Is the Bottom Falling out of Brent? $ http://www.armada-intel.com/is-the-bottom-falling-out-of-brent.html http://www.armada-intel.com/is-the-bottom-falling-out-of-brent.html#comments Fri, 24 May 2013 20:26:25 +0000 karen http://www.armada-intel.com/?p=19597 Brent North Sea Crude is one of the primary crude oil inputs into the refining process on the East and West Coasts. The price of Brent continues to plummet, now running close to $101 per barrel. Once it falls below the psychological level of about $100 a barrel, we could see it come down a lot more aggressively. Economic news out of Japan and China last night helped to pull even more speculation off of the price of Brent.

 

We wanted to throw in a thought in this section – but it really hinges a lot closer to a geopolitical point. As Brent falls down to

]]> http://www.armada-intel.com/is-the-bottom-falling-out-of-brent.html/feed 0 Gasoline Prices on the Rise $ http://www.armada-intel.com/gasoline-prices-on-the-rise.html http://www.armada-intel.com/gasoline-prices-on-the-rise.html#comments Fri, 17 May 2013 13:49:20 +0000 karen http://www.armada-intel.com/?p=19460 Despite a general drop in crude oil prices, the price at the pump for gasoline is rising. The Energy Information Administration released its weekly fuel price report showing that across the country, prices are now higher than they were a week ago. Most prices are up about .07 cents on a national average and are now hitting $3.50 for regular, $3.60 for premium. The AAA in their Daily Fuel Gauge report showed that it had risen even higher, with the average

]]> http://www.armada-intel.com/gasoline-prices-on-the-rise.html/feed 0 Brent Settling Downward $ http://www.armada-intel.com/brent-settling-downward.html http://www.armada-intel.com/brent-settling-downward.html#comments Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:16:24 +0000 karen http://www.armada-intel.com/?p=18824 Brent North Sea Crude continues to fall, nearing the $100 per barrel mark. BrentThat seems like a significant drop, and it is. But we wanted to put it into perspective for you. The chart at right from CNBC shows the price of the Brent contract (per barrel) since April of 2010. What we see is that the current price of Brent is still elevated generally against a five year view, but hitting a critical point at which we could “break through” the $100 mark and see rates much lower if current trends continue.

 

The period of May and June in 2012 signaled a relaxing of tensions in Iran at the time and we got a drop to near $90 a barrel. That would happen again if the geopolitical risk premium were to be pulled off of Brent. We hint of the prospects of this happening in the Iranian earthquake story below. We are still quite a ways from the low $90 levels for Brent hit last year – but it is trading

]]> http://www.armada-intel.com/brent-settling-downward.html/feed 0 US Import Prices Fall $ http://www.armada-intel.com/us-import-prices-fall.html http://www.armada-intel.com/us-import-prices-fall.html#comments Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:57:23 +0000 karen http://www.armada-intel.com/?p=18702 Dropping crude energy prices helped to pull import prices down by .5% in March. Fuel import prices fell 1.9% and excluding these prices from the broader measure, import prices were down 1.2% – well within estimates and expectation ranges. The Labor Department reports import/export prices believe it or not, and this drop was the largest year-over-year decline since July of last year. This still is not

]]> http://www.armada-intel.com/us-import-prices-fall.html/feed 0 Bottom Falls Out of Brent $ http://www.armada-intel.com/bottom-falls-out-of-brent.html http://www.armada-intel.com/bottom-falls-out-of-brent.html#comments Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:26:16 +0000 karen http://www.armada-intel.com/?p=18753 Brent North Sea Crude is just behaving so oddly of late. Last week we saw a number of indicators that would suggest that it could be headed back up. But this week, despite the geopolitical tensions around the world, we are seeing investors

]]> http://www.armada-intel.com/bottom-falls-out-of-brent.html/feed 0 Crude Oil Dropping and the Fed Impact on Commodities $ http://www.armada-intel.com/crude-oil-dropping-and-the-fed-impact-on-commodities.html http://www.armada-intel.com/crude-oil-dropping-and-the-fed-impact-on-commodities.html#comments Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:31:22 +0000 karen http://www.armada-intel.com/?p=18561 The threat of global economic weakness has pushed crude oil prices down. West Texas Intermediate as fallen to 92.48 a barrel, not quite the drop that we have seen in Brent North Sea Crude, which was trading at $105.69 earlier today. This is the narrowest gap in the WTI/Brent trade in well over a couple of years. A couple of things are at work.

 

When the Bank of Japan devalued its currency last night, many analysts speculated that there would be a follow-on currency war of sorts that would break out. Knowing that the US Fed has already

]]> http://www.armada-intel.com/crude-oil-dropping-and-the-fed-impact-on-commodities.html/feed 0 Just a quick note on Fuel Prices http://www.armada-intel.com/just-a-quick-note-on-fuel-prices.html http://www.armada-intel.com/just-a-quick-note-on-fuel-prices.html#comments Fri, 15 Mar 2013 16:44:15 +0000 karen http://www.armada-intel.com/?p=18147 We have been reporting of late about the high price of gas and diesel prices. It was important to give you an update because fuel prices have been falling over the past week. We now see prices hitting levels that are actually under last-year’s at this time.fuelprices031513 A series of conditions has helped to bring prices down – the most important of which has been the completion of conversions over to summer blends of fuels at US refineries. The chart at right shows the price of retail fuels around the country from the AAA. Gasoline is now about .11 cents off of last year’s pace and down about .02 cents from a week ago. Diesel is also down about .04 cents per gallon from last year and off approximately .02 cents from a week ago.

]]> http://www.armada-intel.com/just-a-quick-note-on-fuel-prices.html/feed 0 Battle of the Oil Forecasts $ http://www.armada-intel.com/battle-of-the-oil-forecasts.html http://www.armada-intel.com/battle-of-the-oil-forecasts.html#comments Sun, 10 Mar 2013 02:16:41 +0000 karen http://www.armada-intel.com/?p=17966 There are always a few outliers when it comes to forecasting the per barrel price of oil but for the most part there is usually some consensus on the range. This has been especially true of late as the price per barrel of oil has not fluctuated all that much from month to month – it has stayed in a pretty compact range between $90 and $110. Granted, that leaves a lot of room to bounce around in. Remember back 30 years ago when the range of change was perhaps five or six dollars? Those days are gone when one considers a $30 variance to be compact. The point is that oil prices have been stable enough to provoke some predictable estimates regarding where these prices will be in three to five years. The International Energy Agency, the US government, OPEC economists, the IMF and many of the oil forecasting outfits all assert that oil will stay in this range for quite a while.

 

There are the usual outliers who assert that some cataclysm or another will drive the prices up drastically but none have really made a persuasive case for a real hike – except for the economists at the OECD who have put themselves out front with an estimate that oil prices could be as high as $190 a barrel by 2020.

]]> http://www.armada-intel.com/battle-of-the-oil-forecasts.html/feed 0 Silver Lining of Huge Snowstorm $ http://www.armada-intel.com/silver-lining-of-huge-snowstorm.html http://www.armada-intel.com/silver-lining-of-huge-snowstorm.html#comments Fri, 22 Feb 2013 17:07:24 +0000 karen http://www.armada-intel.com/?p=17717 The snowstorm currently battering the central U.S. has caused some travel nightmare and has obviously caused a large amount of lost productivity with so many people unable to make it to work today. However, one potential benefit is that it could provide some drought relief to the area. The snow to rain ratio is about 12 to 1, meaning that places receiving a foot of snow will get the benefit of about one inch of rain—so this is far from enough snow to end the drought, but it is enough to provide a little bit of relief. It’s possible it will also

]]> http://www.armada-intel.com/silver-lining-of-huge-snowstorm.html/feed 0 The Impact of Winter Storms on Crude and Gasoline $ http://www.armada-intel.com/the-impact-of-winter-storms-on-crude-and-gasoline.html http://www.armada-intel.com/the-impact-of-winter-storms-on-crude-and-gasoline.html#comments Fri, 22 Feb 2013 16:58:41 +0000 karen http://www.armada-intel.com/?p=17714 We have a significant contrast in impacts on two different forms of energy. First, winter storms have affected production around the country in distillates and refined fuels. Refinery outages and delays in production have forced some facilities to lose as much as a full week of production. There is a lot of impact from these conditions.

 

First, crude oil prices fell significantly in trading today – for several reasons. An inventory report

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