It was another new eight-year high for the master resource this week.
Oil did sell off on Tuesday, but made it all up and then some with Friday’s big rally. On the week, crude rose +1.52 [+1.67%] to 92.33. Oil remains in a strong uptrend. Every dip has been bought for the past three months.
As Chris pointed out in his much more detailed analysis behind-the-paywall, oil in storage is steadily declining; eyeing Chris’s chart, storage is maybe 410 mb, while demand is roughly 22 mb/day. That’s 18 days of supply. That said, the “high” for storage is roughly 27 days of supply. The US doesn’t have a lot of oil in storage.
There is also oil in the SPR; Grandpa’s Handlers have decided to sell it off, unfortunately. The SPR is down 50 million barrels from when Grandpa took power in 2021, and is now at 587 mb, or 26 days of demand. The Handlers are either absurdly stupid, or they’re working for “someone else” – perhaps someone who would prefer that the Plebes stop using fossil fuels tout de suite.
The US field production of crude continues to recover; it seems as though the shale tank isn’t quite empty yet. We are still 1.5 mbpd below the pre-pandemic production peak.
We care about oil because it is used in literally everything; nothing moves, or gets dug out of the ground, or harvested, and then delivered to stores, without oil being involved. No oil, no civilization.
The Russia-War-Risk indicator – Palladium – also gave off an interesting (slash worrisome) signal on Friday. Palladium was on track to close down for the week, right up until about 13:30 on Friday afternoon. In less than 10 minutes, palladium shot up $160. What was the cause? Which breathless, war-salivating announcement from the Biden-Handler White House caused the jump? No idea. I don’t have a timestamped news feed. But whatever the statement was, it was meaningful enough to move prices. Palladium remains in a daily downtrend – but a weekly/monthly uptrend. The low OI levels suggest that Wall Street is not eager to go short at this time.
My read: “increased concern, but the outcome is still uncertain.” Palladium remains below its recent highs.
by grover 
