OIL PRODUCTS: Oil Products End of Day Summary: Diesel Cracks Rise
Oct-24 18:29
Diesel cracks are extending firm gains seen yesterday following US sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil. A Reuters report that a CDU at the Ryazan refinery was shut following drone strikes, as well as reports of a temporary power outage at BP’s Whiting refinery added support.
- US gasoline crack up 0.2$/bbl at 17.06$/bbl
- US ULSD crack up 1.1$/bbl at 38.43$/bbl
- The BP Whiting refinery experienced a power surge overnight, causing a unit to go offline. The refinery was evacuated, with the restart process to begin again soon, according to GasBuddy. Reuters reported that Whiting had restored power.
- The Ryazan refinery halted a primary crude distillation unit following a Ukrainian drone attack, two industry sources told Reuters.
- Bulgaria is working on ways to secure uninterrupted oil supply following US sanctions on Rosneft/Lukoil this week, Energy Minister Zhecho Stankov said on Friday. It regards a Lukoil subsidiary running the Burgas refinery rather than regarding Russian oil supply which was halted.
- US sanctions have prevented NIS from receiving a crude cargo that could have bought time for Serbia's refinery, which will be forced to stop processing without new supplies, Reuters said.
- Marathon’s 631kb/d Galveston Bay refinery is restarting the FCCU and Ultracracker unit (HCU), Reuters sources said.
- CDU capacity utilisation rates at China’s state-owned refineries fell by 0.34 %pts in the week to Oct. 24 to average at 80.89%, OilChem said.
- Rosneft’s German unit, which was seized by the country’s government in 2022, may be cut off from key customers since it wasn’t excluded from the latest US sanctions on Russia, Bloomberg reports.
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CANADA: Briefing Thurs On Money-Losing Canada Post May Bring Reform
Sep-24 18:22
- Minister in charge of Canada Post delivering an announcement about its future tomorrow at 1245pm EST.
- Joel Lightbound "will provide details on new measures to address the challenges facing Canada Post and advance its transformation" according to a government news release.
- Postal agency required a CAD1 billion infusion earlier this year after announcing it was running out of cash after years of losses and had a bond payment coming. It has since reported another major loss amid labor disruptions.
- Management has said the losses relate to the decline of letter mail but also federal legislation requiring 5-day-a-week delivery to every address in Canada. Past governments have discussed major service cuts including to rural Canada but backed off because those moves had been seen as widely unpopular.
US: Trump Approval Weak On Issues Most Important To Voters
Sep-24 18:10
New survey data from Strength In Numbers/Verasight, analysed by G. Elliot Morris, shows that President Donald Trump's approval rating “is most negative on the issues Americans rate as the most important: prices/inflation (-31), health care (-24), and government funding/social programs (-19).”
- Morris writes, “Of particular note is that this -31 reading for inflation represents an all-time low for Trump, as does his approval on health care… These results underscore Trump’s enduring weakness on pocketbook — the policy domains that have decided the last several U.S. elections. Trump’s disadvantage on the issue goes a long way to explaining Democrats’ current lead on the generic ballot.”
- On the US House generic ballot, Morris notes, “Democrats lead 47% to 42% among U.S. adults (11% undecided). Among people who say they are definitely or very likely to vote, the margin is 50% to 45%.”
Figure 1: Approval of President Donald Trump on the Following Issues
Source: G. Elliot Morris, Strength In Numbers, Verasight
US LABOR MARKET: New Chicago Fed Indicators Show Steady Unemployment In Sept
Sep-24 18:02
The Chicago Fed this week officially launched its real-time unemployment rate forecast.
- The "Advance" Chicago Fed Labor Market Indicators report (it is released twice a month ahead of the nonfarm payrolls report) currently shows a 4.32% unemployment rate for September, which would be unchanged from August (albeit a small decline on an unrounded basis, from 4.324%). The final release will be published on Thursday Oct 3 - the day before the September nonfarm payrolls report.
- The unemployment rate forecast includes a combination of job-finding and job separations rates, based on real-time data. That data includes: initial and continuing jobless claims, Google Trends unemployment topic index, Bloomberg consensus for unemployment, Morning Consult's indices, JOLTS, the Conference Board's labor market differential, and Indeed / ADP / Lightcast-based job openings rates.
- Per the Chicago Fed, the model then relates changes in the flow-consistent unemployment rate (the ratio of the job separations rate to the sum of the job finding and job separations rates) to changes in the BLS's unemployment rate to produce a BLS unemployment rate forecast.
- Based on the real-time data above, the Chicago Fed sees layoffs and other separations steady at 2.09% and the hiring rate for unemployed workers ticking up to 45.61% from 45.49%. The latter implies a very small dip in the overall unemployment rate in September.
- It reports probabilities of possible values to be published in the upcoming Employment report: it shows a roughly one-in-three chance that the unemployment rate will fall from 4.3%, with 28% prob of no change and ~40% of an increase of 0.1pp or more.
