Oil mining industry research weekly oil notes: oil prices out of the fundamentals, Saudi man-made manipulation and shale oil raid!

From September 4, 2017 to April 26, 2018, the Cinda Refining & Chemical Index rose by 38.8%. During the same period, the oil processing industry index rose by -3.66%, and the CSI 300 Index rose by -2.34%. We use the oil processing industry report "Development Day with the State of the Sea, Petrochemical Supply Side Structural Reform" (September 4, 2017) as the base period, based on 100, to Rongsheng Petrochemical (002493.SZ) Tongkun Co., Ltd. (601233.SH), Hengli Co., Ltd. (600346.SH), Hengyi Petrochemical (000703.SZ) are constituent stocks, and their market value is adjusted and equal weights are averaged to prepare Cinda's refining and chemical index.
According to the latest weekly data of the EIA as of April 20, 2018, US crude oil production has reached 10.59 million barrels per day, and has increased production for 16 consecutive weeks since the beginning of 2018. At the same time, we observed that US commercial crude oil inventories continued to remain low. On January 19, 2018, US commercial crude oil inventories reached a minimum level of 418 million barrels in the past two years, down by 124 million barrels from the beginning of 2017. However, since January 19, 2018, US crude oil production has increased by 700,000 barrels per day from 1.89 million barrels per day to 10.59 million barrels per day, while crude oil inventories have only slightly increased to 430 million barrels, still at a low level.
We have pointed out in several weekly oil notes that the decline in US crude oil inventories since the beginning of 2017 is mainly due to changes in the structure of US crude oil imports and exports (the United States reduces crude oil imports and increases crude oil exports), and OPEC exports to the United States. The reduction has greatly boosted the reduction in US stocks. As of the first quarter of 2018, OPEC's crude oil exports to the United States were only 2.6 million barrels per day, down nearly 1 million barrels per day, the lowest since the third quarter of 2015. Among OPEC's oil-producing countries, Saudi Arabia is a major force in reducing US crude oil exports, and an important factor in the sharp decline in US crude oil commercial inventories.
On the other hand, US crude oil exports continue to grow. According to the latest weekly data of EIA, US crude oil exports have reached 2.33 million barrels per day, an increase of 1.2 million barrels per day. According to our continuously tracked Clipperdata data, US exports of crude oil are mainly light oil. The four most exported oils are MilandWTI, WTI, EagleFord and USCrude, all of which are light oil. From January to April this year, US crude oil. Light oil in exports accounted for more than 90% of the total, and the export growth mainly flowed to Asia and Europe.
With the decrease in OPEC crude oil exports (heavier oil) and the increase in US crude oil exports (lighter oil), the relative supply of WTI crude oil in the international market increased, resulting in the spread of WTI and Brent. At present, the spread between Brent crude oil and WTI crude oil has been expanded to US$6/barrel, further verifying our weekly oil record on April 14, 2018, “The oil price will break 100? The US 3 months 750,000 barrels of shale oil grabs the market. The judgment that the Brent-Wti spread will be deterministically expanded.
Crude oil price is 68.19 US dollars / barrel, Brent crude oil price is 74.74 US dollars / barrel; natural gas price is 2.821 US dollars / million British thermal units. (Note: latest closing price)