Commodity Research Group (CRG) is an independent research consultancy specializing in base and precious metals, as well energy products. The Group provides research and general price analysis for these markets, along with advice to companies seeking to construct hedging strategies.
In this podcast, oil market experts Andrew Lebow and Jim Colburn discuss key fundamental forces driving oil prices in both the futures and options markets.
About Your Hosts
Andrew Lebow
Andrew Lebow has been involved in the energy derivative area since 1980. He began his career with Shearson Lehman Brothers where he worked in the initial formulation and marketing of the NYMEX WTI crude contract in 1983 as well as the NYMEX gasoline contract in 1985.
Mr. Lebow has appeared before the State Government of Alaska as well as the State Department of Defense to discuss hedging techniques. Mr. Lebow is also well known as a market analyst and is quoted frequently in the financial press. He has appeared on television on CNBC, NBC, CNN, CBS, and PBS. Mr. Lebow holds a BA from Lafayette College and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University
James Colburn
Jim Colburn is a futures and options professional with 30 years of wide ranging experience in commodity markets. For much of his career, at Man Financial (1989-2011) and Jefferies LLC (2012-2013), Mr. Colburn worked with major integrated oil companies, hedge funds, pension funds and other entities to develop market hedging and trading strategies.
He has conducted trading, hedging and risk management workshops in energy markets worldwide.
Mr. Colburn is a published author on options trading, hedging, market making and risk management. In 1986, while at the New York Mercantile Exchange, Mr. Colburn helped develop new markets in energy option contracts by educating the oil industry, banks, floor traders and brokers, worldwide.
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Transcription
Good morning.
This is Jim Colburn of Commodity Research Group.
I’m with Andy Lebow also of Commodity Research Group, and we’re here with another edition of energy markets.
To learn more about us, you can check out our website, www.commodityresearchgroup.com, where we post our podcasts and blog.
We’d like to thank our friends at EKT Interactive oil and gas training for hosting this podcast, check out their newsletters, podcasts, and learning modules at www.ektinteractive.com.
This podcast should be construed as market commentary, merely observing economic, political and market conditions and is not intended to refer to or endorse any particular trading system strategy or recommendation. We are not responsible for trading decisions taken by anyone. Information is not guaranteed to be accurate. This is not an offer to buy or sell any derivative. Today is July 10th, Andy, it’s been another month. How’s it going?
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It’s going good, Jim, how are you doing?
I’m doing good. Thanks. Um, as I always say is a lot of stuff happened. Let’s, let’s get right into this. Um, earlier this week, and earlier this morning, we saw the release of the IAA and the EIA monthly oil reports. And they, um, there was both reports. They said they misestimated demand. And it was a little higher in that second quarter then, uh, than they thought, why you give us a little rundown of what, what you saw coming out of those reports?
Well, I thought the, um, IAA report was a lot of when you can characterize it as a neutral to bearish or neutral, the bullish, the peasant God, you’re a, depending on your point of view. Yeah, good go up. Or it could go down. But I thought that, yeah, what they did was that the second quarter, as you mentioned, was not as dire as what they had initially led us to believe. And as a result, they, um, upgraded demand for second quarter by over a million barrels a day, I think it was 1.4 or five. I think that was the number. And that made the rest of the year, obviously a lot higher. They increased third and fourth quarter, a little and a relative. And in 21 that relative to 20, they, um, lowered demand, but they still said that 21, the 20, 21 demand, this is going to be 2 million barrels a day below where 2019 was.
So it’s still a long way to get to any type of growth and demand. Personally. I thought those numbers are still too high, you know, the second quarter. Yeah. I, I think you can make a case that it wasn’t quite as bad as, as what the IAA is saying, but they still are pretty off, relatively optimistic for, uh, you know, for the second half of this year and into, uh, into the first staff. So Jim, our numbers, the CRG numbers are, uh, are lower than, uh, where the IAA has by a pretty good amount. I mean, we’re, we’re like a million barrels a day, at least lower than, uh, than where the IAA is.
Um, million barrel revisions. Aren’t what they used to be in this market. I mean, we’re throwing million barrels around, like, it’s nothing because it’s a crazy these markets we’ve never seen before. They’re very crazy. But I’m wondering if, um, are you, w would, would you mind, is it possible that you might be biased being in the U S and hearing news about say the Sunbelt increasing cases, COVID cases locked down since like that, where these other, the IAA, maybe, maybe having more of a worldview and seeing that, you know, Asia’s really the, the original a COVID centers are actually doing quite well. Think about Italy, China, other, other Asia and Europe is, is doing pretty good. I mean, do you think there’s a bias there, or could there could be somewhat of a bias, but you’re still looking at three big consuming countries that are, that are struggling. The U S Brazil, India too, you know, are, you know, we’re having issues and certainly, uh, Latin America, South America. So it’s not, it’s not clear that we’re going to China, China demand has, uh, has increased, but again, you know, you look at where where’s, the demand increased. At least product wise, gasoline demand has been pretty robust, relatively robust diesel globally is, is a really big issue. And Chad, as CIA, Matt mentioned is going to be a continuing problem. So how are we going to get diesel going? Right. That’s a lot that’s trade, that’s going to be trade oriented. And, uh, I think we’re a long way from, uh, rebuilding the, um, you know, rebuilding these distribution chains and rebuilding the global economy. I mean, we know where, uh, I think the IMF, or is there a number down 5%
For my, yeah. I’m not sure what the latest number is. Something like that. Yeah.
Four to five, four to 5%, uh, you know, uh, a long way to go. So yeah, I think there’s definitely some bias, but, you know, we, we, there are still some serious global issues, so, you know, and I, uh, I think I’m still in kindergarten. Cause I learn more from looking at pictures than I do from reading stuff in it, IAA and EIA have a beautiful, beautiful chart with their supply demand, uh, balances. I, I put it in our blog. If you look at that thing, we’ve got, they’re looking for draws, going out to the end of 2021. And the IAA has bigger draws in Q4 this year.
So you look at, it’s like, you know, it’s hard to get bearish on this marketer, you know, I’m, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna, I saw a headline said from minus 40 to plus one 50 in terms of prices. I’m not going to go there, but the saying is, is this is this, uh, what’s what’s what do you think is in the market? And I know it’s kind of a crazy question given what’s going on. That’s a tough question, right?
I, I do agree with the IAA and the EIA that we are going to see stock draws in the, in the third and the fourth quarter. And that should, you know, again, it, it’s the extent of the stock draws, which is going to be on, uh, is going to be on demand. Then, you know, we’ll talk about supply obviously, but I think the IAA is somewhere in the fives, 5 million barrel a day draw, we are close to the three, but a draw is, is, you know, that’s not bearish, as you mentioned, it’s not bearish. Unfortunately it’s, it’s drawing inventory from, uh, you know, really from a very high level. You know, you look at the IAA numbers for first half and you could see in those same pictures, what the builds were.
I think the EIA was talking about 1.4 billion barrels being built in the first half that’s EIA. I don’t think it was that much, but nevertheless, you know, you’re drawing from a, from a really high level. So I think it’s not bearish it’s bullish, but how bullish, you know, is it going to be, you know, and I think that’s what the market’s trying to grapple with right now. And, and, you know, we’ll talk about supply inventories are, um, you know, still clearly high, but they have, you know, they’re in better shape given if you look at the curves, right? If you look, the curves is T curves and the, um, Brent curves are certainly no longer big contango they’re flattened out. So, uh, you know, I guess that’s indicative that, you know, stocks are, are beginning to, you know, are drawing, right. And, um, I think they point out that, uh, floating storage is coming down and maybe that’s why it is, is the June, uh, buildup in, in, um, inventories in the us what you were expecting can remember what you were saying. I think, yeah, yeah, that was, that was pretty much as we expected, you know, the, um, again, diesel, is this the, or are at a 38 year high, right. Uh, and that’s, you know, that’s like the big, the big, a major problem for the market gasoline is, is okay. You know, it’s long crude as long, but the, the EIA has a big draw in crude for, um, you know, for the third quarter actually, uh, they have a, um, it’s pretty interesting. They, they have a 50 million barrel draw from June to September, uh, which, you know, that would be, that would be supportive.
Yeah. And that’s w was that, that’s some of that oil production going down. Yeah.
They have, well, the oil, what they, they have runs and this site disagree with too, you know, they have runs going, uh, in June, it was 13.8 in July. They say, it’s going to be 14.8 and in August 15.5 and September 15.6. So you got a big jump up and runs, hence the draw, you know, crude runs. Are we going to go that high with margin? You know, margins are not, you know, they’re improving, but relative to history, they’re horrible. So I don’t, I don’t think those numbers are going to be right either from the, uh, from the EIA, I guess I’m pretty skeptical this.
Well. Yes. And that let’s, um, you, you put out for, for CRG, you put out a monthly, um, report on commodities and, um, you talked about the narrow range of prices. Right. So, so it sounds to me like you are thinking, we go down to the bottom end of that range, or we break out on the downside.
I mean, Yeah.
I don’t know if it’s going to be a breakout. I’m a little, I’m a little bit bearish, but, you know, as you mentioned, shim it with a, with a stock truck coming ahead, you know, as we know in the second half, um, inventories are going to draw, we think, you know, it’s hard to get really bare. Shh. Right. And I think, you know, as you mentioned, we’re in an hour range, it’s tough to make a big bet here.
It really is. Yeah.
Yeah. And volumes, I guess, or, you know, we could talk about, um, you know, where we are in volumes, but the, you know, the market is struggling here on the volume side.
Yeah. Um, I look at the options volume and for June traded around 97,000 lots of day, which is, which is a little bit better than may, but that compares with a year to date of one 45,000. And it’s a, you know, it’s more than half of the 204,000 a day in March. Right. So, so it’s almost like, uh, the market stopped, uh, trading and, and involves have come down from there crazy levels back in April. Um, which I, I haven’t really gone back to examine too closely and still have a little PTSD from that period. It was like, you know, we’ve got six vital numbers up to like 600, I mean, what is going on here. Right. But, um, so we, we’ve gone. Just, just an example. We’re in the, we’re in the low forties now for the front two months and implied vol and the actual trading range, or the historical vowel realized vowels around 35.
So, so implies about seven over. And that’s not a real stable relationship. I mean, they, they continually cross each other, but back on May 18th, the implied vowel was around 64 historical vowel was like one 36. So it was like 72 over realized historical Val over implied. So, you know, just tells you that this, your, your, uh, th the trading range has gotten way low compared to where they were just look at a chart and it’s showing up with implied vol, but, you know, implied vol is still above its longterm average of around 33%. So, so, so I guess my question is, are we in some sort of an eye of a hurricane where we’re going to come out and see, you know, Val go up out of here or you see us continuing along the way, where is this narrow range going forward?
Well, right now, I think you’d have to say that it’s going to just, um, continue into it into range for a bit, you know, or it’s a time to, you know, would you, would you place a really big bet here? No, it’s a tough, you know, it’s a tough time to place a bed, obviously, you know, if there, if this virus does get worse and there are more, there are more global lockdowns, you know, that’s, that’s a big change. Uh, if the economy can’t get, can’t begin to improve that that could be a, a, that could be a change. And the supply side, you know, there, there are, you know, there are some big numbers out there, uh, Libya being the, you know, which CIA highlighted, you know, Libya being a big one going from like zero to possibly, um, million barrels a day by the, by the end of the year. Right. And, you know, the, uh, the OPEC plus, um, you know, they’re gonna, they’re gonna increase production by 2 million barrels a day, beginning, August 1st, according to their deal. Uh, it looks like they’re meeting on July 15th, you know, how is that going to, are they all, they’ve been awesome on compliance except for Iraq and Nigeria, and, uh, the Saudis threatened them, uh, with, with, uh, going for another price whore. I don’t know why they break that up again since I was so successful last night, last time they pulled that.
Well, I love the way the press Corps. They call them laggards now. And we got into the business, they were referred to as cheaters. So I have a much softer tone, but, um, yeah, OPEC plus seems like they’re in lockdown. And, um, you know, how just like, just like human beings, we were chomping at the bit to get out of the house and go somewhere. And I, you know, once, once you stop the lockdown, it’s it’s for, for people, I think it’s really hard to get them back in the house. And OPAC might be the same way you had, you know, 2 million barrels, you say 2 million barrels, and it might say it, they might say, okay, you’re free to produce.
And, um, but it’s just OPEC. It’s the, you know, the Russians, where are they? You know, they have been one of the huge surprises I think, of, of, uh, you know, of the, of the first half of the year of the many, many Jim Wright, the very big surprises, including the liberal one surprise of oil going negative to me was the Russians going down that quickly to 2 million barrels, you know, down to really barrels a day and staying there. Yeah. Talk about shopping at the bit. We’ll see where they, you know, where they come out and, um, take us through us soil production. Now we hear they’re looking to increase again. What are you saying that, I mean, when he said that is a, um, yeah, the, the EIA in the, in the short term energy outlook actually has, you know, they had June production around 11 million barrels a day. They’ve got July up to 11.4, an August up to 11.3, uh, September 11.2 and then OMNOVA and DS right around 11 one. So, you know, production has been caught early, has been caught from 12, seven, 12, eight to a 10 to 11. So we’re down, we’re down 1.7 and then they’ve got us kind of inching up. And, uh, next year they basically threw their hands up and said, production is going to be 11 million barrels a day every single month.
No, they did increase it in the, in November, December. But I think they’re, you know, I don’t know, it’s, it’s, it’s tough. I mean, these are, these are, these are tough numbers, but it does look like given where, you know, given where the market is back to the forties have been announcements of, of, uh, production cuts, production increases. I’m sorry. Uh, I think that, uh, they may be right on the third quarter. We may, may see a slight, a slight increase, uh, fourth quarter coming down. The, the big question is, you know, is the increase going to be more or less than what the depletion depletion from lower rig counts are. Right. And that’s kind of a tricky, um, you know, that’s a tricky number. I think these numbers though, Jim are a little bit higher than, than what a lot of people were saying back in, you know, when the world was ending in March and April.
Right. You know, so that, that I guess is that’s good. And we’ll see what happens in the Bach and where their production Oh man. They were, they were cranking away and they were cranking it out at 1.4 million barrels a day, a big, a big comebacker last year and early this, and then it just went to, it just went to pot. I mean, down, uh, I think they were down under a million barrels a day in March and April on the way, on the way back up before they got this, um, court ruling from, um, what’s at the appellate court that they made that.
Yeah. I forget. I mean, I don’t know. Yeah, but it’s, um, that’s, that’s a 570,000 barrel day pipeline. That’s, uh, going to be out of commission. Right.
Well, energy transfers is still taking nominations for August, so they’re not there. They were told to shut it down on August 5th, but, uh, that’s getting appealed so that that’s still for now, it’s still operating and it’s probably, you know, something around 500,000 barrels a day, give her a tank could be a, I’m not exactly sure what the last, the latest throughput is. That’s pretty big volume and it’s not going to be made up that quickly if the, if the Dakota access is shut down and if it is shut down, some of that oil gets out by truck and by rail. Right. Is that yeah.
Yeah. And there’ll be some, I think there’s about a hundred thousand barrels, a day of pipeline capacity and other pipelines, and may be, you know, maybe the trucks and rail can get another 300, maybe, maybe probably less than that. Um, so, you know, it leaves like 200,000 barrels a day stranded, and that’s all, you know, that that’s all, Mid-Con, those are Midcontinent barrels, the Terminus, and this is Flanagan and then it’s shipped, you know, shipped elsewhere.
Amazing. I guess we saw on the news that, um, Warren buffet bought some pipelines and, uh, it’s, it’s becoming like real estate. They just don’t make it anymore. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. There was a natural gas pipeline that, uh, um, project that got scotch because, um, the, the companies, the costs of, of fighting, you know, finding their opponents to build these pipelines, just ballooned.
Don’t, don’t get me going. I live in New York, but, uh, we have, uh, people who work really hard to keep the pipelines out, which is their prerogative, but the same people will complain when natural gas prices spike in winter time, which is kind of hard for me to don’t don’t get me going.
Well, you know, I think the it’s pretty basic that pipelines are the most efficient way of transport and probably the safest. Right. We all can remember that terrible tragedy in Quebec where, you know, I think, I think 90 people were killed when a railcar. Yes. You know, what it was, um, where a rail car exploded, right. Elkhart filter, crude exploded, you know, so you, um, you, you talked about product demand and margins. You think refiners, I mean, I guess, uh, you know, I guess what I’m trying to get to is we, we used to think that, um, a good way to hedge oil prices was to maybe, you know, we always think about selling forward or buying puts or something like that for producers. But if you’re an integrated oil company, you know, perhaps a better way is focused on becoming a low cost producer and keeping your balance sheet in good shape. So this, this virus, um, has kind of blew that apart, where there seems to be existential risk in some of these, uh, companies going forward. So you see, I guess what I’m getting to is, do you see a bright spot in the energy areas say like, I guess I’m saying, would you rather be a owner of a refiner or would you rather be a producer or a pipeline? You know, what, what part of the upstream downstream do you think is going to be doing better going forward?
That is an excellent question, Jim. And I, I think that, you know, as we start working off these, these inventories, uh, we certainly haven’t, we start working off these inventories margins are ultimately going to improve. However, what it’s going to take for these margins to improve is rationalization on, on refinery capacity. And, uh, Europe is going to have to lose some, uh, some refineries. So if you don’t own those refineries in Europe that have to go on there, I mean, they have to, uh, because there’s still, there’s still increased refinery capacity coming out and big projects in, uh, in Asia. So once these European refineries are mothballed, uh, I think margins are going to be, are going to be all right on the midstream. You know, again, that’s, that’s going to probably take some higher production, which we know is, is us production, which in which we think is going to come, uh, natural gas demand has to improve on the, on the natural gas side for, uh, for midstream, but that should, you know, that that should improve. And, um, upstream, w w we’re clearly not making, you know, we’ve, we’ve canceled billions of dollars of, uh, of projects. So, so long would think that, uh, you know, upstream is going to, um, you know, we’ll have it stay in the sun again, it just may be, you know, maybe a couple of years. Hence, so, um, you know, I guess if I, if I had to rank them, I’m not going to, well, there’s also, there’s also plastics out there, HDLs and things.
Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, you know, the, the there’s too much capacity right now, there’s too much capacity globally. Right. Uh, and certainly the, um, uh, the overall, the overall world environment and the move towards, um, sustainable, um, production and, um, you know, th th the ESG ESG movement and everything else is not, I guess it’s not particularly the move to electric vehicles, also, not particularly that constructive for the petroleum industry, but petroleum know for the fossil fuel industry. But I, I don’t, I don’t think we need to strike a death knell for it. I think, I think there’s still some good years ahead. Right.
And the companies are preparing for yeah, they are. That’s right. That’s right. To changing their logo. Yeah.
Well, it changed their focus. They look at some of these European companies, you know, total been all over the shelves, been all over it, BP, they’re all, you know, they know what’s coming and moving that direction for sure. You know, the majors are moving in the right. They’re moving in, they’re moving in that direction.
So he had the, um, I want to get a price range going forward, your choice, WTI or Brent, or both.
I think, I think for the, the month it’s still WTI is going to have a hard, you know, there, there are a lot of headwinds. So, um, two, uh, two, I think it could get, you know, back to the mid forties yeah. On the reach. It could, I prefer it on there. You know, I think more likely, I think in the, in the, you know, 35 to 40 range than the 40 to 45 range, that’s a big 45, 35 range. And that’s, you know, that’s, that’s probably right. And brand that we could just stay in a couple of dollars there now, the big, now here’s the question too. So we look at this range, right? Yup. You’ve got falls higher than, you know, applied vaults higher than normal.
Yep. No, no.
Yeah.
Listen, I, I will I trade markets, not, not in a big way, but I, my favorite entry place when I’m listening, I’m talking as a really small speculator is I like to buy options. And it’s a lot of these markets, even though they’ve come somewhat back to normal that offer spreads are still kind of wide. I mean, I’m not talking so much about oil, but some of the other like metals and things like that. And, um, you know, so, but back to oil, if you have a trading range, you want to, you do want to be selling options. But, um, listen, I, I, it’s not the way I like to approach the market. Um, as a speculator, that’s, that’s been my view. I’ve had people come up to me over the years and say how much money I saved them from mainly from the seller team, Hoosier weenie idea.
But, but still the idea is don’t get too enamored. The other thing I’d say is we tend to get more comfortable selling vault. Once we see a narrow range show up on the charts, so you we’ve seen a month or so of the market kind of moving up to upwards to sideways. And, um, you know, the, the range as the range, uh, gets better defined, uh, in my experience, it’s a, it looks more comfortable to sell and, and yet you’re getting closer to that particular market becoming it’s a becoming a commodity, which means it’ll, uh, it’ll move around more than you think. So that’s, you know, just my view.
Well, for our lists, there’s the question I was about to ask. No, that’s all right. He knows what the question was. Would you sell strangles here or sell, sell, sell vol. And he knew that was exactly where I was going with that answer as we’ve been working together for a long, long time. So I do exactly where he was going. And I think that’s, you know, that’s great. That’s great advice.
Yeah. Never say never, but it’s, um, you know, you don’t want to make that the main sort of cornerstone of your trading portfolio. I, I don’t think, I think it’s just, you’re you’re once you start doing that, you hear the, uh, the time bomb ticking. And as we’ve seen it year in, year out, and the, and the, my other pet pave Andy is, uh, you know, don’t call it normal and we’re not going back to, we’re not going back to an old normal, we’re not there because there no norm there’s no new normal, there’s no old normal, stop it within normal.
Yeah. I would come out and lock it or revert to the bean, whatever the mean is,
So yeah, we, you know, the market will stay away from the mean, as long as you feel like it can go to them. Yeah.
And then once you feel it, can’t go to the mean, it’ll go to the mean, there’s no question that that’s improving over, you know, as long as this thing’s been trading.
Yeah. Yeah. So in this markets have been trading, I’m sure there’s people out there that are making money trading on re mean reversion. I just haven’t met any of them. Okay. We’re to start, we don’t want this to deteriorate into a, you know, a session, a bull session, but anyway, anything else you want to add to this, uh, patio?
I think that, I think, you know, all along the lines of selling, um, selling file, this is still a lot as we head into the, you know, I think it’ll be range-bound, but you know, there’s still a lot of, a lot of hurdles to go and, you know, things, things, as we’ve learned, you know, can change pretty rapidly. We’ll see what, uh, OPEC plus has for us on, on the, uh, on the 15th. I think that’s going to be a, that’s gonna be important. And then all the, you know, all the, all the economic data that continues to come out and whether Congress has another, you know, whether there’s still more, more out of, uh, out of Congress in terms of stemming not only Congress globally, whether there’s more, you know, stimulus still to still to come. I think that’s, you know, that’s going to be important and, um, more trillions. Yeah. Whether we’re going to see more trillions coming out of us and elsewhere and elsewhere. Yeah. The whole, I think I was, I was reading that, uh, total stimulus stimuli has been 15 trillion globally.
Yeah. That’s that’ll explain stock Mark.
Yeah, I guess. Right.
I think it’s quite possible that in 2008, the fed was pumping reserves into banks and they were just sitting there and this time we’re getting fiscal help putting money into a bank accounts. So it’s like in, in the hands of the people. So they’re checking the checking accounts are showing huge increases. So both, both are stimulative, but this time it seems like it’s, it’s more effective with people that it’s in the hands of people that actually need it. Cause you give money to a bank, they have to lend it out. There’s no one there it’s up. Everybody’s scared. No, one’s gonna take you up on a low interest rate that they’re pushing on a string idea where you put into people’s bank, upon bank accounts, weren’t working, you know, they’re going to, they’re going to use it. And, um, you know, the problem is you need to keep, you need more trillions. And, and, um, I looked at, uh, we’re war two. We’re still not up to world war II yet in terms of percent of GDP in debt, you know, where we’re heading in that direction. But, you know, if you kinda, I don’t know, you kind of look at this thing as a, as a, a war that we’re in, hopefully next year at this time, we’ll be, you know, on the upside and not on the downside. So it’s hard to feel that way when you’re living through it. Right.
That’s the other thing, you know, the progress on vaccines and treatments, you know, it’s another key opponent. Yeah. I think we sat in one of these podcasts that more important than supply demand numbers and economic numbers, oil is what, what Fowchee was saying, you know, where are we in the development of vaccines and treatments. And, um, and then I guess now the, um, like you said, the oil market it’s it’s work. You, you can get an, uh, an economic number that drives the oil market up and down. So it’s kind of, it’s got a little correlation to the, to the stock market as well, which is, uh, we saw that big and in 2008, 2009 as well. So what kind of indicator do you want to see first, Andy, what’s your top indicator now for, just to tell you about the oil market? Well, for, for diesel, obviously any kind of manufacturing data that, and they have been pretty good. Yeah. Uh, the, you know, it’s coming in, uh, it’s coming in a lot higher and the chops number for gasoline is critical, obviously because people don’t have jobs, they can’t drive to the drive to it, can’t spend et cetera, et cetera. So those are, you know, those are, those are really big numbers. Um, I think, you know, we’ll see where miles traveled comes in as well. But, um, you know, that tends to be a lagging indicator. Uh, you know, I’d say on the, on mat, you know, manufacturing and trade for free diesel and diesel, you know, you know, we’re in, we’re in, you know, major, major oversupply, although what’s been surprising is that the, uh, the curve has been kind of has been tighter than what you would, what you would think. So tough to tough to explain that one.
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Alright, let’s wrap it up. Anything else Andy?
Let’s see.
You can, you can find our monthly report on the podcast on our, um, website.
That’s a great report. I read that because it’s so succinct.
Thank you, Jim. Yeah.
That is on a www.commodityresearchgroup.com, sorry as a, you could get ahold of us. So you could just get ahold of me, A Lebow, alebow@commodityresearchgroup.com. And I’ll make sure that Jim gets any messages or questions you have on options.
Okay. Thanks, Andy. We’ll talk to you next month.
All right. Thanks Jim.
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