Oil: China’s apparent oil demand declines – ING

The latest industrial output data from China shows that refiners reduced activity in November. Crude processed in the month fell to the lowest in five months at around 14.3m b/d as some processors shut plants for seasonal maintenance. Cumulative apparent demand fell by 3.3% YoY to 14m b/d over the first 11 months of the year, ING’s commodity analyst Ewa Manthey and Warren Patterson note.

Cumulative apparent demand falls

“The latest data from Baker Hughes shows that the number of active US oil rigs remained unchanged over the week at 482, after rising by five in the preceding week. The total rig count (oil and gas combined) also remains steady at 589 over the reporting week. Primary Vision’s frac spread count, which gives an idea of completion activity, decreased by three over the week to 217.”

“Weekly positioning data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) shows that managed money net long position in NYMEX WTI dropped after rising for two consecutive weeks. Money managers trimmed net longs in NYMEX WTI by 12,448 lots over the week to 103,986 lots as of 10 December 2024. On the other hand, exchange data shows that speculators have built fresh longs of 5,349 lots in ICE Brent over the last week, leaving them with 162,273 lots of net long position.”

“In products, net bullish bets for gasoline jumped to their highest level since mid-April 2024. Speculators boosted the net longs for gasoline by 6,546 lots (after reporting declines for two straight weeks) to 73,037 lots for the week ending 10 December 2024. There are suggestions that the gasoline supply could tighten next year due to the planned refinery outages and closures. LyondellBasell’s Houston refinery is set to close by the end of the first quarter and will start idling as early as January. The refinery processes about 264k b/d.”