Guest Post by Art Berman
Storage withdrawals and falling rig count have been the main sources of hope that U.S. tight oil production will fall and that oil prices will rebound. That hope is fading as it is now clear that recent withdrawals from U.S. crude oil storage are because of price, not falling supply, and that the drop in rig count has stalled.
Figure 1 below shows the relationship between U.S. crude oil storage inventory and WTI price. The thinking around recent withdrawals from storage is that this reflects depleting supply. The data, however, reflects that traders were storing crude oil during the price collapse in order to realize higher prices later. With rising prices over the last month, traders are selling their stored volumes. The recent inventory build correlates almost perfectly with the fall in oil prices and the withdrawals from storage over that last 3 weeks correlate with the 35% increase in oil prices since late March.
Figure 1. Monthly change in U.S. crude oil inventory and WTI oil price (3-month moving average of inventory volumes). Source: EIA and Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.
(click to enlarge image)
Previous builds and withdrawals from inventory also correlate with price but generally price followed changes in inventory. In the recent case, price lead inventory changes.
