Houston and the rest of the US Gulf Coast have more crude oil than the region can handle.
Stockpiles in the region centered on Houston and stretching to New Mexico in the west and Alabama in the east rose to 202 million barrels in the week ended April 4, the most on record, Energy Information Administration data released on Wednesday show.
Storage tanks are filling as new pipelines carry light, sweet oil found in shale formations to the coast and US law keeps companies from moving it out. Most crude exports are banned and the 13 ships that can legally move oil between US ports are booked solid. The federal Jones Act restricts domestic seaborne trade to vessels owned, flagged and built in the US and crewed by citizens.
“You can’t get all that light, sweet crude out, it’s all kind of piling up,” said Jeff McGee, the founder of Makai Marine Advisors in Dallas, who previously led research at two shipbrokers and worked as a refinery planner. “You couldn’t find a spot Jones Act ship to save your life right now.”
The glut will make prices of benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil US$13 a barrel cheaper later this year than Brent, the international benchmark, according to Bank of America forecasts. The EIA forecasts the average gap for 2014 will be about $9. WTI traded at a discount to Brent of $4.19 a barrel this morning on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.
Companies including TransCanada and Enterprise Products Partners built and reversed pipelines that helped a carry a record amount of oil to the Gulf Coast from the Midwest last year. Total US production reached 8.23 million barrels a day last week, the highest level since May 1988.
Even as senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the senior Republican on the energy and natural resources committee, added her support to ExxonMobil’s call to lift restrictions on crude exports, other lawmakers in Congress say they are concerned shipments would increase petrol prices at home.
“The ban on exporting US crude is mainly responsible for the pileup of crude stocks on the Gulf coast,” said Harry Tchilinguirian, the head of commodity markets at BNP Paribas, France’s largest bank. “The Jones Act is an additional hurdle in trying to move that surplus crude on the Gulf Coast to other areas of the US.”
The glut may start to shrink in the second quarter as refineries ramp up to meet summer gasoline demand. Plants on the Gulf Coast handled a record 7.92 million barrels a day of crude last year, equal to almost 80 per cent of Chinese consumption in 2012, according to IEA and EIA data compiled by Bloomberg. Refinery runs in the region rose by 167,000 barrels a day to 8.22 million last week, EIA data show.
* Bloomberg News
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- Mastery of audio-visual content creation.
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BACK%20TO%20ALEXANDRIA
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The view from The National
England's Ashes squad
Joe Root (captain), Moeen Ali, Jimmy Anderson, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Joe Denly, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes.
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
The 12 Syrian entities delisted by UK
Ministry of Interior
Ministry of Defence
General Intelligence Directorate
Air Force Intelligence Agency
Political Security Directorate
Syrian National Security Bureau
Military Intelligence Directorate
Army Supply Bureau
General Organisation of Radio and TV
Al Watan newspaper
Cham Press TV
Sama TV
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
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The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Disposing of non-recycleable masks
- Use your ‘black bag’ bin at home
- Do not put them in a recycling bin
- Take them home with you if there is no litter bin
- No need to bag the mask
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
The stats
Ship name: MSC Bellissima
Ship class: Meraviglia Class
Delivery date: February 27, 2019
Gross tonnage: 171,598 GT
Passenger capacity: 5,686
Crew members: 1,536
Number of cabins: 2,217
Length: 315.3 metres
Maximum speed: 22.7 knots (42kph)
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Company name: SimpliFi
Started: August 2021
Founder: Ali Sattar
Based: UAE
Industry: Finance, technology
Investors: 4DX, Rally Cap, Raed, Global Founders, Sukna and individuals
EA Sports FC 25
Developer: EA Vancouver, EA Romania
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4&5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5