If you’re lost, you can look, and you will find me, Time after Time. If you fall, I will catch you, I’ll be waiting, Time after Time. Joe Biden looks lost and could be running out of time as time and spreads on oil may signal another problem for our befuddled president.

The time spreads in the oil market are showing that the market for oil is starting to tighten. Refiners that are running close to full capacity are bidding up barrels to keep up with demand and that signals that even after yesterday CPI came in cold, oil and gas prices may again start to heat up. That is causing widening backwardation that seems to confirm predictions by reporting agencies of a growing supply versus demand deficit.

This week the Energy Information Administration said that the global oil supply deficit was 500,000 barrels a day in the first half of the year and will increase to 700,000 barrels a day in the second half of the year.

OPEC data suggests that the EIA numbers on a supply deficit might be conservative. They say that world oil demand should rise by 2.25 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2024 and by 1.85 million bpd in 2025. That means that OPEC supply will fall short of expected demand by 1.5 million bpd in August. The shortfall widens to 2.2 million bpd in the fourth quarter.

Now, after a soft CPI report and the odds of a September rate cut is being priced in, takes away one of the constant bearish fears from the oil market. Well prices have been held back because of a very strong dollar in the expectation that the Federal Reserve would not be able to cut interest rates this year. Now with this weakening data on the CPI and if the producer price index firms today, the likelihood that the Fed will cut rates will keep oil buoyant.

Reports that the Department of Energy is seeking bids to buy back up to 4 million barrels of oil for the strategic reserve. It’s coming at a time when we’re already seeing supplies tighten. Maybe the Biden administration wants to buy back oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) while the buying is good because they are fearful of a price hike. They probably fear more criticism for the way that they use SPR in part for their political piggy bank.

Oil is also getting support from mixed Chinese data that suggests that some of the doom and gloom surrounding China’s oil demand expectations might be overstated. The Wall Street Journal reported that China’s exports grew more than expected in June, while imports fell unexpectedly in another sign of weak domestic demand. Outbound shipments rose 8.6% from a year earlier in June, up from May’s 7.6% increase, the General Administration of Customs said Friday. The result beat the 7.8% growth expected by economists in a Wall Street Journal poll. Economists project that China’s exports will stay strong for a while as buyers and sellers rush to front-load shipments before more punitive measures on Chinese goods are imposed by Western governments.

However, imports dropped 2.3% in June. That compared with a 1.8% increase in May and the 3.2% growth expected by the economists surveyed. That brought June’s trade surplus to $99.05 billion, the highest since at least 1994, according to figures from local data provider Wind dating back to August 1994.

Retail gasoline prices, which hit a higher level than a year ago yesterday, have pulled back a bit as Hurricane Beryl’s impact on demand may be greater than its impact on supply. There’s still a lot of focus on refinery restarts in the aftermath of the storm but it seems that hurricane’s barrel impact on gasoline prices will be short lived. Still, keep up with the latest developments by downloading the Fox Weather app.

Retail gas prices are at 353.8 down a little bit from yesterday and down slightly from year ago levels.

Natural gas prices that have held up well in the face of hurricane Beryl’s but couldn’t overcome a surprisingly bearish weekly inventory report. Natural gas producers just can’t help themselves and continue to creep up on the production side.

EIA said that, “Working gas in storage was 3,199 Bcf as of Friday, July 5, 2024, according to EIA estimates. This represents a net increase of 65 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 283 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 504 Bcf above the five-year average of 2,695 Bcf. At 3,199 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.

Lower-48 state dry gas production Thursday was 100.3 bcf/day (+0.1% y/y), according to BNEF.  Lower-48 state gas demand Thursday was 78.1 bcf/day (+4.1% y/y), according to BNEF.  LNG net flows to US LNG export terminals Thursday were 11.1 bcf/day (-13.9% w/w), according to BNEF

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