American diesel pull resumes

ICE Brent front-month settled at 88.4 $/b, as the API survey showed small builds in commercial crude (1.4 mb) which counterbalanced perfectly the release of the US strategic stocks (1.4 mb). Interestingly, as gasoline stocks still built by about 3.5 mb, distillate stocks dropped by 1.2 mb. This could be due to the strong pull from the New England region on distillate supplies to keep the lights on, as the region struggles to produce baseload electricity in periods of low renewables. WTI prices continued to converge towards Brent prices, at a 2.5 $/b discount at the prompt. Indeed, the US continued to boost its seaborne crude imports, now materially above 3 mb/d. President Biden once again addressed high US gasoline prices but changed tone compared to previous interventions. Now, increasing global supply is deemed hard for the US administration, in a reference to the poor grip it has on OPEC and the private oil sector in the US.