Indian demand bounces back

Yesterday’s EIA data release had a surprisingly bullish tone, with stock draws across the board, particularly in seasonally building products such as gasoline and propane. The EIA reported a whopping 3.3 mb/d increase in implied demand, with most of it likely to be attributed to timing issues and potentially tax optimization on inventories. Crude stocks dropped by 6 mb if we combine commercial and SPR stocks, with most of it being exported abroad amid improving economics for the US-Asia crude route, as WTI-Dubai spreads dropped substantially over the last weeks due to expensive Middle eastern OSPs.

Indian demand is growing again in December according to preliminary statistics of the first 15 days, after rather seasonally weak November demand. Still, Indian refiners are running at decent levels, with October throughput at 4.96 mb/d, with the diesel oversupply being mainly exported to Europe and Singapore.