Crude

Oil's hope for a bottom anytime soon appears to stand Snow White's chance in hell of coming true. Seventy-eight years after Walt Disney released the first full-length animated feature, and seven factors in today’s crude complex are dwarfing crude prices.

OPEC blowback continues to ripple around the world. With Russia's Ruble pushing back towards record lows against the USD, and Kazakhstan's Tenge having tumbled to record lows, the writing was on the wall for Azerbaijan. As Bloomberg reports, the third-biggest oil producer in the former Soviet Union moved to a free float on Monday and the manat crashed almost 50% instantly to its weakest on record with the second devaluation this year.

While contracts have rolled, we thought it worth noting that January WTI Crude just flushed to a $33 handle for the first time this cycle. Feb crude (the current front-month) is down almost 2% to its series lows around $35.35...

While many still cling to the belief that U.S. shale and tight oil plays are commercial even at current low oil prices but data on the Permian basin and Bakken plays simply does not support this hope. In fact, less than 2 percent of Permian basin tight oil wells are commercial at $30 per barrel oil prices.

In a weekend of very little macro newsflow facilitated by the release of the latest Star Wars sequel, the biggest political and economic event was the Spanish general election which confirmed the end of the PP-PSOE political duopoly at national level.  As a result, there was some early underperformance in SPGBs and initial equity weakness across European stocks, which however was promptly offset and at last check the Stoxx 600 was up 0.4% to 363, with US equity futures up nearly 1% after Friday's oversold drubbing. In other key news, the commodity slide continues with Brent Oil dropping to a fresh 11-year low as futures fell as much as 2.2% in London after a 2.8% drop last week.

Al-Qaeda inspired terrorism is a threat to the Western countries but the Islamic countries are encountering a much bigger threat of inter-sectarian conflict. For centuries the Sunni and Shi’a Muslims have coexisted in relative peace throughout the Islamic World but now certain vested interests are deliberately stoking the fire of inter-sectarian strife to distract attention away from the Home Front: that is, the popular movements for democracy and enfranchisement in the Arab World.

“To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious, but the stupid have an answer for everything.” ~Edward Abbey

The Senate and House passed the spending bill this week, which the President signed into law on the same day. Embedded in the law is a provision to lift the 40-year old crude export ban. The lifting of the crude export ban is a historic milestone, but seemingly less relevant for US E&Ps, Midstream and Oilfield Services as compared to a year and a half ago when WTI-Brent spreads were close to $9.00/bbl vs. the current spread of $0.80/bbl. Nevertheless, there is still a negative long-term impact on refiners should spreads re-widen.

In the wake of a Security Council resolution on Syria that failed to consider the fate of Bashar al-Assad, a belligerent Turkey is fuming mad. In comments made from Istanbul on Saturday, PM Ahmet Davutoglu said the UN's stance "lacks realistic perspective." He also said Turkish troops will remain in Iraq until Mosul is "freed" from ISIS. Translation: Turkish boots will be on Iraqi ground for the foreseeable future.

"Turkey and Qatar face common problems and we are both very concerned about developments in the region and uncertain policies of other countries. We confront common enemies. At this critical time for the Middle East cooperation between us is vital."

The evidence continues to pile up implicating NATO's own Turkey in Islamic State's lucrative oil trade but the UN doesn't seem to care despite bold rhetoric from the Security Council and empty promises to "cut off" terrorist funding and access to the international financial system.

WTI crude has collapsed to cycle lows after the US oil rig count surged by 17, the largest jump in 5 months.

The Saudi strategy has yet to bear itself out, but early indications suggest it is generating returns. Non-OPEC supply is expected to suffer its steepest decline in two decades in 2016, at a drop of nearly 0.5 mbpd. Moreover, U.S. shale producers are among the hardest hit. Oil production across the seven most prolific shale plays is expected to plummet a combined 116,000 bpd in January 2016. Still, the strategy is not without sacrifice, and several OPEC members are struggling to find – and, more importantly, endure – that magical balance between non-OPEC pain, market share retention/growth, and self-inflicted damage. Their tipping points are nearly impossible to predict, but there will be more losers than winners in this game of brinksmanship.

Moments ago, the House of Representatives just passed the $1.15 trillion spending bill that includes a $680 billion package of tax-break extensions, in a 316 to 113 vote, and will now move to the Senate, where its passage is likewise assured and will be signed by the president over the next few days. For those wondering what are the main components of the spending bill, here is a quick summary.