The initial question is where is the 2 million barrels going to come from.
We knew that things were getting fairly stretched and there was exposure to potentially even small shocks, but that is not a small shock, ... it's an absolute, monstrous hurricane.
The U.S. inventory situation remains extremely tight, with total inventories still falling and gaining no ground on the five-year average.
The most immediate concern remains Iraq, where the prospect of further severe political and economic setbacks appears to be increasing.
Some of these refineries will not be back to full operation, perhaps well into next year.
Even before the hurricane there was no slack in the refining system, ... Now it's at breaking point. Those refineries will take months to come back online.
The market faces the prospect of years without sufficient flexibility or insulation from shocks during a period of extreme geopolitical stress.
The market seems to have pushed far too far, far too fast and on the basis of far too little hard information.
The industry has gone through such a contraction that getting it to expand again is proving difficult. These companies are not equal to the sum of their parts.
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