? 交易商正開始利用燃料庫存緊張的機會，柴油和汽油的倉位處于10年來的最高水平。  

? 交易商把他們在歐洲的柴油倉位增加了1400萬桶，把在美國的汽油倉位增加了500萬桶。

? 盡管汽油庫存一直在上升，但煉油商正努力增加餾分油庫存，這可能會導致未來汽油產量下降。 

據美國油價網2月8日報道，在對原油短缺的擔憂之后，交易商開始利用燃料庫存緊張的機會也只是時間問題。 交易商已經開始這么做了：據路透社市場分析師約翰·肯普稱，柴油和汽油的市場份額是10年來最高的。

肯普在其每周對沖基金石油買盤專欄中稱，交易商最近買進相當于200萬桶美國柴油的倉位，也令他們在歐洲的柴油倉位和在美國的汽油倉位分別增加1400萬桶和500萬桶。 這位分析師補充稱，在過去7周中的6周里，對沖基金和其他主要市場參與者一直是交易最活躍的6個石油合同的凈買家。 

在原油供應緊張的情況下，人們擔心燃料供應是很自然的。 事實上，就目前而言，這種擔憂似乎是溫和的。 在全球最大的汽油市場美國，汽油庫存一直在上升，這意味著不存在短缺的危險。 然而，中間餾分油庫存在過去3周一直在下降，而原油庫存也是如此。

肯普1月份曾報告稱，美國原油庫存在過去81周中有56周出現下降，自2020年7月達到峰值以來，迄今累計減少了2.73億桶，超過了疫情第一階段增加的2.04億桶。 這位路透社分析師稱這是一種長期的供應不足，幫助推高了石油基準。

所有這些都可能是暫時的：據預測，今年美國石油產量將會上升，而且還會大幅上升。 僅埃克森美孚公司和雪佛龍公司就計劃將二疊紀盆地的產量分別提高25%和10%。 受油價上漲的鼓舞，私營頁巖參與者也在加大油氣鉆探力度。

另一方面，主要由歐佩克+推動的全球對石油供應的不安，以及大多數成員國無法按照原計劃增加產量，可能會蔓延到燃料領域，特別是當歐佩克+產量不足的情況延續時。

肯普說，還有其他因素可能導致石油供應更加緊張，那就是煉油商試圖增加餾分油庫存。肯普解釋說，這需要以犧牲汽油和柴油等較輕燃料為代價，最大限度地提高中間餾分油的產量，這意味著汽油產量降低，但煉油廠的原油消費量增加。

這可能是油價繼續走高的另一個原因，許多分析師預測布倫特原油價格將上升至每桶100美元。 有人說這種情況是前所未有的。

高盛公司大宗商品研究主管杰弗里·柯里本周在接受彭博社采訪時表示：“我做這一行已經30年了，從未見過像這樣的市場。”“這是一場能源分子危機。 我們什么都沒有了，不管是石油、天然氣、煤炭、銅、鋁，只要你能想到的，我們都沒有了。”

DTN高級市場分析師特洛伊·文森特對《雅虎財經》表示：“我們的處境岌岌可危。”“尤其是當它與歐佩克的備用產能有關時，到今年夏天的時候，我們看到的備用產能將比多年來看到的要少得多。”

彭博新聞社本周報道稱，其大宗商品現貨指數今年已升至創紀錄水平，部分原因是受原油價格飆升的推動。 看來，燃料供應緊張的說法無助于平息股市反彈。 如果有什么區別的話，那就是它將進一步促進這一進程。

如果目前的趨勢繼續下去，近期的前景不容樂觀。 盡管各國央行努力通過提高借貸成本來抑制通脹，但隨著大宗商品價格全面走高，通脹可能會繼續困擾經濟。

李峻 編譯自 美國油價網

原文如下：

Traders Are Taking Advantage Of A Looming Fuel Shortage

·     Traders are starting to take advantage of tight fuel stocks, with positions in diesel and gasoline among the highest in a decade.

·     Traders boosted their positions in European gas oil by 14 million barrels and in U.S. gasoline by 5 million barrels.

·     While gasoline stocks have been rising, refiners are working to boost distillate stocks which could lead to less gasoline production in the future.

After fears of a crude oil shortage, it was only a matter of time before traders started to take advantage of tight fuel stocks as well. And they have begun doing that: positions in diesel and gasoline are among the highest in a decade, according to Reuters' market analyst John Kemp.

Traders bought the equivalent of 2 million barrels of U.S. diesel recently, also boosting their positions in European gas oil by 14 million barrels and in U.S. gasoline by 5 million barrels, Kemp said in his weekly column on hedge fund oil buying. The analyst added that hedge funds and other prominent market players had been net buyers across the six most actively traded oil contracts for six of the past seven weeks.

That there would be concern about fuel supply amid tight crude oil supply is only natural. In fact, the worry seems to be mild, for now. In the United States, the world's largest market, gasoline stocks have been rising, which means there is no danger of a shortage. Yet middle distillate stocks have been falling for the lastthree weeks. And so have crude oil inventories.

Last month Kemp reported that U.S. crude oil stocks had declined in 56 of the last 81 weeks, shedding a total of 273 million barrels since their peak in July 2020, more than making up for a build of 204 million barrels during the first stage of the pandemic. The Reuters analyst called this a chronic undersupply that helped push oil benchmarks higher.

All this could be temporary: forecasts are that U.S. oil production will rise this year, and rise substantially. Exxon and Chevron alone plan to boost their output in the Permian Basin by 25 percent and 10 percent, respectively. Private shale players are also drilling more, emboldened by higher oil prices.

On the other hand, the global unease about oil supply, driven chiefly by OPEC+ and the inability of most of its members to ramp up production in line with original plans, might spill into fuels, especially as the OPEC+ underproduction extends.

There's something else that could contribute to an even tighter oil supply, according to Kemp, and that is refiners trying to boost distillate stocks. This, Kemp explains, would require maximizing the output of middle distillates at the expense of lighter fuels such as gasoline and diesel, which would mean lower gasoline production but higher crude oil consumption by refineries. 

This could be yet another reason for oil prices to go higher still, with the number of analysts predicting Brent at $100 multiplying by the day. Some say the situation is unprecedented.

"I've been doing this 30 years and I've never seen markets like this," Goldman Sachs' head of commodity research Jeffrey Currie told Bloomberg this week in an interview. "This is a molecule crisis. We're out of everything, I don't care if it's oil, gas, coal, copper, aluminum, you name it we're out of it."

"We're in a precarious situation," Troy Vincent, senior market analyst at DTN, told Yahoo Finance. "Especially as it pertains to OPEC's spare capacity to be much smaller by the time we get to summer than what we've seen in many years."

Bloomberg reported this week its Commodity Spot Index had risen to a record this year, driven in part by the surge in crude oil prices. The suggestion of fuel supply tightness will do nothing to calm the rally, it seems. If anything, it would further contribute to it.

If the current trend continues, the immediate future does not look good. Despite central banks' efforts to tame inflation by raising borrowing costs, with commodities across the board getting more expensive, inflation will likely continue to plague economies.

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