North America Crude Markets short-term outlook: February 2024

The new year kicked off with a slew of disruptions across the North American crude value chain. Extreme cold impacted production, refinery operations, and transportation flows across the US and Canada. Nearly 700 kb/d of Bakken crude supply was shuttered by freeze-offs. Across US Gulf Coast refineries, CDU outages topped 1.5 million b/d. Canada-to-US pipeline flows plummeted during the cold front, exacerbating recent egress constraints. Meanwhile, trade disruptions in the Red Sea affected global trade routes entering 2024. The widespread impacts of this included shifting US crude export flows. By early February, these various unplanned events were in various stages of recovery. While much of the cold impacts have abated, the shuttering of Gulf Coast refineries has kickstarted a particularly heavy maintenance season. Canada pipeline shipments rebounded to near maximum utilization just in time for the announced prospect of additional TMX delays.