By Paul Sankey
Published on August 9, 2026 at 9:02 PM
Valero CFO Homer Bhullar said on our Thursday call, with the Valero stock close to all-time highs: “Our mid-cycle is set by hydroskimming”. Homework today is running with that unit’s global economics. The data says that US/North American refining is running at max capacity ~95% utilisation Ergo, with no marginal US refining, Valero’s midcycle is set by European hydroskimming. We argue that the stock is currently discounting hydroskimming margins sustained at $4/bbl (if you require …
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By Paul Sankey
Published on July 19, 2026 at 2:39 PM
As a battle-scarred veteran of being a US Travel Soccer Dad, it is no new experience for me to travel for days to a big match and come back defeated and furious with the coach. Briefly to get it out of the way, a couple of things from the point of view of being present in Atlanta for the worst England capitulation since the fall of Singapore (February 1942, some 80,000 British Empire forces under …
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By Paul Sankey
Published on July 14, 2026 at 9:05 AM
We had Ed Westlake, former lead oil analyst at Credit Suisse, lined up for Happy Hour guest this week (Ed has relocated from Seattle back to Tribeca, NYC). “After 20 years as a successful Energy Equity Research analyst in Europe and the US, I recently set up Wonderland Analytics. Our goal is to use the increasing availability of data/compute, together with equity/industry analysis, to predict the direction and volatility of US equities/credit/CDS/ETF’s (all sectors). We …
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