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180 thousand b/d pipeline, the BP1. Since Pipestill

12 shut down in early November, flows on the BP1 pipeline have declined to around

85 thousand b/d on average, which shifted the Cushing balance into a surplus of around

95 thousand b/d on average over the past six weeks. We believe that once the whole conversion project is completed, and Whiting runs mainly Canadian sour crude, flows on BP1 will decline further and eventually stop. However, in the meantime, starting from when the new crude unit is back online through to when the coker is ready, Whiting will likely have to continue to run mainly light sweet crude. This suggests that flows on BP1 would ramp back up to previous levels and draw WTI from Cushing. Consequently, the delay in the completion of the new crude unit should keep BP1 flows low for longer, putting a drag on the draw on Cushing inventories in 1H13. It is unclear by how long conversion of the crude unit is delayed. While Bloomberg reported December

14 that construction will not be finished until between June

1 and August 15, other sources such as IIR Energy believe that the start-up date has been pushed back by just 30-45 days, suggesting higher BP1 flows could resume by mid-April. BP spokesperson Scott Dean told Reuters on December

14 that the entire conversion project is on schedule to be completed in the second half of 2013, with 80% of the work done, but declined to discuss the status of individual units. Despite the Whiting conversion delays, we still expect Cushing inventories to draw in 1H13, only at a slower rate Over the next six months, major additions in pipeline infrastructure will impact the Cushing balance: ? The expansion of Seaway nameplate capacity from

150 thousand b/d to

400 thousand b/d is still on track for early January. While we expect that the pipeline will ultimately ship mainly heavy crude such as Western Canadian Select (WCS), which would limit overall capacity to around

300 thousand b/d, we believe that initially the pipeline will ship more light sweet crude as USGC refiners will adapt to heavy Canadian crude gradually over time. ? Around

400 thousand b/d of pipeline capacity to ship crude from the Permian basin to refineries along the USGC is planned to be added in 1H13, allowing shippers to divert Permian crude away from Cushing. While this suggests that Cushing inventories will shift from building in 4Q12 to being balanced in 1Q13, before beginning to draw sharply in 2Q13 (Exhibits 1,

2 and 3), the expected 2Q drawdown should be a lot slower than we previously expected as the Whiting delay will leave more than

2012 年12 月20 日 高盛全球经济、商品和策略研究

3 eight million barrels of crude stocks in Cushing that would otherwise have been consumed, all else equal. In addition, substantial 1Q13 refinery turnarounds in Oklahoma and Kansas should also keep crude demand limited. As markets are forward looking, we expect this to impact WTI-Brent spreads both in 1Q13 and 2Q13. Consequently, we change our forecast for WTI-Brent spreads in 1H13 to $10.00/bbl from $4.50/bbl. We also change our forecast for 2H13 slightly to $5.50/bbl from $4.75/bbl in order to reflect the potential for bottlenecks in shipping crude between the Houston area and St. James, resulting in an average

2013 WTI price forecast of $102.50/bbl. Our Brent price forecast for

2013 remains unchanged at $110.00/bbl. It is important to highlight that in our forecasts we generally assume late start-up dates for the incremental pipeline capacity that is coming online. For example, guidance from TransCanada in regards to the Keystone South leg start-up date is mid-to late