Market Close: July 14 Mixed
Jul 14th, 2015 by loren
Fueling Strategy: Please partial fill tonight, Wednesday AM wholesale prices will go down 2 cents – Be Safe Today!
NYMEX Crude $ 53.04 UP $.8400
NY Harbor ULSD $1.7253 UP $.0066
NYMEX Gasoline $1.9307 DN $.0089
NEWS
Oil futures settled higher on Tuesday, rebounding from an earlier plunge in the wake of an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program.
Doubts about Iran’s ability to easily ramp up crude-oil production eased some of the worries of a potential oil flood. “It may take a certain amount of time to become fully equipped with an ability to produce oil at its optimum level, but Iran does have a significant amount of oil in their reserve, which is ready to hit the market,” said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at AvaTrade, said in a note.
August West Texas Intermediate crude climbed 84 cents, or 1.6%, to settle at $53.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange — its highest settlement since July 2. It had traded as low as $50.88 after the Iran deal announcement, a level prices haven’t finished at since April. “The Iran announcement lifted one of the major unknowns, now [crude futures] can give up that ghost and rally off the news,” said Patrick Kerr, owner of private-investment firm The Kerr Organization.
Oil futures fell right after news that Iran, the U.S. and five other world powers came to agreement on a nuclear accord. The deal should block Iran’s path to nuclear weapons and in exchange, ease economic sanctions on Iran, enabling it to expand its energy exports and increase oil flows into an already oversupplied market. Iran has said that once sanctions have been lifted, the country could double exports within two months—that would mean an increase of over one million barrels a day, according to Thomas Pugh, commodities economist at Capital Economics. And Iran already has “considerable quantities” of crude oil in storage, which may be sold as soon as sanctions are lifted, Pugh said. Estimates on the stockpile size range from seven million to 35 million barrels, according to Pugh. Still, “without a marked increase in production, it will prove extremely difficult [for Iran] to maintain higher exports beyond a few months,” he said.