Market Close: March 18 Down
Mar 18th, 2016 by loren
Fueling Strategy: Please make sure all tanks are completely topped before 23:00 CST tonight, Saturday AM wholesale prices will go up 2 cents then Sunday AM look for wholesale prices to drop almost 2 cents – Be Safe!!
NYMEX Crude $ 39.44 DN $.7600
NY Harbor ULSD $1.2391 DN $.0154
NYMEX Gasoline $1.4273 DN $.0110
NEWS
Oil futures settled with a loss on Friday, pressured by the first weekly increase in the number of active U.S. oil-drilling rigs, but prices still logged a fifth weekly advance in a row.
This week’s move has been “driven by a rebuilding of confidence, with traders agreeing with the [International Energy Agency’s] comments that oil has turned a corner,” Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at CMC Markets, told MarketWatch. Still, “that can only carry the price so far though and sometime soon, it could run into a wall until we see more concrete developments, Cieszynski said.
West Texas Intermediate crude futures for April delivery fell 76 cents, or 1.9%, to settle at $39.44 a barrel after topping $41 during the session. For the week, prices for the most-active contracts gained roughly 6.9% but the April contract itself, which expires at Monday’s settlement, tacked on about 2.4%. May Brent crude the global benchmark, shed 34 cents, or 0.8%, to $41.20 a barrel, cutting its weekly gain to around 2.3%.
On Friday, Baker Hughes reported that the number of active U.S. oil-drilling rigs rose by 1 to 387, while total active domestic oil rigs fell by 4 to 476. The increase for domestic oil rigs was the first in 13 weeks, while to total U.S. rig count marked another record low. Prices had been seesawing between losses and gains and had already touched lows under $40 before the rig data. After the rig data, prices added to losses.
Meanwhile, analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch on Friday introduced a 2016 year-end target of $54 for WTI. The analysts forecast back in February that oil prices would hit $47 by June, due to a strong summer seasonal pick up in driving demand, easier-than-expected monetary policy, and falling U.S. shale-oil production. However, in a note Friday, they warned that with the Saudis “no longer trying to moderate seasonal price swings, lower driving demand coupled with the autumn refinery turnaround” could push WTI prices back down to $39 by the end of September. So, “even if the oil price crash was practically a linear event, the recover will not be,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts said. Ongoing hopes that an April 17 meeting in Doha, Qatar between major oil producers may lead to higher prices had spurred buying this week.
Meanwhile, an attack Friday on a Statoil-BP project in Algeria may have contributed some early support for oil. Norway’s Statoil ASA said Friday that the In Salah gas project in Algeria it operates jointly with BP PLC had been struck by explosives.