Fueling Strategy: Please partial fill tonight, Friday AM wholesale prices will drop 1 penny – Be Safe Today!
NYMEX Crude $ 41.50 DN $.2600
NY Harbor ULSD $1.2543 DN $.0113
NYMEX Gasoline $1.5056 DN $.0239
NEWS
Oil futures finished with a loss for a second day in a row on Thursday, as the market weighed the likelihood that key producers meeting this weekend will reach a pact to cap output.
Heavyweight suppliers, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, are gathering in Doha, Qatar, on Sunday to discuss curbing their output to support prices. However, doubts are growing that even if they manage to clinch an agreement, it may not be strong enough to alleviate the continuing global glut of crude. “If there is to be a production freeze, rather than a cut, the impact on physical oil supplies will be limited,” the International Energy Agency said in its closely watched monthly market report released Thursday.
May West Texas Intermediate crude fell 26 cents, or 0.6%, to settle at $41.50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, but traded between a low of $40.84 and a high of $42.16 during the session. For the week, prices were looking at more than 4% climb. June Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange lost 34 cents, or 0.8%, to $43.84 a barrel.
The talk about the freeze meeting has kept investors on edge in recent weeks. Prices have gained roughly 8% month to date but the rally has been marked by high volatility amid the lack of clarity about what may happen in Doha. Iran has already balked at participating in any deal as the country seeks to increase its production to pre-sanctions levels. “The sovereign oil producers’ date night in Doha could produce one of several possible outcomes with varying market impacts,” analysts at RBC Capital Markets said in a note Thursday. Among the outcomes RBC Capital Markets analysts said are more likely: an output freeze may be announced, and the meeting statement could suggest a willingness to adopt more market management measures, or the producers may fail to agree to a freeze due to a failure to forge a compromise between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
In any case, the meeting will show that producers are at least making an effort to boost prices. “The primary motivation for Saudi Arabia and others to continue acting as if these meetings will have a tangible effect is that they are grandstanding for their constituents; they want to show them that they are trying, but that it is external forces that are preventing them from securing high oil prices,” said Omar Al-Ubaydli, a program director at the Bahrain Center for Strategic, International and Energy Studies. He believes that the recent rise in oil prices is “far more reflective of fundamentals,” which include decreased oil investment and pressure on U.S. production, rather than any “supposed coordination among oil producers.” If prices jump after the meeting, “it will be mostly reflective of short-term speculation, and will peter back down to what market fundamentals would predict shortly thereafter,” said Al-Ubaydli.