Fueling Strategy: Please partial fill only tonight, Friday AM wholesale prices will drop 4 cents – Be Safe Today!!

NYMEX Crude $ 50.27 DN $.1700
NY Harbor ULSD $1.5789 DN $.0024
NYMEX Gasoline $1.6705 UP $.0115

NEWS
Oil prices finished on a mixed note Thursday, with West Texas Intermediate crude extending a decline after a drop of nearly 4% a day earlier, on continued concerns about growing U.S. crude production.

Prices for global benchmark Brent crude, however, edged higher amid signals that other major producers remain in favor of extending their output-cut agreement into the second half of the year. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ kingpin, Saudi Arabia, said the cartel is likely to reach an agreement next month to extend its production cuts.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, May WTI crude fell 17 cents, or 0.3%, to settle at $50.27 a barrel. The May futures contract expired at the session’s end. the new front-month contract, June WTI ended at $50.71, down 14 cents, or 0.3%. June Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose 6 cents, or 0.1%, to $52.99 a barrel. WTI oil prices fell by 3.8% on Nymex Wednesday, marking the steepest drop since March 8. The decline was mainly due to the surprise build in U.S. gasoline stockpiles that point to weaker-than-expected demand at a time when consumption of gasoline usually rises.

The sharp drop also came on the back of recent data, including a 13th consecutive weekly rise in U.S. rigs drilling for oil and a forecast for higher domestic shale output in May, that imply the U.S. will continue to add to global supplies even as OPEC and its allies curb production under a six-month pact that kicked in at the start of the year. “Barring a spike in geopolitical tensions…oil prices will simply not be able to materially rally through resistance in the mid $50s (WTI) until the pace of of U.S. production moderates,” said Tyler Richey, co-editor of the Sevens Report. The domestic increases continue to not only offset overseas production cuts, but potentially more importantly, they also weigh on OPEC’s morale as they are watching market share continue to slip away as a result of their own policy actions,” he said in his latest report.

Still, Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih on Thursday said a preliminary agreement to continue cuts for another three or six months is within reach and could be approved at OPEC’s next meeting on May 25. “Consensus is building, but it is not done yet,” Falih said. OPEC and Russia will meet in late May to decide whether to extend the cutbacks until the end of this year.