Fueling Strategy: Please partial fill today/tonight, Friday AM wholesale prices will drop 3.5 cents – Please Be Safe Today!

NYMEX Crude $ 34.95 DN $.5700
NY Harbor ULSD $1.1053 DN $.0069
NYMEX Gasoline $1.2616 UP $.0288

NEWS
Oil futures settled lower Thursday, as recent data showing an unexpected climb in U.S. crude supplies and strength in the dollar following the Federal Reserve’s decision to hike interest rates combined to pull U.S. prices below $35 a barrel.

Meanwhile, natural-gas futures tallied a seventh straight session loss after a report revealed that U.S. supplies of the heating fuel fell less than expected last week. January WTI crude fell 57 cents, or 1.6%, to settle at $34.95 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices logged their lowest settlement since February 2009. February Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange also lost 33 cents, or 0.9%, to $37.06 a barrel.

Gasoline for January delivery tacked on 2.9 cents, or 2.3%, to $1.262 a gallon, rebounding from losses a day earlier, while January heating oil shed nearly a penny to $1.105 a gallon. Oil’s decline was due to a combination of the U.S. dollar rally post-Fed and “WTI still feeling its way around $35 as it continues to test its 2008 low,” said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at CMC Markets. The ICE Dollar Index was trading more than 1.4% higher when oil prices settled Thursday. “We also appear to be getting some aftershocks” from Wednesday’s Energy Information Administration report, he said. The EIA said crude supplies climbed by 4.8 million barrels for the week ended Dec. 11. Analysts polled by Platts were looking for a 2.5 million-barrel decrease.

Also Wednesday, the Fed raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point. Higher U.S. interest rates usually strengthen the dollar, making dollar-denominated commodity prices, including crude oil, more expensive for foreign purchasers. “The oil market is really being pressured by market fundamentals,” said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. “U.S. oil production has not fallen for more than 2 months and inventories continue to rise.” “The Fed move did nothing to indicate to market economic growth was going to be surprising strong, leading to higher demand growth,” he said. “The oil market seems to be waiting for producers to ‘prove it’ and see production fall in response to lower prices.”