Fueling Strategy: Please partial fill tonight, Friday AM wholesale prices will drop over 3 cents – Be Safe Today!!

NYMEX Crude $ 33.07 UP $.9200
NY Harbor ULSD $1.0700 UP $.0106
NYMEX Gasoline $1.0560 UP $.0456

NEWS
Plans for another meeting of major oil producers sparked a sharp reversal for crude Thursday, with futures erasing early losses to end sharply higher.

Oil bounced back after news reports said Venezuela’s oil minister announced plans for his country to meet with representatives from Russia, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Brent crude the global oil benchmark, rose 88 cents, or 2.6%, to end at $35.29 a barrel after trading as low as $33.29 on London’s ICE Futures exchange. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate futures rose 92 cents, or 2.9%, to finish at $33.07 a barrel. Brent’s settlement was the highest since Jan. 5, while the WTI close was the highest since Jan.29.

Venezuela oil minister, Eulogio Del Pino, said the countries would hold a “broad meeting” in mid-March, reports said. Such meetings have sparked rallies in the past, though producers have yet to agree on production cuts. Saudi Arabia and Russia earlier this month tentatively agreed to a plan to freeze production at current levels but the agreement provided only limited upside given uncertainty over the willingness of Iran to participate and the fact that the deal would cap output at very high levels. Earlier, oil had dropped as attention turned back to concerns about a chronic oversupply of crude. Wednesday’s weekly report from the Energy Information Administration showed that U.S. crude inventories rose by 3.5 million barrels last week. Gasoline stocks showed a surprise decline of 2.2 million barrels, indicating stronger demand.

At 507.6 million barrels, the latest increase pushed total domestic crude inventory to another weekly high and 74 million barrels higher compared with last year. In monthly data, which doesn’t line up exactly with weekly data, inventories last exceeded 500 million barrels in 1930. Inventories have further to rise as U.S. refiners head into their regular maintenance season that usually reduces demand, said Michael Poulsen, oil analyst at Global Risk Management. The rise in U.S. stockpiles is mirrored around the globe. According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, global petroleum stocks have increased by 800 million barrels since the beginning of 2014. This mismatch between ample supplies and tepid demand has driven oil prices down by around 70% since the summer of 2014. But while many companies in the sector are struggling with the low prices and have cut investment budgets, the resilience of U.S. shale producers has surpassed market expectations, analysts say. U.S. oil output has stayed above 9 million barrels a day in recent months, despite a fall in drilling activity. Last week, output fell marginally by 33,000 barrels a day to 9.1 million barrels a day, according to the EIA. Analysts said the renewed decline in production was noteworthy. “Within the space of two weeks, production has thus plunged by 84,000 barrels per day to its lowest level since October 2015. We believe that this is only the start, and expect this trend to continue in the coming weeks and months,” wrote analysts at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.