Fueling Strategy: Please wait fill until after midnight tonight when wholesale prices will drop 4.5 cents – Be Safe Tonight!

NYMEX Crude $ 33.27 DN $.7000
NY Harbor ULSD $1.0656 DN $.0151
NYMEX Gasoline $1.1460 DN $.0158

NEWS
Oil futures settled with a loss on Thursday for a fourth straight session, as turmoil in China continued to raise the risk for a slowdown in energy demand from one of the world’s top consumers.

With prices already at their lowest levels in more than 11 years, analysts have been weighing the likelihood that U.S. prices could plunge to $20 a barrel this year. Meanwhile, natural-gas prices surged more than 5% on the back of a much-bigger-than-expected drop in weekly U.S. supplies. February Brent crude the global oil benchmark, fell 48 cents, or 1.4%, to $33.75 on London’s ICE Futures exchange. Prices settled Thursday at their lowest level since June 2004, according to Fact Set data. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, February West Texas Intermediate crude shed 70 cents, or 2.1% to settle at $33.27 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It traded as low as $32.10 but also tapped a high of $34.26. Thursday’s settlement was the weakest since February 2004, Fact Set data, based on the most-active contracts showed.

Fresh turmoil in China’s stock markets, a falling yuan and a string of weak economic data in recent months are seen as signs that the world’s second-largest economy is slowing at a time when the world is awash in crude. And worries surrounding China have contributed to a rout in global stock markets. “Countries that see huge hits to measured wealth in the form of financial market crashes don’t tend to produce much growth in oil demand,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service. Tariq Zahir, managing member at Tyche Capital Advisors, said he believes WTI prices can fall to the mid- to low-$20 levels ,and how fast they get there will likely surprise everyone. The situation with Iran and Saudi Arabia will keep the market “knee deep in a price war,” he told Market Watch, in an email.

Also on Nymex, prices for natural-gas rallied after the EIA reported a 113 billion cubic foot decline in U.S. supplies for the week of Jan. 1. Analysts polled by Platts expected a decline of between 93 billion cubic feet and 97 billion cubic feet. But the EIA said the data included a “reclassification” of certain types of natural gas. The report still “confirms a significant over supply situation,” said Richard Gechter, Jr., principal and president of Richard W. Gechter Natural Gas Consulting. But “more and more producers will shut down–… [and] in 6 to 9 months, we will see a spike up in price due to the lack of production.”