Fueling Strategy: Please fill as needed today/tonight, Wholesale prices are down 2 cents but will go up slight Thursday AM – Be Safe Tonight!

NYMEX Crude $ 44.94 UP $.2900
NY Harbor ULSD $1.4054 UP $.0213
NYMEX Gasoline $1.3637 DN $.0137

NEWS
Oil futures finished higher Wednesday, after data from the U.S. government revealed that crude stockpiles fell for a ninth week in a row, and by more than the market expected. August West Texas Intermediate crude added 29 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $44.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract, which expired at Wednesday’s finish, was trading at $44.16 before the supply data. September WTI crude, which became the front-month contract, settled at $45.75, up 30 cents, or 0.7%. September Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose 51 cents, or 1.1%, to $47.17 a barrel.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported Wednesday that domestic crude supplies declined by 2.3 million barrels for the week ended July 15. They’ve fallen each week since late May. The decrease matched the decline reported by theAmerican Petroleum Institute late Tuesday. Analysts polled by S&P Global Platts expected a fall of 1.25 million barrels. “The decline in crude supplies and jump in product consumption are bullish,” said James Williams, energy economist at WTRG Economics. The EIA said total products supplied over the last four weeks, a demand indicator, was up 1.8% from the same time a year ago. Total domestic crude production rose by 9,000 barrels to 8.494 million barrels a day. In the lower 48 states, output fell 29,000 to 8.045 million barrels a day.

Williams said the net output rise is “not bearish” because it includes the return of Alaskan production following a pipeline repair. “If we exclude Alaska, production was down 29,000 [barrels a day] which is consistent with the anticipated 100,000 b/d monthly decline,” he said. “We have lost over a million b/d of production in the last year and the trend will continue until drilling activity is up another 100 rigs.” But Anthony Starkey, manager of Energy Analysis at Platts Analytics, said he sees “some divergence in the estimated weekly production numbers and how that corresponds to what is being reported in inventory changes.” Typically, this has “indicated a growing error in the weekly estimate or production,” he said. And given that, he argued that the weekly production numbers being reported are beginning to understate actual production volumes. Gasoline supplies rose by 900,000 barrels, while distillate stockpiles edged down by 200,000 barrels last week, according to the EIA. S&P Global Platts analysts were looking for a fall of 625,000 barrels for gasoline stocks and an increase of 875,000 barrels for distillates, which include heating oil.