Fueling Strategy: Please make sure all tanks are full of fuel tonight before 23:00 CST, Wednesday AM wholesale prices will jump UP 6 cents – Be Safe Today!
NYMEX Crude $ 36.50 DN $1.4000
NY Harbor ULSD $1.2000 DN $0.0225
NYMEX Gasoline $1.3878 DN $0.0049
NEWS
Oil prices settled lower Tuesday, a day after hitting their highest settlements of the year. Growing doubts over the potential for an output freeze, as traders bet that data will reveal a fourth-straight weekly climb in U.S. crude inventories, has placed crude prices under pressure.
April West Texas Intermediate crude settled at $36.50 a barrel, down $1.40, or 3.7%, on the New York Mercantile Exchange after tapping highs above $38 earlier. May Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange shed $1.19, or 2.9%, to $39.65 a barrel. Both benchmarks on Monday marked their highest settlements of the year. A bearish note from Goldman Sachs, highlighting the continuing glut of supplies and casting doubt on the sustainability of a recent run-up in commodities, also served as a headwind.
Weekly figures on U.S. petroleum supplies are due out from the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday and the U.S. Energy Information Administration releases its data Wednesday. Analysts surveyed by Platts expect to see a rise in crude stocks of 3 million barrels, while gasoline stocks likely fell by 1.5 million barrels.
The oil market is “still in the midst of a rebalancing process and right now, traders are looking for more data to support” the recent rally, said analysts at Secular Investor. Major oil producers have discussed a potential freeze in output, “but for a more sustainable rally, we should see more supportive data,” they said. In an outlook report issued Tuesday, the EIA lowered its 2016 and 2017 estimates for U.S. crude production, but it also cut its forecasts for West Texas Intermediate crude prices.
Meanwhile, the market continues to weigh the outlook for production. The Ecuadorean government said Monday that Latin American oil producers plan to meet Friday to coordinate a strategy to halt the crude price rout, and Kuwait’s oil minister said Tuesday his country would agree to an output freeze only if all major producers, including Iran, are on board, Reuters reported. Oil’s “move lower is likely aided by realization that the comments from Kuwait should be weighted much more than news of Friday’s meeting of Latin American producers,” Robbie Fraser, commodity analyst at Schneider Electric told MarketWatch. “Kuwait repeated what has been said in a number of ways already—that a freeze without Iran’s participation is essentially meaningless,” he said.
In a Monday note largely centered on iron ore, Goldman Sachs analysts said the current oil market is still oversupplied. “Only a real physical deficit can create a sustainable rally which is still months away should the behavioral shifts created by the low prices in January and February remain in place,” said the analysts. But offering some support for oil prices, China’s February trade data showed China oil imports rose 24.5% versus the year ago. Recent reports have also shown declines in the number of active U.S. oil rigs and expectations for further falls in domestic shale production.