Fueling Strategy: Please before 23:00 CST tonight have tanks completely full of fuel, Friday AM wholesale prices will go UP 3.5 cents – Be Safe Today!

NYMEX Crude $ 37.84 DN $.4500
NY Harbor ULSD $1.2161 DN $.0166
NYMEX Gasoline $1.4390 DN $.0315

NEWS
Oil prices settled lower on Thursday, retreating from their highest levels of the year reached a day earlier, as doubts emerged over a potential meeting this month between crude producers regarding a freeze in output. April West Texas Intermediate crude shed 45 cents, or 1.2%, to settle at $37.84 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It pared its decline as the U.S. dollar moved sharply lower. May Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange declined $1.02, or 2.5%, to $40.05 a barrel.

A Reuters report on Thursday said the closely watched meeting that was set for March 20 is “unlikely to take place” in Russia, citing unnamed sources. “If this is a breakdown of the agreement to freeze production, it would be a big deal for oil markets because the market had priced in production cuts,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group. The oil-producer confab had been viewed by key officials as a crucial step to getting more producers, including Iran, to agree to production cuts. However, Iran is being cited as a roadblock to a meeting, Reuters reported. “The member nations that are willing to move forward with this plan realize that if Iran does not participate, then the desired outcome won’t be realized and each participating member would lose,” said Tim Evans, chief market strategist at Long Leaf Trading Group. “The news from OPEC is uncertain, but we are discounting Iran’s political capital here within OPEC to hold out,” he said. “Our view is: today’s pullback holds and we revisit $40 a barrel it short order.”

Oil prices had soared Wednesday following U.S. Energy Information Administration data that showed a much larger-than-expected drawdown in gasoline stocks last week, suggesting robust energy demand in the U.S. The 4.5 million-barrel decline in gasoline stocks outweighed the 3.9 million-barrel growth in crude inventories.