Fueling Strategy: Partial fill tonight only, Saturday AM look for a penny drop in wholesale prices – Be Safe & Happy St Patty’s Day

NYMEX Crude $ 48.78 UP $.0300
NY Harbor ULSD $1.5085 UP $.0042
NYMEX Gasoline $1.5989 UP $.0047

NEWS
Oil settled a few pennies higher on Friday to tally a weekly gain, even as data showed a significant increase in the number of active U.S. oil rigs, implying the potential for a further climb in domestic crude production.

Data from Baker Hughes Friday revealed that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil continued the streak of increases that began in mid-January, but the report came on the heels of the first weekly fall for domestic crude stockpiles in 10 weeks.

April West Texas Intermediate crude rose 3 cents, or less than 0.1%, to settle at $48.78 a barrel on the New Yrk Mercantile Exchange. May Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures Exchange rose 2 cents to $51.76 a barrel. WTI oil was up roughly 0.6% and Brent crude ended 0.8% higher from last Friday’s settlement. Both marked their first weekly gains in three. Crude-inventory numbers out of the U.S. on Wednesday “assisted in offering some short-term price support, with draws reported for both crude and product stocks,” said Robbie Fraser, commodity analyst at Schneider Electric. “That helped overshadow yet another week-on-week increase to U.S. crude production.”

On Friday, Baker Hughes data showed number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil rose by 14 to 631 rigs this week—their ninth straight week of gains. The oil rig count has reached its highest level since September 2015, according to Tim Evans at Citi Futures.

Oil prices had turned higher for the week after U.S. government data revealed the first decline for domestic crude stockpiles in 10 weeks, fueling a rally on Wednesday. Prices that day were also helped by a weaker dollar in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s less-hawkish-than-expected rate announcement.

Several weeks of rising crude inventories had put pressure on oil prices, but the market is “forgetting to look at the storage levels in the rest of the world,” said David Yepez, investment analyst and portfolio manager at Exencial Wealth Advisors. He told MarketWatch that China’s crude-oil production declined by 8% in the months of January and February of this year, while crude oil imports increased by 12.5%, and there’s stronger-than-expected growth in Europe, India, and other countries that aren’t members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. A continuation of those factors can “cause oil prices to increase above $60 per barrel by year-end,” said Yepez.

Traders have also been looking for hints on whether the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will decide to extend their six-month output-cut agreement beyond June. Russia’s energy minister Friday said his country cut 160,000 barrels a day by mid-March under OPEC’s pact with non-OPEC producers, but that it’s “premature” to talk about a deal extension, according to Russian news agency TASS. Russia has a target cut of 300,000 barrels a day.