Fueling Strategy: Please partial fill ONLY tonight, Friday AM wholesale prices will drop 5 cents – Be Safe Today!

NYMEX Crude $ 39.46 DN $.3300
NY Harbor ULSD $1.1979 DN $.0061
NYMEX Gasoline $1.4659 UP $.0118

NEWS
Oil futures finished lower Thursday, but pared some of its worst losses of the day after a report showed that the number of rigs actively drilling for crude in the U.S. fell over the past week, suggested that production might soon decline. Prices had earlier suffered from a sharper fall as a spike in last week’s U.S. crude inventories and recent strength in the dollar. Markets will be shut on Good Friday.

May Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange gave up 3 cents, or less than 0.1%, to $40.44 a barrel, also cutting much of its earlier losses. Brent prices have lost roughly 1.5% this week.

The number of active U.S. rigs drilling for crude fell by 15 to 372 as of Thursday, according to Baker Hughes, which released its rig-count report a day earlier than usual because of Friday’s market holiday. The report follows an increase of one rig the week before, which marked the first oil-rig count rise of the year. Meanwhile, the total U.S. rig count fell 12 to 464, which is another record low. Data Thursday from Baker Hughes “The market is finding support given the rig count data showed we are continuing with the trend of falling numbers,” with the total rig count having declined 13 out of the last 14 weeks, said Tim Evans, chief market strategist at Long Leaf Trading Group.

Oil prices had been under pressure since the Energy Information Administration Wednesday confirmed a 9.4 million-barrel jump in crude supplies for the week ended March 18.

Fawad Razaqzada, technical analyst at Forex.com and City Index, told MarketWatch that the build in inventories isn’t surprising because oil refineries tend to go offline to prepare for a ramp up in activity ahead of the summer driving season, when demand for crude for gasoline picks up. “What really triggered the agony for traders was the level at which oil was trading,” according to said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at AvaTrade. “The level of $40 does make small amount of U.S. shale oil producers to feel comfortable with their production and the demand is still very stagnant.” The strength of the U.S. dollar, meanwhile, is also “eroding the commodity gains across the board,” said Aslam.

The ICE U.S. Dollar Index was trading about 1.1% higher for the week. Strength in the dollar can weigh on dollar-priced commodities, making them more expensive to buyers using other monetary units.