Fueling Strategy: Please partial fill only tonight, Wednesday AM wholesale prices will drop 1.25 cents – Be Safe Today!!

NYMEX Crude $ 48.62 UP $.5400
NY Harbor ULSD $1.4887 UP $.0112
NYMEX Gasoline $1.6440 UP $.0088

NEWS
Oil futures settled higher on Tuesday for the first time in five sessions as traders bet that recent supply disruptions will prompt a decline in weekly U.S. crude-oil inventories. U.S. petroleum supply data from the American Petroleum Institute, covering the week ended May 20, will be released late Tuesday, while a report from the Energy Information Administration comes Wednesday. Analysts polled by S&P Global Platts forecast across-the-board declines for crude and crude products. Crude stocks are forecast to be down 3.3 million barrels.

July West Texas Intermediate crude tacked on 54 cents, or 1.1%, to settle at $48.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. July Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange added 26 cents, or 0.5%, to $48.61 a barrel.

Upbeat U.S. economic data Tuesday helped brighten the outlook for energy demand. New home sales soared by 16.6% in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 619,000.

“This will boost energy demand in the future, while oil reserves and active drill platforms are still dropping,” said Nico Pantelis, head of research at Secular Investor. “Higher demand versus lower supply means higher prices in the end.’ “Still, oil is not out of the woods yet,” he said. “The $50-handle is delivering a lot of overhead supply [area of resistance] in the technical price chart.” Oil prices declined over the last four sessions on signs that supply disruptions in Canada and Africa are waning. “On the bearish side, the prospect of returning Canadian output has pressured prices, as oil-sands operators prepare to restart production following the Alberta wildfires,” said Robbie Fraser, commodity analyst at Schneider Electric. Oil exports from Libya are improving. The country is expected to release a 660,000-barrel cargo after political unrest closed the port of Marsa al-Hariga for more than two weeks. However, a continuing strike by French oil workers might dent global supply. According to energy consultant FGE, the strike could mean that production outages at six of the country’s eight refineries could last for 72 hours to a week.

Traders are also gearing up for the coming Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting. “Every indication we have is that the June 2 OPEC summit in Vienna will leave the status quo in place, with Iran still ramping production higher, Saudi Arabia determined to continue competing for market share, and OPEC as a whole left without even a nominal overall production target,” said Tim Evans, a Citi Futures analyst. Iraqi media reported on Tuesday that output from Iraq had reached a record high, citing government figures. Iran has also reiterated it has no plans to slash output at the moment. Chris Kettenmann, chief energy strategist at Macro Risk Advisors, said he’s stepping back from his bullish crude market stance as the market heads toward the OPEC meeting. “With the 25% rally in front-month WTI crude futures since April 1st, we want to be prudent and would look to protect any profits generated through long-biased trades over the last two months,” he said in an emailed note. Kettenmann said while the recent supply disruptions in Canada and Nigeria have provided a boost to the WTI crude, he believes the market is “looking through key underlying risks to crude-oil prices” such as incremental ramp up of Iranian production in the second half of the year and Saudi Arabia’s “continued bias towards over production.”