Fueling Strategy: Please top tanks tonight before 23:00 CST, Friday AM wholesale prices will leap UP 8 cents – Be Safe Today

NYMEX Crude $ 47.83 UP $.7800
NY Harbor ULSD $1.5102 UP $.0192
NYMEX Gasoline $1.4668 DN $.0109

NEWS
Oil futures settled higher Thursday, as the OPEC plan to scale back production lifted prices for West Texas Intermediate crude to their highest level in more than a month.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries reached an understanding at a meeting Wednesday in Algeria that there was a need to scale back production. OPEC members agreed on a preliminary outline to cut its collective output to between 32.5 million barrels a day and 33 million barrels a day, down from the levels of 33.2 million barrels a day in August, national oil ministers said. The cartel hasn’t approved a production cut since 2008. That was “definitely a bullish move for oil prices in the short-term outlook as, above all, it shows unity among oil producing nations once again,” said Fawad Razaqzada, technical analyst at Forex.com. “However, it is important to note that the OPEC output will still remain near record high levels and there is scope for some members to ignore the production cap,” he said.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, November West Texas Intermediate crude tacked on 78 cents, or 1.7%, to settle at $47.83 a barrel—the highest futures prices since Aug. 23. Prices rose 5.3% Wednesday, for their largest one-day gain since April, following news of the output agreement. November Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange finished at $49.24 a barrel, up 55 cents, or 1.1%. The contract expires at Friday’s settlement.

The output target “still results in oversupply,” said James Williams, energy economist at WTRG Economics. For a substantial price increase, and to “get the market in balance or better under supplied and work down the excessive stocks of crude,” OPEC would need to cut about 1.0 million to 1.5 million barrels a day. Still, OPEC’s surprise move is a turnaround from the cartel’s “market-share first” tactic, signaling that perhaps even large producers were feeling the pain of prolonged low prices. “The membership at large may be coming to the realization that the incremental gains in market share to be earned through robust production may not be worth the low spot prices of oil going forward,” said Scott Cockerham, managing director at Huron. OPEC members will wait until the next official meeting on Nov. 30 in Vienna to complete the details, including the quota for individual producers. Cockerham pointed out that Saudi production usually abates in the winter. That could “easily account for the total reduction of output cited,” he said. Plus, OPEC has a “long history of its members failing to follow production quotas.”

Besides, Jay Hatfield, co-founder and president of Infrastructure Capital Advisors (InfraCap), said he believes that OPEC is “at or close to its maximum production, so agreeing to a small cut is not much of a concession.” He expects non-OPEC output, however, to decline by about 1 million barrels a day in 2017, which will offer an added boost to prices, said Hatfield, who is also portfolio manager of the InfraCap MLP ETF