Fundamentals in the back seat (for now)

WTI = purple, Brent = Yellow Looking at global happenings Late last week, crude oil prices hit a 15-month low as news spread of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, instilling fears throughout Wall Street of more banking troubles to come in the near future. At the low on Friday, Brent and WTI crude were off […]

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The Willow Project

Monday, March 13, 2023 the Biden administration announced plans of approval for the Willow oil and gas drilling project in Alaska proposed by ConocoPhillips. The $7 billion project which is estimated to yield 600 million bbls of oil, is located in a 23 million acre area of Alaska’s North Slope. ConocoPhillips touts the $17 billion […]

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New Year, not so New Market

The new year roared in somewhat uneventful in the commodities market. The markets seemed to be finding a stride, finding their way back to fundamentals and technical data while straying from a 2-year pattern of extreme volatility. 2023 seemed like it was going to yield markets that would follow norms, the usual prior to February […]

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Crude Oil Off the Lows, But for How Long?

Crude Oil prices have stabilized for now, but what is next for the energy patch? After a questionable sell-off at the end of November and early December, WTI crude prices have begun to stabilize. We are trading at $78.02/barrel today, up $1.93 on the day after going as low as $70.37/barrel earlier this month. Part […]

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Retail Gasoline Prices Falling

After a volatile year for consumers at the pump, gasoline prices are now lower than they were at this time last year.  According to AAA, the price per unleaded gallon was $3.329 last week, below the $3.343 per gallon price a year ago.  The national average could drop to below $3 per gallon by Christmas, […]

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Russia not Crude over Oil Price Cap

With the new $60/BBL oil price cap on Russian oil exports now in place, Russia says it will not impact their production. The move did however create a bottleneck of oil tankers in Turkey as Russian oil tankers significant drop in its oil production or exports.[1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/07/eu-sanctions-russian-oil-price-cap-cause-crude-tanker-bottleneck.html Since the oil price cap, 35 tankers […]

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Diesel Prices Back to Pre-War Levels

As we near the end of a volatile 2022, who would have thought NYMEX diesel prices would be trading at pre-Russia-Ukraine war levels? The answer is not a lot of people, yet here we are. NYMEX diesel prices are trading at $2.8860/gallon today, right at the levels we were trading at on February 24th when […]

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Crude Oil Crushed

WTI Crude oil prices topped $93.50/barrel on Monday and now trading at $86.21/barrel at writing. Why the significant drop? Let’s look at the fundamentals and the technical for an explanation. From the fundamental perspective, China re-affirmed its stance this week on its zero-COVID policy strategy that when a few cases are confirmed, a lockdown of […]

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Low Fuel Inventory giving you heartburn?

Why all the heartburn? Are you struggling to get the fuel you need? Are your fuel deliveries late because you’re not under contract? Don’t let Low Fuel Inventory keep you up at night. Let’s describe why the fuel market is tight: U.S. refinery utilization has averaged 91.2% Refinery production is essentially maxed out domestically Distillate […]

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OPEC+ Aims for Higher Prices

During the most recent OPEC+ meeting in August, the organization announced a plan to cut production by 100,000 barrels per day. At the time, Brent crude oil prices were around $95 per barrel and steadily declining. In the days following the announcement, prices went back up to around $100 per barrel. Since then, prices have […]

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