Gas stays steady, Stove Oils up...

Numbers are showing me that, consumers in Newfoundland and Labrador, will be looking at steady pricing for gasoline...for now and an increase coming on stove oils of 2.4 cents a litre.

Gasoline pricing may not be left unaffected for very long however...

The last week in the trading markets are starting to move pricing upwards again and, all areas of North America will be affected should trading conditions continue. After trading yesterday, gasoline spot pricing rose by 3.1 cents a litre and #2 oils rose by 7 cents a litre over the fix some two weeks ago.

Funny thing is that this is completely contrary to what was heard in the markets some couple of weeks previous. Most market traders were considering the fact that OPEC members continuously cheat on their own quotas and the reports showed that. Warmer weather in the US northeast also aided in good builds to heating oil inventories and a drop in jet fuel demand added to the downwards pressures on distillates.

Not so now...

Reports on the latest round of OPEC cuts are showing that the Saudi's are reigning in their production and the rest of OPEC membership will, most likely follow.

My guess is that refiners in North America are shortly going to bail out on distillate production, considering the lateness of the heating season, in favour of taking a chance on the gasoline market demand for the summer season. It's early to do that considering May month is three months away yet but, that's all the traders have to depend on right now.

Add to that, a predicted drop in overall refiner capacity and the ability" to keep up with ongoing demand pressures that will sap inventories and you have the recipe.That's partly reason why, in the coming weeks, the oil companies are going to be able to put the screws to us all again.

I won't even touch on those predetermined hurricane forecasts that they'll be trading on but, remember where you heard it first.

Look for increasing gasoline pricing again unless the consumer fights back, on a collective basis, by practising conservation measures.

Ya think that we'd learn our lesson on OPEC dependency, wouldn't you?

Not for a long time yet...