Price changes for Thursday, February 25, 2016

Hello everyone,

Here's what I have for this week, all in all, not too much off what I had last night.

Keep in mind the winter blend, which may throw off the numbers for heating and diesel fuel slightly...

*Heating oil shows a drop of 9/10ths of a cent a litre.

*Stove oil shows the same drop of 9/10ths of a cent.

*Diesel shows a drop of 1/10th of a cent a litre, and...

*Gasoline shows a drop of 1.5 cents a litre.

*Highlights

*The Canadian dollar gained a little more ground against its US counterpart, averaging another penny up over the last week against the greenback.

*A good build in gasoline inventories last Wednesday from the US Energy Information Administration is starting to show consumers some good signs on where potential pricing may be positioned come the summer driving season. With inventories still maintaining their builds, consumers may see the same prices that they are seeing now. Demand for gasoline remains weak and refinery capacity is also low as refiners head into their switchover from distillate production to gasoline. When capacity picks up, and that is expected over the next couple of weeks, it could add extra gasoline inventory to already positive numbers. Prices could potentially fall further!

*OPEC, Saudi Arabia can't seem to get it right...

In what must have been an almost embarrassing speech by the Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Al Naimi, he professed today at a Houston oil conference that they had no intention of trying to knock out US shale production. But he also added that this may be a good cause for more expensive projects to shut down, or for investors to pull out of those same projects.

     Secondly, and probably more importantly, he also recognised the new reality that oil prices may never rebound to their previous highs of just two years ago when oil prices exceeded $100 US. They're not happy with oil where it is to now, but they may have no choice but to live with it. That's a signal to me that they're into the fight for their market-share for a long time.

I'll leave it at that for now!

Regards,

George Murphy

Twitter @GeorgeMurphyOil